This week, Stephen signed the Holocaust Educational Trust Book of Commitment, pledging to mark Holocaust Memorial Day and paying tribute to those murdered in the Holocaust and the extraordinary survivors who continue to educate young people today.
Holocaust Memorial Day falls on 27 January, the date that the former Nazi concentration camp Auschwitz-Birkenau was liberated in 1945. The Day pays tribute to all those persecuted by the Nazis, including Jews, Roma and Stinti people, gay men, and political opponents of the Nazi regime. It also pays tribute to those affected by genocide since, in Cambodia, Rwanda, Bosnia, and Darfur.
This year’s Holocaust Memorial Day marks 80 years since the Allied Powers liberated concentration camps across Europe. This is likely to be the last significant anniversary at which many Holocaust survivors are present to share their eye-witness testimony, with many growing older and frailer.
Stephen signed the Book of Commitment yesterday, on Holocaust Memorial Day. He did so to mark the Day and pay tribute to all those murdered in the Holocaust, and commit to doing so in future.
“It is 80 years this year since Auschwitz-Birkenau was liberated,” Stephen said. “Holocaust Memorial Day presents an essential opportunity for people from East Ham to reflect on one of the darkest moments in European history and remember those murdered, including six million Jewish men, women, and children. We must never forget the scale of the atrocities or flag in resisting all forms of antisemitism.”