Medway’s communities will come together for Holocaust Memorial Day

Medway’s communities will come together in memory of the millions of people who lost their lives during the Holocaust on Monday, 28 January.

Memorial services will be held across the country to honour those who were affected by the Holocaust.

Every year the Holocaust Memorial Day Trust (HMDT) suggests a theme for services and this year they’ve chosen Torn from Home. The theme 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.

The HMDT is asking people to 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.

Since 2004, the Medway commemoration of Holocaust Memorial Day has been organised jointly by Medway Council, Chatham Memorial Synagogue, Rochester Cathedral and the Medway Inter-Faith Action Forum. In 2010 they were joined by the Medway Youth Parliament. These five organisations are committed to ensuring that the Holocaust and other human atrocities are never forgotten.

Medway’s Holocaust Memorial Day event will be held at Cliffe Woods Primary School, View Road, Cliffe Woods, on Monday, 28 January, from 6pm, refreshments will be available from 5.30pm.

The event will include presentations, readings, poetry and prayers by local schools, religious communities, Medway Youth Council, Medway Inter-Faith Action and Kent Police.

There will also be an exhibition of artwork created by schools. The exhibition will be on display at Cliffe Woods Primary School on Monday, 28 January until the beginning of February, from Tuesday, 5 February, the exhibition will be on display at the Guildhall Museum in Rochester High Street until Sunday, 17 February. Chatham Library will then host the exhibition from Tuesday, 19 February, to Saturday, 2 March.

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