'We must ensure that antisemitism is defeated': MPs mark Holocaust Memorial Day
Respects are being paid to the victims of genocides in the Second World War and the years since
Holocaust Memorial Day remembers the six million Jewish people killed during the Second World War, as well as the persecutions since.
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The day falls on the anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz-Birkenau, the largest Nazi death camp, which was on January 27, 1945.
Organisers of the occasion have expressed a need to bring people together in remembrance to help stop history from repeating itself.
Holocaust Memorial Day remembers the six million Jews, men, women, and children, who were murdered under the Nazi regime during the Second World War.
Read more: I survived the Holocaust. The next generation must not hate in the name of tolerance
Read more: King and Queen meet Holocaust survivors on memorial day
It is also a remembrance occasion to mark the lives of the gay, disabled, and Roma people, who were also killed during the 1939-45 conflict.
Holocaust Memorial Day has expanded to reflect and remember other holocausts in the years since, such as the genocides in Cambodia, Rwanda, Bosnia, and Darfur, the latter of which is ongoing.
Britain's Jewish population must not be cowed into living 'a smaller life,' despite rising anti-Semitism, the Home Secretary told LBC today.
Taking calls from listeners on Holocaust Memorial Day, Shabana Mahmood was asked if anti-Semitism is 'alive and kicking' in the UK.
She told Nick Ferrari: "Anti-Semitism is rising, it has been on the rise for some years now.
"I recognise the pressure the Jewish community feels and one of the things that was the most depressing that was said to me after the Manchester attack was that people said 'it was only a matter of time'."
She added that "British jews should not live a smaller life because of ‘the oldest hatred’."