An outlawed Nazi marching song that weaselled its way onto iTunes called ‘Horst wessel lied’, has been removed from Apples iTunes.
The song was named after a Nazi party activist killed in 1930, and it was originally titled ‘Die fahne hoch’, which means ‘the flag up high’. The removal of the song coincided with the Holocaust memorial day. German media revealed that Apple was breaking German law by allowing Nazi anthems to be downloaded.
Amazon have also removed the song, along with all other tracks by Neo-Nazi bands.
Apple however have remained silent as to whether or not they have removed all other popular Nazi-era songs. Although a blacklisted track called ‘protection squad’ was removed by Apple for being dangerous to youths. Apple removed tracks which they class as overly sexual last year, however they seemed to remain unaware of ultra-nationalist songs being downloaded on iTunes.
Horst wessel lied is believed to be the unofficial anthem of the Nazis, and was banned by Germany at the end of World War II. Some lyrics in the song include, “Soon will fly Hitler flags over every street; slavery will last only a short time longer”
TechWatch
Thanks to NewsHound for the heads-up
Showing posts with label Holocaust Memorial Day. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Holocaust Memorial Day. Show all posts
February 05, 2011
January 27, 2011
Holocaust Memorial Day – January 27th
Each year on 27 January the world marks Holocaust Memorial Day (HMD). HMD has been held in the UK since 2001 and the United Nations declared this an International event in November 2005. 27 January was chosen as the date for HMD because it was on this date in 1945 that the largest Nazi killing camp Auschwitz-Birkenau was liberated.HMD is about remembering the victims and those whose lives have been changed beyond recognition of the Holocaust, Nazi persecution and subsequent genocides in Cambodia, Rwanda, Bosnia and the ongoing atrocities today in Darfur. HMD provides us with an opportunity to honour the survivors but it’s also a chance to look to our own lives and communities today. Genocide doesn’t happen overnight, it’s a gradual process which begins when the differences between us are not celebrated but used as a reason to exclude or marginalise. By learning from the lessons of the past, we can create a safer, better future.
Each year, we announce a theme for HMD which provides a focal point and a shared message for the hundreds of events which take place around the UK. The theme for HMD 2011 is Untold Stories.
Anyone can organise a HMD activity and we provide free resources to enable you to do so. Order our free Campaign Pack to find out how you can become involved. There’s no such thing as a right or wrong HMD event – whether events are for invited guests in a council chamber, open to the general public in a large public space or a closed event within a school or college – each event marks HMD as a key date in the equalities and human rights calendar.
HMD is a day for everyone. It’s an opportunity for all the diverse strands of our communities to come together. It’s also an opportunity for groups or organisations to remember the past and commit to creating a better future. HMD can be commemorated individually or collectively.
HMD has taken place in the UK since 2001. It was established at a meeting on 27 January 2000, when representatives from forty-four governments around the world met in Stockholm to discuss Holocaust education, remembrance and research. At the conclusion of the forum, the delegates unanimously signed a declaration. This forms the HMD Statement of Commitment which is used a basis for HMD events internationally.
Holocaust Memorial Day Trust
January 27, 2010
Holocaust survivors' stories
Polish Jews being moved out of the Warsaw ghetto by SS troops in April 1943Sixty-five years ago tomorrow, the largest Nazi killing camp, Auschwitz-Birkenau, was liberated by the Soviet army. The Holocaust Day Memorial Trust will celebrate the anniversary of that event. So what, you might be thinking. Another anniversary, another wall of newsprint. What, really, is the point of continuing to commemoratesomething that happened a lifetime ago? There are three good reasons. One is, as all the survivors of the Holocaust I interviewed told me, that the slogan "Never again" has become a sick joke, degraded by the genocides in Cambodia (1975-79), Bosnia (1992), Rwanda (1994) and Darfur (2003- today). We have learned too little and let people die en masse not for what they did but for who they were – just as happened in the Nazi death camps.
Second reason: this is one of the last years we are going to have many Holocaust survivors in Britain to share with us what they went through. The Holocaust Day Memorial Trust estimates there are 5,000 survivors left in the UK. It's urgent that we hear their – often incredible – stories before they die. When the war in Europe ended on 8 May 1945, there were 200,000 Jewish Holocaust survivors, according to one source (Zoe Waxman's 2006 book Writing the Holocaust, Oxford University Press).
But Jews weren't the only victims, nor the Holocaust's only survivors: the Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington, for instance, defines Holocaust survivors as "any persons, Jewish or non-Jewish, who were displaced, persecuted or discriminated against due to the racial, religious, ethnic, social and political policies of the Nazis and their collaborators between 1933 and 1945. In addition to former inmates of concentration camps, ghettos and prisons, this definition includes, among others, people who were refugees or were in hiding." The museum has a registry that includes more than 196,000 records related to survivors and their families. Any estimate of the number of Holocaust survivors immediately after the war, though, is likely to be wrong, not least because no one then had as their first priority counting up the number of people who survived the death camps.
