Published: Friday, 14th January 2022
Holocaust Memorial Day will be marked in King’s Lynn with a service at the town’s Tower Gardens at a tree planted more than 20 years ago at the first civic event.
The service will include readings by members of the Muslim, Christian and Jewish communities as well as the Mayor of King’s Lynn and West Norfolk, Cllr Harry Humphrey, and borough council Leader Cllr Stuart Dark MBE. A choir from St Martha’s RC school in Gaywood will provide music on the morning.
Usually held in the Town Hall, the event has moved back to its beginnings as the first services were held at the tree planted for the inaugural event in 2001. The current situation with Covid has prompted the move, and last year the whole service was pre-filmed and shown online.
“We wanted to ensure we had a service this year and holding it outside reduces the risk of Covid and enables us to still be together, in person. It is important to mark Holocaust Memorial Day and we hope to see people at the Tower Gardens sharing the commemoration with us,” said a spokesman for the Jewish community of West Norfolk.
Everyone is welcome to attend the event, at noon on Sunday, January 23. Mayor of King’s Lynn & West Norfolk, Cllr Harry Humphrey, said: “This year has the theme of One Day - which can be interpreted in different ways, from One Day in history, to One Day when life changed for ever and One Day in the future when no genocide takes place.
“It is important to hold this day in memory of the victims and the brave who fought against these terrible events and to remind us to continue to fight prejudice in all its forms and ensure such things never happen again.”
Holocaust Memorial Day itself is on January 27 each year, the anniversary of the liberation of the Auschwitz Birkenau - the largest of the Nazi’s death camps. It is also a time when other genocides, including those in Rwanda, Darfur, Cambodia and Bosnia, are all commemorated.
Watch the Holocaust Memorial Day video from 2021 below: