Holocaust Memorial Day, 27 January 2022

Attended a small but moving ceremony to mark Holocaust Memorial Day in the gardens of the Imperial War Museum and to lay a wreath. The laying of wreaths was led by The Mayor of Southwark, Councillor Barrie Hargroves and attended by members of Southwark Council, the Chancellor of South Bank University, Simon Hughes, who was for many years the local MP and the President of the Student’s Union. The gardens are the home of the Soviet War Memorial and the Holocaust tree.

The Mayor gave a powerful address reminding us of the horrors of war and human cruelty and the extraordinarily scale of loss during the Second World War, particularly those sustained in the Soviet Union.

The annual ceremony is usually on a larger scale and involving local children but owing to the latest COVID wave was kept small. There was an opportunity to visit the new Holocaust exhibition space in the museum. A stark reminder of human atrocity.