Two services took place today across Adur and Worthing as communities showed their support for Holocaust Memorial Day and equality for all.
The Deputy Civic Heads symbolically marked the event as they laid a commemorative wreath and read a statement to remember the millions murdered, as well as making a stand against any prejudice that still exists today.
In Worthing, the Deputy Mayor, Cllr Richard Nowak, and his fellow councillors, the Mayor's Chaplain and members from the local Jewish Community were joined by students from borough-based Lancing College Preparatory School at the Tree of Life in Beach House Park. Speeches and poems were read by the students, who pledged that genocide must end for good.
Cllr Nowak, said:
“This year's theme for Holocaust Memorial Day - 'One Day' - provides all of us with a call to action: that we come together as one coherent and global voice to say 'never again'. On that one future day we will be truly able to claim that the absolute horror that is genocide has been consigned to history.
“Today is the day for all of us to take a moment to reflect on the past and pledge that we will all work towards the 'One Day' goal.”
In Shoreham, the Vice Chairman of Adur District Council, Cllr Ann Bridges, her fellow district councillors and a representative of the St Nicholas' Church gathered around the Tree of Life in Buckingham Park - planted in 2012 - to help pay respects to those who died during the Holocaust and other genocides.
Cllr Bridges said:
“In Warsaw on 19th April 1943, the Jewish inhabitants of the Warsaw Ghetto actually fought back against the Nazi regime. It is estimated that more than 92,000 people died in the Warsaw Ghetto. It was the largest of the ghettos, where more than 400,000 Jews were crowded into 1.3 square miles of the city with poor sanitation, limited food and cramped conditions.
“It is important that people do not ever forget the Holocaust and what happened then. The Holocaust survivors are proof of the fact that life goes on, but not in the way it was for them, they all had to make new lives. I care deeply because of my own Jewish heritage.”
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