Third reason: many of the survivors I spoke to, while hopeful for Britain's future, drew parallels between the Nazi Holocaust and the way ethnic minorities are treated in the UK today. As Carly Whyborn, chief executive officer of the Holocaust Memorial Day Trust, says: "Britain is not Nazi Germany in the 1930s. It is not Pol Pot's Cambodia. But on Holocaust Memorial Day we can pause to look at how we treat those around us. We can all make the choice to challenge exclusion when we see it happening – we can choose to stop using language that dehumanises others and we can stop our friends and family from dehumanising and excluding others." Otherwise, it might be added, we haven't really learned the lessons of the Holocaust or later genocides.
Memories of the Holocaust: Zigi Shipper
Memories of the Holocaust: Harry Spiro
Memories of the Holocaust: Sabina Miller
Memories of the Holocaust: Ben Helfgott
Memories of the Holocaust: Martin Stern
Memories of the Holocaust: Kitty Hart-Moxon
Guardian
HMD Trust
Holocaust Memorial Day events in your area
January 25, 2010
We are still in the shadow of the Holocaust
Anti-Semitism is on the rise, which makes memorial day all the more vital, says Michael Gove
This Wednesday we remember the greatest crime ever inflicted by man against his fellow man. Holocaust Memorial Day allows us to reflect on the bleakest chapter in the history of the 20th century. And there is a special urgency in the call to remember this year, of all years - because the shadow of the Holocaust continues to fall over the world today.
Mass murder is still deployed as a political tool by tyrants, from Burma to Zimbabwe. Racism is returning to the streets of Europe, from St Petersburg to Antwerp. And, hard though it is to credit after the horrors of the last century, anti-Semitism is creeping back into the corridors of power.
We know that Nazi ideology still has the power to motivate evil men. From the Swedish fascist who tried to acquire the "Arbeit macht frei" sign which hung over the gates of Auschwitz, to the British fascists of the BNP, there is an ominous resurgence of extremist activity visible across our Continent. It is because we face a new fascist threat, and because the extremism of the BNP is mirrored in the equally toxic ideology of anti-Semitic groups such as Islam4Uk and Hizb-ut Tahrir, that we need, all of us, to make an additional effort to remember how the Holocaust started. And where it ended.
The history of the Holocaust is the history of a society which blamed the Jews for its miseries, sought to push them to the margins and then sought, literally, to make them vanish from sight. In our time we can see the same trends returning. The calls for boycotts of Jewish thinkers at Israeli universities, the rise in anti-Semitic incidents on our streets, the inflamed rhetoric of vilification which culminates in the Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's call to wipe Israel off the map, are all connected.
As the chief rabbi, Lord Sacks, has so presciently pointed out, anti-Semitism is a virus which mutates. Originally it was the Jewish people's religious identity which came under attack, and the Church led a programme of forced conversion. Then, as society replaced religion with science as a source of authority, anti-Semitism mutated so that the Jewish people came under attack on racial grounds. Now it is Jewish identity expressed through the right of Israel to self-determination which is the focus of anti-Semitism. Israel, like any state, makes mistakes. Sometimes grievous ones. But many of Israel's enemies now risk repeating one of the greatest errors of history by infusing anti-Semitism with a new and toxic vibrancy. We see it in some of those who have attached themselves to recent anti-war campaigns, with Britons marching through the streets of London declaring "We are all Hezbollah now" even though Hezbollah is a fascist organisation whose leader is a Holocaust-denier who believes the Jews are "grandsons of apes and pigs". And we also see the apparent mainstreaming of anti-Semitism in comments such as those of a former ambassador who recently objected to the composition of the Iraq inquiry team because two of its members were Jewish.
When prejudice is unleashed in this way we are all affected. As the chief rabbi has pointed out, what starts with the Jews never ends with the Jews. The Nazis targeted gay men and women, Roma, the disabled and Christians of conscience. The BNP are, similarly, as homophobic, Islamophobic and plain, downright racist as they are anti-Semitic.
History teaches us many lessons, if we are willing to pay attention. And one of the most profound is that the best guide to the health of a society has always been how secure its Jewish community feels. Throughout history the freest societies, from 17th-century Holland to 20th-century England, have been those in which Jewish people have felt safest. And over the ages the surest sign that a country is moving away from liberalism has been a growing prejudice towards the Jewish community, whether Vienna a hundred years ago, Germany in the thirties or Russia in the last decade.
It is because that lesson of history is so important that Holocaust Memorial Day is so crucial. And it is because we must ensure the next generation learns those lessons that the work of the Holocaust Educational Trust is so vital. The Trust provides the tools for schools to communicate the lessons of the Holocaust – so that young people can understand the consequences of allowing prejudice to grow. The Trust provides schools with books, maps, images and artefacts from the past as well as a Bafta award-winning production containing the testimonies of survivors. And two students from every school in the country are given the chance to visit Auschwitz and see the site of mankind's most terrible atrocity with their own eyes.
