Holocaust Memorial Day is marked nationally on January 27 each year. The date was chosen by the Government as it is the anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz by the Allies.
Every year a special service to mark Holocaust Memorial Day is held in Hastings, organised by the Hastings & District Jewish Society, the Christian Friends of Israel, and the Council of Christians and Jews, with the support of Hastings Borough Council.
This year’s service, 60 years after the liberation of Auschwitz, took place at St Mary in the Castle on Saturday, January 29.
Each year’s service is quite different, and this year’s included a Holocaust Exhibition, covering the history, culture, art and values of the Holocaust. It was produced by the Judeo-Christian Study Centre in Hull. The exhibition was on for the week preceding the service, and visitors were invited to bring old shoes to add to a pile of footwear, a poignant reminder of the belongings that were left outside the gas chambers. The exhibition also included contributions from St Pauls, Christchurch, All Saints and St Mary Star of the Sea Junior Schools.
The service was led by the Reverend Roger Cresswell, and the remarkable Dr Bruce Eton OBE, himself a German Jew. Despite his age and frailty, he sang solos during the service.
The young played their part too, as children from All Saints Junior School performed a drama on the Holocaust, and the choir and orchestra of Buckswood School performed as individual prayers were added to prayer walls around the building.
Janina Fischler-Martinho, a survivor of the Cracow Ghetto, gave a very moving, and personal account of life in the Ghetto - she lost both parents, her grandmother, aunts, uncles and her young brother in death camps. Janina only survived by escaping through a sewer - her older brother survived by jumping from a cattle truck on the way to the death camp. Her testimony had a powerful effect on all present.
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This page last updated: 04/04/2005