Holocaust Memorial Day 2020 yesterday marked 75 years since the liberation of Auschwitz-Birkenau. January 27th marks the anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz-Birkenau, the largest Nazi death camp. There are events running this week to commemorate this event and offer learning opportunities around the Holocaust and genocides.
By the end of the Holocaust, six million Jewish men, women and children, and people from LGBTQ communities, Roma & traveller communities, political prisoners, disabled peoples and anyone who the regime wished to extinguish had been murdered in ghettos, mass-shootings, in concentration extermination camps.
Holocaust Memorial Day (HMD) is the day for everyone to remember the millions of people murdered in the Holocaust under Nazi Persecution, and in the genocides which followed in Cambodia, Rwanda, Bosnia, and Darfur. HMD 2020 also marks the 25th anniversary of the Genocide in Bosnia.
HMD 2020 examines how genocidal regimes throughout history have fractured societies by marginalising certain groups and how in a contemporary world we need to stand together with others in our varied communities in order to stop division and the spread of hatred in society. You can learn more on how to support the trust of the histories of genocide on the website:
There will be a number of events held this week in Brighton and Hove as part of the HMD 2020 commemorations.
Anne Frank – Parallel Stories: Duke of York Picturehouse, Preston Circus: Tuesday 28th January. Anne Frank Parallel Stories is a powerful retelling of Anne Frank’s life through the pages of her extraordinary diary guided by the Academy-Award winning actress Helen Mirren, and through the lives of five women who, as young girls, were also deported to concentration camps but survived the Holocaust.
more info here
Speakers will include Gaby Weiner, author of ‘Tales of Loving and Leaving’
Jason Porter (University of Brighton) on ‘Hidden from History: The Nazi Persecution of Homosexuals’
Stand Together: University of Sussex. This programme will be split into three sections:
Session 1: 2pm ‘Voices from the Past and the Present: Analyzing Narratives of Persecution, Flight and Survival’
Guest speaker: Ruth Wodak, Distinguished Professor and Chair in Discourse Studies, Lancaster University/University Vienna
Chair: Professor Liz James, Head of School of History, Art History and Philosophy
Session 2: 3.30pm ‘Surviving the Holocaust as a child’: testimony from Hannah Lewis MBE
Guest speaker: Hannah Lewis MBE, Holocaust Survivor
Chair: Olivia Marks-Woldman, Chief Executive of the Holocaust Memorial Day Trust (HMDT)
Session 3: 5pm – Screening of ‘Last Folio’ Followed by Q&A with the director, Katya Krausova
Chair: Professor Ivor Gaber, Professor of Political Journalism
All three University of Sussex events open to everyone (age 16+); however, booking is essential as seating is limited at the Jubilee Lecture Theatre, Jubilee Building
University of Sussex Campus, Brighton, Falmer, BN1 9SL