As the survivors of the Holocaust grow older and we face losing their vivid living testimonies, so the risk of forgetting grows stronger, and with it the risk of repeating history's mistakes. That is why the Holocaust Educational Trust's work has never been more necessary, the lessons of history never more relevant and the act of commemoration never more important. Whatever else may divide politicians, the lesson of the last century is that the resurgence of anti-Semitism requires us all to unite against this most poisonous of prejudices.
Telegraph
This Wednesday we remember the greatest crime ever inflicted by man against his fellow man. Holocaust Memorial Day allows us to reflect on the bleakest chapter in the history of the 20th century. And there is a special urgency in the call to remember this year, of all years - because the shadow of the Holocaust continues to fall over the world today.
Mass murder is still deployed as a political tool by tyrants, from Burma to Zimbabwe. Racism is returning to the streets of Europe, from St Petersburg to Antwerp. And, hard though it is to credit after the horrors of the last century, anti-Semitism is creeping back into the corridors of power.
We know that Nazi ideology still has the power to motivate evil men. From the Swedish fascist who tried to acquire the "Arbeit macht frei" sign which hung over the gates of Auschwitz, to the British fascists of the BNP, there is an ominous resurgence of extremist activity visible across our Continent. It is because we face a new fascist threat, and because the extremism of the BNP is mirrored in the equally toxic ideology of anti-Semitic groups such as Islam4Uk and Hizb-ut Tahrir, that we need, all of us, to make an additional effort to remember how the Holocaust started. And where it ended.
The history of the Holocaust is the history of a society which blamed the Jews for its miseries, sought to push them to the margins and then sought, literally, to make them vanish from sight. In our time we can see the same trends returning. The calls for boycotts of Jewish thinkers at Israeli universities, the rise in anti-Semitic incidents on our streets, the inflamed rhetoric of vilification which culminates in the Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's call to wipe Israel off the map, are all connected.
As the chief rabbi, Lord Sacks, has so presciently pointed out, anti-Semitism is a virus which mutates. Originally it was the Jewish people's religious identity which came under attack, and the Church led a programme of forced conversion. Then, as society replaced religion with science as a source of authority, anti-Semitism mutated so that the Jewish people came under attack on racial grounds. Now it is Jewish identity expressed through the right of Israel to self-determination which is the focus of anti-Semitism. Israel, like any state, makes mistakes. Sometimes grievous ones. But many of Israel's enemies now risk repeating one of the greatest errors of history by infusing anti-Semitism with a new and toxic vibrancy. We see it in some of those who have attached themselves to recent anti-war campaigns, with Britons marching through the streets of London declaring "We are all Hezbollah now" even though Hezbollah is a fascist organisation whose leader is a Holocaust-denier who believes the Jews are "grandsons of apes and pigs". And we also see the apparent mainstreaming of anti-Semitism in comments such as those of a former ambassador who recently objected to the composition of the Iraq inquiry team because two of its members were Jewish.
When prejudice is unleashed in this way we are all affected. As the chief rabbi has pointed out, what starts with the Jews never ends with the Jews. The Nazis targeted gay men and women, Roma, the disabled and Christians of conscience. The BNP are, similarly, as homophobic, Islamophobic and plain, downright racist as they are anti-Semitic.
History teaches us many lessons, if we are willing to pay attention. And one of the most profound is that the best guide to the health of a society has always been how secure its Jewish community feels. Throughout history the freest societies, from 17th-century Holland to 20th-century England, have been those in which Jewish people have felt safest. And over the ages the surest sign that a country is moving away from liberalism has been a growing prejudice towards the Jewish community, whether Vienna a hundred years ago, Germany in the thirties or Russia in the last decade.
It is because that lesson of history is so important that Holocaust Memorial Day is so crucial. And it is because we must ensure the next generation learns those lessons that the work of the Holocaust Educational Trust is so vital. The Trust provides the tools for schools to communicate the lessons of the Holocaust – so that young people can understand the consequences of allowing prejudice to grow. The Trust provides schools with books, maps, images and artefacts from the past as well as a Bafta award-winning production containing the testimonies of survivors. And two students from every school in the country are given the chance to visit Auschwitz and see the site of mankind's most terrible atrocity with their own eyes.
As the survivors of the Holocaust grow older and we face losing their vivid living testimonies, so the risk of forgetting grows stronger, and with it the risk of repeating history's mistakes. That is why the Holocaust Educational Trust's work has never been more necessary, the lessons of history never more relevant and the act of commemoration never more important. Whatever else may divide politicians, the lesson of the last century is that the resurgence of anti-Semitism requires us all to unite against this most poisonous of prejudices.
