HMD 2025 - "A better Future"

Holocaust Memorial Day (HMD), 27 January 2025 marks 80 years since the liberation of Auschwitz-Birkenau and 30 years since the genocide in Bosnia. It is a day for everyone to remember the millions of people murdered in the Holocaust, under Nazi Persecution and in the subsequent genocides in Cambodia, Rwanda, Bosnia and Darfur. We will honour the survivors of these regimes and challenge ourselves to use the lessons of their experiences to inform our lives today.

This year’s theme, ‘A better Future’, looks forward to what actions we can take to avoid and prevent these horrendous acts from occurring again.

To attend please register – Telford and Wrekin HMD Commemoration

You will also be able to view the ceremony online - Visit our Facebook page.

Should you require any assistance, more information or wish to let us know about any needs, please get in touch via yourviewsmatter@telford.gov.uk.

If you are holding an event or activity, please do let us know we would be happy to share the news

Visit the Holocaust Memorial Day website to find out information regionally or nationally

Last updated : 17 January 2025

Holocaust Memorial Day 2024 - "Fragility of Freedom"

On, 27 January 2024, we honour the victims and survivors of The Holocaust and other genocides known nationally as Holocaust Memorial Day (HMD). We learnt lessons from their experiences to challenge hatred and discrimination in the UK today.

The theme for Holocaust Memorial Day 2024 was Fragility of Freedom.

The theme highlighted how the erosion of freedoms supports the progression of The Ten stages of Genocide.

Freedoms have different meanings to different people. Many take these freedoms for granted with little understanding of the impact of not having them. It is often difficult for people to see how reducing the freedoms of one section of society can also reduce their own freedom. 

The theme prompted us to consider the value of freedoms to ourselves, how we can prevent the erosion of those freedoms, and the consequences of not protecting them.

Holocaust Memorial Day 2023 - "Ordinary People"

The theme for 2023 was 'ordinary people', highlighting the ordinary people who let genocide happen, the ordinary people who actively perpetrated genocide, and the ordinary people who were persecuted. The theme also asks how ordinary people, such as ourselves, can play more of a part in challenging prejudice today.

We lit up Southwater One from dusk on 27 January visibly marking HMD. Across the borough, members of our communities demonstrated unity with the HMD 2023 message. They lit a candle and reflected on how they can be the light in the darkness.

Holocaust Memorial Day 2022 - "One day"

Holocaust Memorial Day (HMD) is a day for everyone to remember the millions of people murdered in the Holocaust, under Nazi Persecution and in the subsequent genocides in Cambodia, Rwanda, Bosnia and Darfur. This year's theme is "One Day", it.focuses on how life can change forever in the hope that there may be One Day in the future with no genocide.

We will be releasing a recorded commemoration available for everyone to access on the day through our website, premiering at 11am, 27 January 2022. 

View the Holocaust Memorial Day 2022 Service on YouTube

We will also be lighting up Southwater One from dusk on 27 January visibly marking HMD. Across the borough, members of our communities will demonstrate unity with the HMD 2022 message. They will light a candle and reflect on how they can be the light in the darkness. We would encourage you to take part and share an image or video with us on:

Holocaust Memorial Day 2021 - "Being the light in the darkness"

Holocaust Memorial Day 2021's theme was 'Be the light in the darkness'. It encouraged everyone to reflect on the depths humanity can sink to, but also the ways individuals and communities resisted that darkness to 'be the light' before, during and after genocide.

It asked us to consider different kinds of 'darkness', for example, identity based persecution, misinformation, denial of justice; and different ways to 'be the light', for example, resistance, acts of solidarity, rescue and illuminating mistruths.

Due to coronavirus restrictions organised an online commemoration.

View our HMD online commemoration.

Holocaust Memorial Day 2020 - "Stand Together"

HMD 2020 marked the 75th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz - a significant milestone and made particularly poignant by the dwindling number of survivors who are able to share their testimony. It also marks the 25th anniversary of the Genocide in Bosnia.

