Holocaust Memorial Day

It is commemorated annually on 27 January, which coincides with the anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz-Birkenau, the largest Nazi concentration and extermination camp. 

The 27 January is also International Holocaust Remembrance Day, created by the United Nations (UN) in November 2005 through resolution 60/7. The UN urges every member nation to honour the memory of Holocaust victims and educate people on the Holocaust to help prevent future genocides.

For more information about Holocaust Memorial Day, please visit Holocaust Memorial Day Trust.

Holocaust Memorial Day events 2024

TV personality Robert Rinder MBE leads our Holocaust Memorial Day commemorations

Robert will speak at our commemorative event at Durham Cathedral on Friday 26 January, alongside Bernie Graham and Charlotte Lane.

Rob and Bernie were part of the award-winning documentary series My Family, the Holocaust and Me, which helped British Jewish families trace the stories of their family, to understand their experiences of the Holocaust. Charlotte is one of the leaders of the UK wide-school project The Holocaust, Their Family, Me and Us, derived from the documentary series. The aim is to provide young people with an opportunity to reflect on the legacies of the Holocaust, through sharing their family history.

Surviving Belsen

A display drawn from the records of Stanley Levitt from Hartlepool, held at The Story. Stanley served with the 113th Light Anti-Aircraft Regiment, who assisted in the liberation of Belsen in April 1945. These records show the harrowing task facing Stanley and his comrades, as well as the story of survivor Jeanette Kaufmann, who lost her entire family during the Holocaust.

View the display in Durham Cathedral's Galilee chapel from Friday 26 to Sunday 28 January. Opening hours Friday and Saturday 10.00am - 4.00pm and Sunday 12 noon - 4.00pm.

Alica Fruhwaldova - The Loves I Have Lost

This free talk is given by Alica Fruhwaldova, a second generation Jewish Holocaust survivor from Banska Bystrica in Slovakia. Her parents were spared from deportation to the extermination camps but were forced to flee to remote Slovakia where they remained hidden during the harshest of winters. Alica tells their harrowing story of survival in her book - The Loves I Have Lost.

This event takes place on Tuesday 27 February from 2.30pm to 3.30pm at Durham Clayport Library.

To book a place at this free event, contact Durham Clayport Library.

The Porrajmos

This exhibition recounts the Porrajmos or Gypsy Holocaust where hundreds of thousands of Gypsies died during the Second World War.

View the exhibition in Durham Cathedral's Galilee chapel from Friday 26 to Sunday 28 January. Friday and Saturday 10.00am - 4.00pm and Sunday 12 noon - 4.00pm.

You can also view this exhibition at St. Aidan's College (Bailey Room), University of Durham, Windmill Hill, DH1 3LJ until Friday 2 February.

Monday to Friday 10.00am - 8.00pm (excluding Wednesday 24 January 10.00am - 5.00pm, Friday 26 January 10.00am - 3.00pm and Friday 2 February 10.00am - 3.00pm).

Saturday and Sunday 11.00am - 4.00pm.

The Story - virtual exhibition

This online exhibition by Durham County Record Office, one of the services moving into The Story, centres on the recently deposited letters of gunner Jack Fairweather, who alongside many local men, took part in the liberation of Belsen Concentration Camp. Writing to his fiancée, his need to record his experience obvious: 'the story I have to tell is almost too horrible for words but I feel I must tell of what I've seen in the last few days'.

View the exhibition at The Story - the liberation of Belsen concentration camp.

Previous speakers 

Smajo Beso

Smajo talks about his childhood in pre-war Bosnia and about the modern, multi-ethnic and multi-cultural European country and how it quickly succumbed to hatred and intolerance. 

Bosnia became the scene of the biggest atrocities and the only instance of genocide on European soil since the Holocaust. Smajo's father, along with most of his other male relatives were taken to a concentration camp where they were tortured and endured regular beatings. Smajo reflects on the difficulties of growing up during a war, losing family members, and being shelled and shot at on a daily basis. He also shares his experience of surviving on very little food and water, often going days without anything to eat, and living in ruins and rubble, before fortunately escaping and coming to live in the North East of England.

Transcript Smajo Holocaust Memorial Day 2021 (PDF, 150.3kb)

Tomi Komoly

Hungarian-born Tomi talks about how his family was torn apart when his father was called up to the forced labour unit of the Hungarian Army, his time in a walled ghetto, his escape with his mother in 1944 and liberation by the Soviet army in January 1945.

Transcript Tomi Komoly Holocaust Memorial Day (PDF, 185.8kb)

Eva Clarke

Holocaust survivor Eva Clarke tells her families story. Eva was born in Mauthausen concentration camp in 1945. Fifteen of Eva's family members were killed in Auschwitz-Birkenau, leaving only her and her mother as survivors.

Transcript Eva Clarke Holocaust Memorial Day (PDF, 188.6kb)

Uri Winterstein

Uri told us how, at just 1 month old, he was put in the care of a non-Jewish woman because his parents realised that it would be very difficult to keep a baby quiet if they needed to go into hiding. Uri explained how nine of his wider family were sent to Auschwitz-Birkenau, where they were killed. How his father, a member of an underground movement, attempted to halt the deportation of Jews by bribing key SS officers and government officials and how his father, then mother and sister were caught and sent to Terezin. When he was reunited with his family at the end of the war, aged 19 months old, he could not walk or talk. After the war and takeover of Czechoslovakia by the Communists in 1948, his family left the country and ended up in Brazil.

Find out about future events

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