Telegraph
December 16, 2009
Renowned artists contribute to Croydon Holocaust memorial
A holocaust-themed exhibition in the Clocktower is set to mark the 65th anniversary of the liberation of the Auschwitz extermination camp
Award-winning photographer Marion Davies and ceramic artist Jenny Stolzenberg will be displaying some of their work in the Space C Gallery from January 8 to 30.
Jenny Stolzenberg has a permanent exhibition at the Memorial Garden in the London Jewish Cultural Centre which, in 2003, commissioned her to create a piece for presentation to Steve Spielberg. Her contribution to the Croydon exhibition will be row upon row of glazed and fired ceramic shoes - replicas of the footwear left behind by holocaust victims when the camps were liberated.
Marion Davies specialises in printing techniques that create distinctive images with enhanced texture and tone from black and white film. Her exhibits comprise a photographic journey into the devastation of the holocaust and also touches on how modern day Germany is confronting the consequences of the past. Admission to the exhibition is free.
A council spokesman said: “Overall it will provide a thoughtful background and context for the annual Holocaust Memorial Day activity which takes place in the Town Hall on Wednesday January 27.”
The main library is due to host a story-telling session for adults about the heroism of some of those affected by the holocaust. At midday the annual public candle lighting ceremony will be presided over by the Mayor, Councillor Margaret Mead, in the Town Hall foyer. The occasion will again feature the reading of the Holocaust Memorial Day pledge. This will be followed by a civic event at 12.30pm in the council chamber.
Councillor Gavin Barwell, Croydon’s cabinet member for safety and cohesion said: “With its thought provoking pictures and artefacts, we believe the event will better help people understand the importance of ensuring the horrific holocaust is never forgotten.”
Croydon Guardian
Award-winning photographer Marion Davies and ceramic artist Jenny Stolzenberg will be displaying some of their work in the Space C Gallery from January 8 to 30.
Jenny Stolzenberg has a permanent exhibition at the Memorial Garden in the London Jewish Cultural Centre which, in 2003, commissioned her to create a piece for presentation to Steve Spielberg. Her contribution to the Croydon exhibition will be row upon row of glazed and fired ceramic shoes - replicas of the footwear left behind by holocaust victims when the camps were liberated.
Marion Davies specialises in printing techniques that create distinctive images with enhanced texture and tone from black and white film. Her exhibits comprise a photographic journey into the devastation of the holocaust and also touches on how modern day Germany is confronting the consequences of the past. Admission to the exhibition is free.
A council spokesman said: “Overall it will provide a thoughtful background and context for the annual Holocaust Memorial Day activity which takes place in the Town Hall on Wednesday January 27.”
The main library is due to host a story-telling session for adults about the heroism of some of those affected by the holocaust. At midday the annual public candle lighting ceremony will be presided over by the Mayor, Councillor Margaret Mead, in the Town Hall foyer. The occasion will again feature the reading of the Holocaust Memorial Day pledge. This will be followed by a civic event at 12.30pm in the council chamber.
Councillor Gavin Barwell, Croydon’s cabinet member for safety and cohesion said: “With its thought provoking pictures and artefacts, we believe the event will better help people understand the importance of ensuring the horrific holocaust is never forgotten.”
Croydon Guardian
August 04, 2009
Combating the BNP - Part II
In the last part of the series, the author concentrates on what steps the mainstream political parties and opinion makers must take to combat [the] BNP and challenge them head on the issues that give them support from parts of our community.
I think of one organisation in particular that claims to speak for British Muslims and has for a number of years now been issuing 'advice' to the Government on how to tackle Islamic extremism. It condemns Islamist terrorism but at the same time produces documents demanding vast changes to the way society is run, whether than be in education, employment, or the public sphere in general, while routinely denouncing anyone who dares to question its agenda as 'Islamophobic' and 'racist'.
I think of a group that deliberately fosters a sense of Muslim self-pity and a victim mentality (just as the BNP deliberately fosters white self-pity) at the same time as showing its own very flawed commitment to social cohesion through, for example, boycotting Holocaust Memorial Day.
The disgraceful slandering of anyone who dares criticise Islamist politics, or even specific aspects of Islamic doctrine as 'Islamophobic' and 'racist' is all too common, not just among Muslim activists but also among large segments of the so-called 'left', as is the manipulation of the discourse of anti-racism in an attempt to further an Islamist agenda.
Such false accusations of bigotry and racism have been thrown at perfectly decent and anti-racist individuals, and have the potential to ruin their lives and careers. When the 'race card' or in this case the 'religion card' is played too often, people start to get fed up. There is a real danger that people are starting to feel 'well, they're going to call me racist anyway so I might as well vote for the BNP'. And it's not just with the issue of Islam that this is happening.
