Annual Holocaust Memorial Day commemoration to be held in Middleton

Holocaust Memorial Day is commemorated on 27 January every year

The borough's annual Holocaust Memorial Day commemoration will take place in Middleton this year after taking place virtually over the last two years due to the pandemic.

The live event will take place on Tuesday 24 January at Middleton Arena. A coach will leave at 6.15pm to take people the short distance to Middleton Memorial Gardens for a short rededication of the Middleton Holocaust Memorial Stone, before returning to the Arena for the Act of Commemoration, which will begin at 7pm.

The theme for 2023 is ‘Ordinary People’, exploring how it was ordinary people who were involved in the Holocaust, whether as those persecuted and murdered, or who became the persecutors. Ordinary people were those who put themselves in danger in trying to rescue others and ordinary people, who for whatever personal reasons and fears, were those who stood by.

The Holocaust was unprecedented in its character. It was a genocide which was industrial in both scale and organisation. Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration and death camps in occupied Poland, were begun to be liberated on 27 January 1945 by Russian forces and this date has been designated as Holocaust Memorial Day. Commemorative and educational events and activities now take place nationally on and around that date each year.

Young people from the borough will take part in the event, demonstrating the learning about the Holocaust which must continue across the generations to keep the memory and lessons alive.

Candles will be lit in memory of the 11 million Jews and other persecuted groups, who were murdered during the Holocaust.

Parallels will be drawn with other genocides, as despite the world saying ‘Never Again’ the lives of certain groups of people are still identified by some powers, as being worth less than others and many genocides have been perpetrated before and since the Holocaust and still are throughout the world to this day.

Rochdale has a long-established community of Ukrainians. They well know how their communities and families suffered in the 1930s under Stalin’s policy of collective farming, where the confiscation of crops led to the death of millions due to forced starvation. This is now known as Holodomor.

A speaker, from the Rochdale Branch of the Ukrainian Association of Great Britain, will talk about the current situation of the invasion of Ukraine and its effects on ordinary people both there and the community here, today.

If you would like a free seat on the bus, please telephone 01706 924821, office hours Monday – Friday, as places are limited on the bus itself. Alternatively, people can arrive at the Arena in time for the Act of Commemoration at 7pm. Free refreshments will be available afterwards.