Thomas Baldwin explores the history of Holocaust Memorial Day, which falls on January 27.

Photo: iStock. Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe IT’S so easy to become inured to horror that sometimes the numbers need repeating.

Six million Jews – that’s half a million more than the entire modern-day population of Scotland – were systematically wiped out in the Nazis’ attempt to eliminate them from Europe.

Millions more were persecuted and killed because they were disabled, gay, Gypsies, Slavs, black, Jehovah’s Witnesses or political opponents of the Nazis.

In Cambodia, an estimated two million civilians died under the Khmer Rouge between 1975-79. Pol Pot’s regime targeted ethnic minorities, Muslims, Christians and Buddhists.

In the Rwanda genocide of 1994, around a million people – about 70% of the Tutsi population – were rounded up and murdered, mostly with clubs or machetes, in just 100 days in 1994.

These, and other more modern genocides in Sudan and Bosnia, are remembered on or around January 27, Holocaust Memorial Day. That day – the anniversary of the liberation of the Auschwitz- Birkenau concentration camp in 1945 – has been formally marked as Gedenktag für die Opfer des Nationalsozialismus (Day of Remembrance for the Victims of National Socialism) in Germany since 1996, and was first marked as Holocaust Memorial Day in the UK in January 2001.

The UK’s statement of commitment, adapted from the Stockholm Declaration signed by representatives of 44 governments in 2000, states:

1 We recognise that the Holocaust shook the foundations of modern civilisation.

Its unprecedented character and horror will always hold universal meaning.

2 We believe the Holocaust must have a permanent place in our nation‘s collective memory. We honour the survivors still with us, and reaffirm our shared goals of mutual understanding and justice.

3 We must make sure that future generations understand the causes of the Holocaust and reflect upon its consequences. We vow to remember the victims of Nazi persecution and of all genocide.

4 We value the sacrifices of those who have risked their lives to protect or rescue victims, as a touchstone of the human capacity for good in the face of evil.

5 We recognise that humanity is still scarred by the belief that race, religion, disability or sexuality make some people‘s lives worth less than others’.

Genocide, antisemitism, racism, xenophobia and discrimination still continue. We have a shared responsibility to fight these evils.

6 We pledge to strengthen our efforts to promote education and research about the Holocaust and other genocide. We will do our utmost to make sure that the lessons of such events are fully learnt.

7 We will continue to encourage Holocaust remembrance by holding an annual Holocaust Memorial Day. We condemn the evils of prejudice, discrimination and racism. We value a free, tolerant, and democratic society.

Every year, there are national events in both Scotland and London remembering the genocides, but also smaller events around the country organised by organisations, groups and individuals.

In 2016, there were over 5000 events throughout the UK.

This year’s Holocaust Memorial Day is themed on ‘the power of words’, with suggested activities focusing on the impact of words in the genocides – propaganda used to incite, resistance slogans, and memoirs written during and afterwards to record the events. We are also encouraged to think about the words that we see and hear and use ourselves today – on paper, online and in conversation.

For details of events and to download an activity pack, visit the Holocaust Memorial Day website at www.hmd.org.uk

THE IMPORTANCE OF HOLOCAUST MEMORIAL DAY

Iain Stewart, Secretary, Edinburgh Interfaith Association (EIFA)

“We must not become the slaves of our past.” These are words of my wife, Umutesi, a survivor of the Rwandan genocide (see p26).

“Now more than ever we need to ensure that we are learning from the mistakes of the past, not remaining slaves to them, trapped in a cycle of violence.

“In our own country there are worrying signs of growing prejudice and increasing levels of hate crime against minority groups. We all know the dangers of the past and where these can lead. Holocaust Memorial Day can help us to be watchful and vigilant to signs of prejudice and take a stance against them.

“On January 22 EIFA will host the city of Edinburgh HMD programme at Gracemount High School, and will welcome a Holocaust survivor (to be confirmed) to remind us of the lessons of our dark past; and a survivor of the Darfur genocide, Malik Rye, who will remind us of how problems of genocide are very real and relevant today.

“The survivors’ stories give a sad testimony to our past but also give hope and light to a vision of a greater future free of mass killing and violence.

“I would encourage all Churches and faith communities to take part in HMD and hold your own services to both commemorate this day and offer a little light and hope for a more peaceful and loving vision for the future of our world.”

Ephraim Borowski, Director, Scottish Council of Jewish Communities

“My father was a survivor – and a victim.

He managed to get to the UK before the war and joined the British Army. I knew his youngest brother, who survived because he joined a Zionist youth group and escaped to Jerusalem. But until I was a teenager and asked the direct question, I never knew they had five other brothers and sisters, and nieces and nephews, all of whom were murdered. I know almost nothing of where and how they lived – or where and how they died.

“So I cannot remember them, because I never knew them, and barely know of them; but I can remember that they existed, and that they perished as part of a planned programme of deliberate, intentional, industrialised genocide, the greatest evil that humanity has ever visited on itself.

“The Jewish Community has its own dates of commemoration, but Holocaust Memorial Day is important too. There were six million other Jewish dead, an estimated five million others killed, and countless other victims, about whom we know even less than I do about my own family. They deserve that at least once a year we stop and think about them, and mourn their loss, and the loss of all they might have contributed to our world. And it is important too to remind ourselves that the Holocaust did not begin with the killing but with the name-calling, the graffiti, the boycotts, all the senseless hatred of the other.

“So let us pledge at least once a year: Never Again.”

The Rt Rev Dr Derek Browning, Moderator of the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland, reflecting on a visit to Sachsenhausen concentration camp in October.

“Sachsenhausen is not a place where anyone can walk quickly. The weight of memory, savagery, inhumanity and bleakness lies heavily here, as I know it will on other concentration camps.

“Faith does stand in the midst of the pain and sufering, weeping, identifying, and eternally reaching outwards to make the world a better place.”

“I walked on the cobbles made by prisoners. I saw images painted on the walls of the prisoners’ kitchens; I saw the triangles made for Jewish, gypsy, political and homosexual prisoners; I saw the shoes, and the shoe-testing tracks where prisoners were made to run to test whether shoes would be good enough for use by German soldiers; I saw the execution trench where conscientious objectors were sentenced to death by Nazi Special Courts; I saw the site of the crematorium; I saw the mass graves of concentration camp victims, dying from cold, hunger, neglect and torture; I stood on the site of gallows where prisoners were executed in front of their fellow-prisoners as an example, the same site where at Christmas, the SS had a Christmas tree erected.

“Faith is no trivial thing in this bitter footprint where humanity failed. Faith impels those who accept its claims to work towards the graciousness of hospitality and the fundamentals of human rights, and towards the basics of loving our neighbours as ourselves. Faith in Jesus can neither explain nor excuse the absence of love in places like Sachsenhausen, but faith does stand in the midst of the pain and suffering, weeping, identifying, and eternally reaching outwards to make the world a better place.”