There seems to be a consensus view among many who are known as 'Guardianistas' that patriotic sentiment and concerns about immigration and social change are intrinsically founded upon racist sentiment. People who express national pride are at best sniffed at with an arrogant and superior contempt and at worst are automatically assumed to be mindless, unenlightened bigots. As Graeme Archer put it in his excellent article on 'Creating the BNP':
[T]here is a tremendous amount of white guilt. The intelligentsia in this country in a selfish way tries to assuage this guilt. It caters to the most idiosyncratic behaviour of the immigrant and practices the racism of lower expectations. It sets standards of behaviour for our community, but when dealing with immigrants and especially the Muslim community, it does not expect them to live by the same standards.
This is a very real problem, one of a large number that need addressing if the BNP are to be sent packing, as they rightly should be. The deligitimisation of patriotism, the claims that reasonable concerns about immigration and its effects are 'racist', and the uncritical celebration of any culture and group bar that of the white British majority are all helping to feed into the rise of the BNP.
If mainstream politicians and opinion makers are serious about combatting the BNP, an organisation that remains ideologically racist and which is founded on neo-Nazi principles, they need to start addressing the concerns that have led to a significant number of people seeing it as 'speaking for them'. The Labour Party should particularly take note, given that 59% of BNP voters feel that Labour 'used to care about the concerns of people like me but doesn’t nowadays'. In tandem with this, anti-racists must continue to expose the true nature of the BNP, which is, as my recent report for the Centre for Social Cohesion shows, that it remains a party dedicated to racism and apartheid policies, and a party with numerous ties to neo-Nazism.
You can read the first part of the series here
eGov monitor
I think of one organisation in particular that claims to speak for British Muslims and has for a number of years now been issuing 'advice' to the Government on how to tackle Islamic extremism. It condemns Islamist terrorism but at the same time produces documents demanding vast changes to the way society is run, whether than be in education, employment, or the public sphere in general, while routinely denouncing anyone who dares to question its agenda as 'Islamophobic' and 'racist'.I think of a group that deliberately fosters a sense of Muslim self-pity and a victim mentality (just as the BNP deliberately fosters white self-pity) at the same time as showing its own very flawed commitment to social cohesion through, for example, boycotting Holocaust Memorial Day.
The disgraceful slandering of anyone who dares criticise Islamist politics, or even specific aspects of Islamic doctrine as 'Islamophobic' and 'racist' is all too common, not just among Muslim activists but also among large segments of the so-called 'left', as is the manipulation of the discourse of anti-racism in an attempt to further an Islamist agenda.
Such false accusations of bigotry and racism have been thrown at perfectly decent and anti-racist individuals, and have the potential to ruin their lives and careers. When the 'race card' or in this case the 'religion card' is played too often, people start to get fed up. There is a real danger that people are starting to feel 'well, they're going to call me racist anyway so I might as well vote for the BNP'. And it's not just with the issue of Islam that this is happening.
There seems to be a consensus view among many who are known as 'Guardianistas' that patriotic sentiment and concerns about immigration and social change are intrinsically founded upon racist sentiment. People who express national pride are at best sniffed at with an arrogant and superior contempt and at worst are automatically assumed to be mindless, unenlightened bigots. As Graeme Archer put it in his excellent article on 'Creating the BNP':
you decide to make people feel guilty about symbols of national unity: only racists fly the flag, that sort of thing; you write long, hand-wringing articles in the press about ‘reclaiming’ the flag, which never quite spell out that which is obvious from your tone: that you have an instinctive disdain for the working-class, with their unthinking loyalty to country. Those flags! Flying from council-house windows! You never reflect on what would have happened to Britain in the mid-20th century were this not the case.The supreme irony of this attitude is that in a clear example of condescending racism, these same white liberals are happy to support communalism among Britain's ethnic minorities and to glory in uncritically promoting and embracing separatist and supremacist attitudes from minority communities that they would denounce in white Britons. Such people are rightly described as being 'wracked by guilt and contempt for their own intellectual heritage', and the liberal Muslim author Tarek Fatah's experiences of Canadian society are equally true of our own:
[T]here is a tremendous amount of white guilt. The intelligentsia in this country in a selfish way tries to assuage this guilt. It caters to the most idiosyncratic behaviour of the immigrant and practices the racism of lower expectations. It sets standards of behaviour for our community, but when dealing with immigrants and especially the Muslim community, it does not expect them to live by the same standards.
This is a very real problem, one of a large number that need addressing if the BNP are to be sent packing, as they rightly should be. The deligitimisation of patriotism, the claims that reasonable concerns about immigration and its effects are 'racist', and the uncritical celebration of any culture and group bar that of the white British majority are all helping to feed into the rise of the BNP.
If mainstream politicians and opinion makers are serious about combatting the BNP, an organisation that remains ideologically racist and which is founded on neo-Nazi principles, they need to start addressing the concerns that have led to a significant number of people seeing it as 'speaking for them'. The Labour Party should particularly take note, given that 59% of BNP voters feel that Labour 'used to care about the concerns of people like me but doesn’t nowadays'. In tandem with this, anti-racists must continue to expose the true nature of the BNP, which is, as my recent report for the Centre for Social Cohesion shows, that it remains a party dedicated to racism and apartheid policies, and a party with numerous ties to neo-Nazism.
