- MPs, including Gerald Jones, among first to support online ‘Stand Together’ project to mark 75th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz
- Reception held with MPs and survivors ahead of Holocaust Memorial Day on 27th January
Gerald Jones, MP for Merthyr Tydfil and Rhymney, joined survivors of the Holocaust and more recent genocides and politicians at an event in Parliament to mark the launch of a new digital campaign urging people to ‘Stand Together’ and commemorate the lives of individuals murdered by the Nazis.
The campaign, launched by the Holocaust Memorial Day Trust, pairs people with the name of a person murdered by the Nazis, which they can share on social media in a digital act of remembrance. Names of Jewish people murdered, alongside Roma, gay, disabled people and other groups are included in the project.
Thousands of names have been gathered for the campaign by the Holocaust Memorial Day Trust, with the support of Yad Vashem. Other named individuals being remembered include Gyula Sandor from Budapest, who was murdered by the Nazis for being Jewish and Siegfried Bamberger, who was murdered by the Nazis for being part of the Roma and Sinti community.
The Stand Together project reflects the theme chosen for Holocaust Memorial Day 2020, which explores how genocidal regimes have deliberately fractured societies by marginalising certain groups, and how these tactics can be challenged.
Holocaust Memorial Day is the annual day of commemoration of the Holocaust, Nazi Persecution and more recent genocides in Cambodia, Rwanda, Bosnia and Darfur.
Chief Executive of the Holocaust Memorial Day Trust, Olivia Marks-Woldman, said: “With increasing division in communities across the world and here in the UK, now more than ever we need to stand together with others in our communities to challenge the spread of identity-based hostility. Our Stand Together project is a powerful way for us all to remember people murdered by the Nazis – as individuals with their own hopes, families and friends.
It is a chance to restore their human dignity and remember where hatred can lead, and why we must all act to challenge it. Holocaust Memorial Day is an important opportunity for us all to learn from genocide, for a better future, and I’d urge everyone to get involved in activities for Holocaust Memorial Day 2020 by visiting hmd.org.uk.”