The theme for HMD 2020 is Stand Together, explored how genocidal regimes throughout history have deliberately fractured societies by marginalising certain groups, and how these tactics can be challenged by individuals standing together with their neighbours, and speaking out against oppression.

Holocaust Memorial Day 2019 - "Torn from Home"

'I didn't feel like I had a home after the genocide because everything was destroyed. I had no home at all. I had nothing.'

Marie Chantal Uwamahoro, survivor of the Genocide in Rwanda.

Torn from Home encourages audiences to reflect on how the enforced loss of a safe place to call 'home' is part of the trauma faced by anyone experiencing persecution and genocide. 'Home' usually means a place of safety, comfort and security. On HMD 2019 we will reflect on what happens when individuals, families and communities are driven out of, or wrenched from their homes, because of persecution or the threat of genocide, alongside the continuing difficulties survivors face as they try to find and build new homes when the genocide is over.

HMD 2019 will include marking the 25th anniversary of the Genocide in Rwanda, which began in April 1994.

Last updated : 17 January 2025

How was Holocaust Memorial Day established?

The Prime Minister of the day, Tony Blair,  announced the establishment of Holocaust Memorial Day in January 2000, and on 27 January 2001 the UK held it’s first Holocaust Memorial Day with a national ceremony in London, and a different area of the UK hosting the national event every year since.

The decision to establish the day followed a lengthy consultation, which in turn was the result of the establishment of the “Task Force for International Cooperation on Holocaust Education, Remembrance and Research”, which was set up in 1998 and includes the governments of Sweden, UK, US, Germany, Israel, Poland, the Netherlands, France and Italy.

The Task Force’s joint declaration stated that:

Holocaust education, remembrance and research strengthen humanity’s ability to absorb and learn from the dark lessons of the past, so that we can ensure that similar horrors are never again repeated.

The document also declared that:

We are committing our countries to encourage parents, teachers and civic, political and religious leaders to undertake with renewed vigour and attention Holocaust education, remembrance and research, with a special focus on our own countries history.

Why 27 January?

27 January is the day chosen by the Governments of a number of European countries to commemorate the victims of the Holocaust, including Sweden, Italy, Germany, Finland, Denmark, Estonia, Belgium and Poland. The United Nations and the Council of Europe have also marked 27 January as a day of remembrance.

27 January is the anniversary of the liberation of the Auschwitz concentration camp, where the Nazis established four operational gas chambers with a capacity of over 12,000 murders a day. Auschwitz has come to symbolise the mass murder of European Jewry, along with Belzec, Chelmno, Majdanek, Sobibor and Treblinka.

The Auschwitz complex was made up of several large slave-labour complexes and scores of small slave-labour units, where victims of all backgrounds faced persecution, starvation, torture and death. The Auschwitz complex as a whole has come to represent the brutal ideology of the Nazi regime.

How are genocides other than The Holocaust included?

The Holocaust was a tragedy of immense proportions for the Jewish people. The Jewish community has a particular stake in Holocaust remembrance but many other groups of people who where considered inferior by the Nazis were persecuted.

Holocaust Memorial Day provides a unique opportunity to explore the impact of hatred and intolerance generally as well as specifically. It holds demanding lessons for us all, which are of universal relevance and have implications for us all.

It offers an opportunity for people today, in 21st century Britain, to reflect upon and discuss how those events are relevant for all sections of our society. Each year the day powerfully restates the continuing need for vigilance, motivating people, individually and collectively, to ensure that the horrendous crimes, racist discrimination and victimisation committed during the Holocaust are neither forgotten nor repeated anywhere in the world.

The international conventions adopted after World War 2 were intended to protect humanity from genocide. Yet the tragedies in Rwanda, Kosovo, Bosnia and Cambodia show that there are still many lessons to be learnt, both for the community of nations and in individual terms. So on the day we remember the Holocaust, it is our duty to bear in mind victims of subsequent genocides. When we pledge, “never again”, our pledge should include renewed efforts to prevent genocide today.

Where can I find out more about Holocaust Memorial Day?

Visit the Holocaust Memorial Day website to find out information regionally or nationally

Last updated : 19 July 2024