You can read the first part of the series here
eGov monitor
Labels:
bigotry,
BNP,
Holocaust Memorial Day,
neo-Nazi,
patriotism,
self-pity,
Tarek Fatah
January 28, 2009
UK party leaders sign Book of Commitment to mark Holocaust
The leaders of the three main British political parties commemorated Holocaust Memorial Day on Tuesday by signing the Book of Commitment in Parliament.
Prime Minister Gordon Brown, Conservative leader David Cameron and Liberal Democrat leader Nick Clegg signed the book, which contains a pledge to remember the Holocaust and join together to fight all forms of discrimination. The book was placed in the House of Commons by the Holocaust Educational Trust (HET) on January 14. To date, over 150 MPs have signed it.
Established in 1999, Holocaust Memorial Day is an annual national event in the UK.
Gordon Brown also welcomed Holocaust survivors Ben Helfgott and his sister Mala Tribich, together with HET chairman Lord Janner, at his Downing Street residence to mark the commemoration.
"The whole world should remember and never forget - remember courageous men and women, and also remember the evil that was done," Brown said. "As [Nobel laureate] Elie Wiesel said, 'Because I remember, I despair. Because I remember, I have the duty to reject despair.'"
"It was a great honor and privilege to meet the prime minister, and particularly that he found the time for us when he is so deeply busy," Helfgott said. "It is a great tribute to him that, in spite of the current challenges, he found the time to sign the Book of Commitment to ensure that the Holocaust will never be forgotten."
A parliamentary motion in support of the day was also tabled by Labor MP Phil Wilson and co-sponsored by Conservative MP Greg Hands and Liberal Democrat MP Alistair Carmichael.
In Parliament on Monday, Brown praised the work of the HET and particularly the government-supported program that enables high school students from across the country to visit Auschwitz and educate fellow students about the Holocaust.
"We are delighted that so many MPs are supporting Holocaust Memorial Day. This and Holocaust education are more important now than ever, and this year's theme, 'Stand Up to Hatred,' highlights the importance of joining forces against hatred, prejudice and intolerance," HET chief executive Karen Pollock said. "At the HET, we endeavor to impart the history of the Holocaust to young people, across all communities, so they can see where hate and racism can ultimately lead."
To mark the memorial day, the National Union of Teachers (NUT) has joined the HET in publishing a new school resource.
Martin and Erica's Journey, a book that tells the story of Holocaust survivor Martin Stern and his sister Erica, was launched at a reception at the NUT headquarters in central London on Tuesday evening.
"The NUT has a proud history of supporting race equality and diversity, its importance and the lessons that can be learned from history," said Christine Blower, acting general secretary of the NUT. "This is an invaluable personal record of the horrors of one of the 20th century's worst atrocities."
She added, "We hope that this powerful story will help young people understand the consequences of prejudice and racism and in turn challenge all forms of discrimination."
Meanwhile, the Muslim Council of Britain boycotted official Holocaust memorial events in protest of Israel's offensive in Gaza.
The MCB, which represents 500 Muslim organizations in Britain, did not send any representatives to any of the official memorial events. The decision was made at an MCB committee meeting last week.
"There was no one in that [committee] meeting who was prepared to attend [Holocaust Memorial Day] this year without making a visible protest about the genocide in Gaza," the council said in a statement Tuesday. "It was agreed that the MCB does not wish to minimize the tragedy of the Holocaust or demean or disturb its annual memorial by attending and protesting about the genocide in Gaza, and it was therefore decided to abstain from the Holocaust Memorial Day this year."
The statement concluded, "The MCB believes that the memorial for the victims of the Nazi Holocaust is to ensure that we make the cry 'Never again' real for all people."
In 2007, the MCB called off a boycott of Holocaust Memorial Day that had been in existence since 2003, when then-MCB secretary-general Iqbal Sacranie claimed that the memorial ignored the plight of the Palestinians.
"Regrettably the memorial ceremony in its present form excludes and ignores other ongoing genocide and human rights abuses around the world, notably in the Occupied Palestinian Territories," he said.
Jerusalem Post
Prime Minister Gordon Brown, Conservative leader David Cameron and Liberal Democrat leader Nick Clegg signed the book, which contains a pledge to remember the Holocaust and join together to fight all forms of discrimination. The book was placed in the House of Commons by the Holocaust Educational Trust (HET) on January 14. To date, over 150 MPs have signed it.
Established in 1999, Holocaust Memorial Day is an annual national event in the UK.
Gordon Brown also welcomed Holocaust survivors Ben Helfgott and his sister Mala Tribich, together with HET chairman Lord Janner, at his Downing Street residence to mark the commemoration.
