Prince Charles urges remembrance on Holocaust Memorial Day

26 January 2021, 22:14

The Prince of Wales has said we all must "be the light that ensures the darkness can never return" as he urged people to remember Holocaust Memorial Day.

Charles, patron of the Holocaust Memorial Day Trust, will join famous faces from the worlds of sport and showbiz to mark the day of remembrance on Wednesday in a virtual ceremony.

He urged people to ensure survivors' stories are remembered forever amid the dwindling number of people able to bear first-hand witness to the horrors of the genocide, which saw millions of Jews and other minorities executed during the Second World War at the hands of the Nazis.

National landmarks across Britain, including Wembley Stadium, Cardiff Castle and the Tyne Bridge, will be bathed in purple light at 8pm to mark Wednesday's memorial, while the traditional remembrance ceremony will be hosted online from 7pm due to lockdown rules.

People have been urged to show their support by lighting a candle in their window following the conclusion of the hour-long ceremony.

Pre-recorded messages from the likes of Premier League footballers Jordan Henderson and Bruno Fernandes, plus contributions from Prime Minister Boris Johnson, religious leaders, and celebrity adventurer Bear Grylls, will all feature in the online service.

This year's theme - being the light in the darkness - was decided 18 months ago, but the global coronavirus pandemic which has seen deaths, ill-health, economic ruin, school closures and mental health problems means it has taken on added resonance.

Charles will tell the ceremony: "As I speak, the last generation of living witnesses is tragically passing from this world, so the task of bearing witness falls to us.

"This is not a task for one time only, nor is it a task for one generation, or one person.

"It is for all people, all generations, and all time.

"This is our time when we can, each in our own way, be the light that ensures the darkness can never return."

Karen Pollock, chief executive of the Holocaust Educational Trust (HET), said Holocaust survivors were the perfect inspiration for positivity.

Ms Pollock said: "There has been real distress and pain and suffering felt in this country and around the world in this pandemic.

"But the survivors I spoke to - many who are shielding - are the epitome of strength and are getting on with it.

"Bearing in mind what they have experienced and suffered, they give words of wisdom to just keep going, we are going to get out of this.

"I find that pretty inspiring from 90-year-old survivors who have been through the very worst and could easily let this get on top of them. But this says a lot about them because they really are remarkable."

Ms Pollock said the Holocaust was important to remember because it was "part of British history".

She said: "A lot of people might think it happened somewhere else to someone else, but what we understand really is that the Holocaust happened to people in this country - survivors living here now, or people who fled and became British citizens - but also those members of the armed forces who liberated (concentration camp) Bergen-Belsen in April 1945.

"So my message to people this year is this: Hear the stories, listen to the eyewitnesses, find out about what happened to these people, and understand that when we are learning about the past, it is for the sake of learning history but it is also because we can learn from it."

Last week, Mr Johnson told Prime Minister's Questions of "the need to continue to inoculate our populations, ourselves, against the wretched virus of anti-Semitism, which has a tendency to recur and re-infect societies including, tragically, our own".

For more information, visit www.hmd.org.uk/