In 2000, a commitment was made in Stockholm by the Holocaust Taskforce to encourage remembrance of the Holocaust by holding an annual Holocaust Memorial Day.
In 2000, a commitment was made in Stockholm by the Holocaust Taskforce to encourage remembrance of the Holocaust by holding an annual Holocaust Memorial Day.
The UK, one of the 28 member countries of this taskforce, held its first national Holocaust Memorial Day in 2001. The date chosen was 27 January, the day in 1945 when the Auschwitz/Birkenau concentration camp was liberated.
Throughout the UK, civic and local events are held, as well as school assemblies, to recall and learn lessons from the Nazi persecution and murder of millions of Jews and others, as well as the subsequent genocides in Cambodia, Rwanda, Bosnia and Darfur. Survivors of these atrocities are honoured and their stories heard. Genocide, anti-semitism, racism, xenophobia and discrimination continue and must be challenged.