"The whole world should remember and never forget - remember courageous men and women, and also remember the evil that was done," Brown said. "As [Nobel laureate] Elie Wiesel said, 'Because I remember, I despair. Because I remember, I have the duty to reject despair.'"
"It was a great honor and privilege to meet the prime minister, and particularly that he found the time for us when he is so deeply busy," Helfgott said. "It is a great tribute to him that, in spite of the current challenges, he found the time to sign the Book of Commitment to ensure that the Holocaust will never be forgotten."
A parliamentary motion in support of the day was also tabled by Labor MP Phil Wilson and co-sponsored by Conservative MP Greg Hands and Liberal Democrat MP Alistair Carmichael.
In Parliament on Monday, Brown praised the work of the HET and particularly the government-supported program that enables high school students from across the country to visit Auschwitz and educate fellow students about the Holocaust.
"We are delighted that so many MPs are supporting Holocaust Memorial Day. This and Holocaust education are more important now than ever, and this year's theme, 'Stand Up to Hatred,' highlights the importance of joining forces against hatred, prejudice and intolerance," HET chief executive Karen Pollock said. "At the HET, we endeavor to impart the history of the Holocaust to young people, across all communities, so they can see where hate and racism can ultimately lead."
To mark the memorial day, the National Union of Teachers (NUT) has joined the HET in publishing a new school resource.
Martin and Erica's Journey, a book that tells the story of Holocaust survivor Martin Stern and his sister Erica, was launched at a reception at the NUT headquarters in central London on Tuesday evening.
"The NUT has a proud history of supporting race equality and diversity, its importance and the lessons that can be learned from history," said Christine Blower, acting general secretary of the NUT. "This is an invaluable personal record of the horrors of one of the 20th century's worst atrocities."
She added, "We hope that this powerful story will help young people understand the consequences of prejudice and racism and in turn challenge all forms of discrimination."
Meanwhile, the Muslim Council of Britain boycotted official Holocaust memorial events in protest of Israel's offensive in Gaza.
The MCB, which represents 500 Muslim organizations in Britain, did not send any representatives to any of the official memorial events. The decision was made at an MCB committee meeting last week.
"There was no one in that [committee] meeting who was prepared to attend [Holocaust Memorial Day] this year without making a visible protest about the genocide in Gaza," the council said in a statement Tuesday. "It was agreed that the MCB does not wish to minimize the tragedy of the Holocaust or demean or disturb its annual memorial by attending and protesting about the genocide in Gaza, and it was therefore decided to abstain from the Holocaust Memorial Day this year."
The statement concluded, "The MCB believes that the memorial for the victims of the Nazi Holocaust is to ensure that we make the cry 'Never again' real for all people."
In 2007, the MCB called off a boycott of Holocaust Memorial Day that had been in existence since 2003, when then-MCB secretary-general Iqbal Sacranie claimed that the memorial ignored the plight of the Palestinians.
"Regrettably the memorial ceremony in its present form excludes and ignores other ongoing genocide and human rights abuses around the world, notably in the Occupied Palestinian Territories," he said.
Jerusalem Post
January 27, 2009
Stand up to hatred for Holocaust Memorial Day 2009
Hate. We think we know it, but most of us will never face it. Hatred is a corrosive force, able to ruin lives, wreck co-operation, destroy communities, or races, or nations. It is present in small ways in daily life, but it is at its most lethal in prejudice, discrimination, racism, anti-Semitism and Islamaphobia.In this lethal form it was the driving force in Nazi Germany, in Pol Pot’s Cambodia, in Rwanda in 100 days in 1994, in Bosnia and in other places at other times. And so it is in Darfur today. The past is powerful, from it we can learn to protect ourselves and our communities from the forces of hatred.
Britain today is not Nazi Germany, nor Cambodia, nor Bosnia at the time of genocide. But the evils of prejudice, discrimination and intolerance are still with us. We categorise, stereotype, discriminate, exclude, bully, persecute, attack - because of race, religion, disability, sexuality. We damage, and are damaged, as a result of our refusal to accept our common humanity. Acts of hatred always involve making a choice. We choose to attack, to abuse, to exclude, to stand back and do nothing - or we choose to resist, to respect, to protect.
Holocaust Memorial Day 2009 (HMD09) challenges us all to Stand Up To Hatred. It urges all of us to look at our behaviour to others; to understand how hate is directed against different minorities in Britain today; to explore how each of us can help make our communities stronger and safer.
HMD09 is an opportunity to forge links across ALL the diverse strands of local community lives, to build understanding and to unite in a common cause.
Expressing Hatred
Germany between 1918 and 1932 was wracked by turmoil, civil wars, coups and endemic violence. It was rife with discrimination against Jews.
Psychiatrists canvassed the ideas of forced sterilisation and euthanasia. During periods of economic crisis inmates of asylums and sanatoria were virtually starved and work was increasingly required as both ‘therapy’ and a reason for feeding.
