Genocide victims remembered on Holocaust Memorial Day

Tuesday, 27 January 2009 12:00 AM

By Laura Miller

People around the world will come together today in remembrance of those killed by the Nazis during World War Two and other genocides.

Holocaust Memorial Day (HMD), 27 January each year, commemorates the liberation in 1945 of Nazi concentration camp Auschwitz-Birkenau, where 1.6 million men, women and children, including 1.2 million Jews, were killed.

"Holocaust Memorial Day 2009 urges people to choose to 'Stand Up To Hatred' to help make our communities stronger and safer," said Dr Stephen Smith, chairman of the Holocaust Memorial Day Trust (HMDT), on this year's theme.

Events run over several days in cities around the world.

In the UK, the mayor of Southwark, the Russian ambassador and diplomats from other former Soviet countries, will join with British veterans and others to lay wreaths at the Soviet War Memorial to mark the date when the Red (Soviet) Army liberated the Nazi death camp at Auschwitz.

MPs can sign a book of committment in the House of Commons to mark the day, and at Heathrow airport a multi-faith Holocaust Memorial Service will take place in the Chapel of St. George.

On its website, the HMD Trust calls the 27 January "the international day of remembrance for the victims of the Holocaust and of other genocides".

But some groups have criticised the Trust for focusing predominately on the Jewish victims of Nazi oppression, and for failing to recognise other atrocities.

Holocaust deaths total around 11 million men, women and children; millions more have been killed in subsequent genocides - defined as state-sponsored hatred - in Cambodia, Rwanda, Bosnia and Darfur.

Tensions over the humanitarian cost of the war in the Middle East have also dogged this year's Memorial Day.

The Muslim Council of Britain (MCB) is boycotting Memorial Day commemorations in protest at the Israeli offensive in Gaza this month.

The decision not to send representatives from the umbrella body, which represents 500 Muslim organisations in Britain, was taken at an MCB committee meeting last week, though no official announcement has been made, the Guardian reported yesterday.

The committee ruled out attendance at this year's events, arguing it will be used to "silence criticism of Israel".

Similarly in Spain, Barcelona's Catalan government has pulled its public service marking HMD in protest of Israeli offensives in the Gaza Strip.

"Marking the Jewish Holocaust while a Palestinian Holocaust is taking place is not right," an official said.

Spain's move outraged the Board of Deputies of British Jews (BoD), who called the decision "erroneous and inexcusable".

"The conflict between Israel and Hamas should have absolutely no bearing on a day which represents the global fight against hatred", Mark Frazer, spokesperson for the BoD said.

"Apart from the obvious flawed logic in making the decision, this is an affront to all Holocaust survivors and to the memory of the millions of victims. This move should draw criticism in the strongest terms from all parts of the Spanish government."

But Spain was not the only European country using HMD to condemn Israel's attacks on Gaza.

A Norwegian diplomat stationed in Saudi Arabia has sent a mass-distributed email stating that, "the grandchildren of Holocaust survivors are doing the same thing to the Palestinians as the Nazis did to their grandparents," using her official Norwegian Foreign Ministry address.

On Sunday, home secretary Jacqui Smith, secretary of state Hazel Blears, and under-secretary of state Sadiq Khan were among 800 guests who attended a ceremony at Coventry's Belgrade Theatre to mark Holocaust Memorial Day.

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