OPINION: Will you be at Sunday’s largest ever UK Holocaust commemoration event?
‘Build it and they will come’ – that was the advice I was given when we first muted the idea of a large-scale event to mark the 70th anniversary since liberation this Yom HaShoah. Now with more than 3,000 already registered
in advance to attend, and more than 120 communal organisations joining the ‘Remember Together We Are One’ commemoration, the dream has truly become a reality, as this Sunday will see the largest Holocaust Remembrance event ever held in the UK.
But, dare I say it, as remarkable as it is, it’s still not enough and we can do better – not for my sake, but the survivors and refugees of our community who deserve your support, for what many are calling “the last of the big anniversaries”.
The Holocaust was the most significant and tragic event of the modern Jewish people.
But as time has passed, it is perhaps understandable that for some, empathy has begun to wane and it is now easier to become complacent about what actually happened during the Holocaust as it begins to fade out of living memory and is presented in a much more sanitised version.
However, 70 years ago yesterday, on 15 April 1945, the British Army liberated Bergen-Belsen, and what they found was beyond comprehension. The horrors they saw, which were shown as part of the recent documentary Night Will Fall, showed the true hell of the Holocaust, where 10,000 corpses lay unburied (taking British soldiers more than two weeks to bury) and many of those who survived were seriously ill with typhus, typhoid, dysentery, tuberculosis and starvation, resulting in a further 13,000 dying in the months after liberation.
When you hear the first-hand accounts of survivors, such as 90-year-old Eva Behar, who survived both Auschwitz and Bergen-Belsen (and who will recount her testimony at Sunday’s commemoration), the stark realities of what they experienced and were forced to endure is simply beyond words.
Like Eva, I have been so privileged to meet and work alongside some truly remarkable individuals in my role as chair of Yom HaShoah UK. These survivors and refugees have given so much to the Jewish community and to wider society in the past 70 years, and despite all that life has thrown at them, they have somehow managed to rebuild their lives in the UK and are a shining example to us all.
Notwithstanding the unimaginable horrors of the Holocaust, Sunday’s ceremony is designed to be appropriate for all ages and should
be witnessed and remembered by everyone. So please bring your children with you, as a commemoration of this size and scale, and
in the presence of so many survivors and refugees, is unlikely to ever be possible again.
If you haven’t yet applied for your ticket, it’s not too late. You can register online right up until the Sunday morning itself
at www.yomhashoah.org.uk/nationalevent for tickets and parking permits.
If you’re reading this on Shabbat or Sunday morning, don’t worry. While you won’t be able to get a parking permit unless you apply online, you can still get an entrance ticket at the gate as long as you’re at Barnet Copthall Stadium no later than 1pm with photo ID, where one of our volunteers will be happy to register you.
If you are one of the 3,000+ people already attending, then we have one final ask: whether your preference is to share on social media or to discuss round the Friday night dinner table, please help spread the word in the coming days and encourage others to attend and become a witness to this unique moment in time.
Elie Wiesel, Holocaust survivor and Nobel Peace Prize winner, famously said: “When you listen to a witness, you become a witness.”
As survivors grow fewer in number, the 70th year must be the year that the UK Jewish community commits to keep the memory alive and continue its legacy of remembrance.
Whether you always attend your local Yom HaShoah or an HMD event, have been on an educational day-trip to Poland, or were part of the UK delegation on the March of the Living in the past few years – this is the event where we can all reaffirm to remember the loss of six million men, women and children – not just our own individual pledge, but as a community.
On Sunday, we will show the survivors and refugees that British Jewry is ready and willing to accept the torch of remembrance and pledge to keep their memory alive as we remember together as one – and defiantly say as proud British Jews ‘never again!’
• To apply for free tickets go online to http://www.yomhashoah.org.uk/nationalevent
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