So, the seeds of the rise of the Nazi Party were set. But that same German Government also liberalised the law and, for some of the communities soon to be targeted by the Nazi regime, this was a period of growth and cultural achievement. Many Jews played important roles in art, music, architecture and politics. Jewish politicians were members of the German government including Hugo Preuss, Minister of the Interior and Walter Rathenau. Despite homosexuality remaining illegal and arrests taking place, there was a distinctive gay scene in Berlin. The German Gay and Lesbian Community of the 1920s published newspapers, ran public education work and was active in political campaigning. Disabled and deaf people formed associations and in August 1932 the deaf community released a film entitled Verkannte Menschen (Misjudged People). Progressive trends in mental health treatment and care, although not dominant, began.
Diverse communities were developing their own culture and, at the same time, the Nazi Party was growing in popularity. In 1925 Adolf Hitler’s “Mein Kampf” was published laying out the ideology of racial supremacy. After the Nazis were elected in 1933 racist and anti-Semitic campaigns became widespread and theories of racial superiority were expressed in posters, newspapers, school and medical text books and even children’s literature and games. Anti-Jewish propaganda became common. The hatreds which had previously been confined to speeches and political literature now became mainstream, with posters calling for the protection of racial purity.
The weekly newspaper Der Sturmer was best known for its anti-Semitic articles and cartoons, but also anti-Catholic and anti-Communist propaganda. Its popularity grew from 27,000 copies a week in 1927 to 480,000 copies a week in 1935. Hatred had become normal.
The Role of Law and the State
The laws and agencies of a nation can be used either to fan the flames of hatred and discrimination or to quench them and encourage equality, fair treatment and respect.
As soon as the Nazi Party came to power in Germany in 1933 legislation aimed at preserving racial purity and attacking those considered as “untermenschen” (sub-human) was passed. The Nuremberg Laws of 1935 explicitly removed Jews from German citizenship and prevented marriage between Jews and non-Jews. These laws were also applied to Germany’s Gypsy population. New laws allowing for the forced sterilisation of disabled and Black people were also introduced.
In Cambodia legislation was introduced to bring about the Khmer Rouge ideal of a one-class state. All religions were outlawed, banking, finance and currency were abolished and private property was confiscated. While the Interahamwe in Rwanda were not members of Government, the state-owned radio station broadcast encouragement and incitement to attack Tutsis. The US Government, and others, hold the Sudanese Government directly responsible for genocidal attacks in Darfur.
Since 1945, the idea that Governments have a duty to protect citizens against racism or discrimination has gathered force. After WW2, Britain played a key role in developing the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Since the late 60s there has been a slow process of progressive law reform, gradually affording rights and protections on the basis of gender, race, disability, sexuality, faith, and age.
In many countries, including the UK, laws exist making incitement and expression of hatred towards particular groups a “hate crime”. This is any crime committed against a person, or property, that is motivated by hatred because of:
- Race, colour, ethnic origin, nationality or national origins
- Religion
- Gender or gender identity
- Sexual orientation
- Disability
The UK and Devolved Governments have indicated their intention to equalise the protection against hatreds offered to different groups and individuals. But many groups and communities in the UK still face prejudice, discrimination and exclusion, law or no law.
The Impact of Hate
Hate takes many forms, it can be specific, it can be based on experience, it can be felt and not acted on. It can be focused against a group, it can be political, it can be racist, anti-Semitic or Islamaphobic.
Hundreds of thousands of people in Britain live with hate activity, individuals are damaged by it and communities are scarred. Over the past five years:
- Johnny Delaney, a fifteen year old traveller from the North West of England was kicked to death - 2003.
- Kriss Donald was murdered in Glasgow by a gang looking to attack a white person – 2004.
- Brent Martin had severe learning disabilities and was killed in Sunderland - 2007.
- David Morley, a gay man was murdered in London - 2004.
- Anthony Walker was murdered in Merseyside for being black – 2005. His killers spray painted Nazi symbols on local walls after the attack.
Islamaphobia is widely regarded as the most common form of religious and racial hatred in the UK today. The Community Security Trust records that anti-Semitic incidents have increased from 219 in 1997 to 594 in 2006. 1,097 Homophobic hate crimes were reported to the Metropolitan Police in 2007. 16% of disabled people in the Scottish Highlands reported that they had been physically abused because of their disability.
Political rhetoric has been used to highlight differences between different communities. Enoch Powell’s “Rivers of Blood” speech in 1968 is still referenced by anti-immigration campaigners 40 years on. Reaction to the Wolfenden Report’s recommendations on the decriminalisation of homosexuality included newspapers claiming "Freeing adult males from any penalties could only succeed in intensifying and multiplying this form of depravity.” Today newspapers and political parties continue to express views attacking travellers and campaigning against the building of mosques.
Laws do not have to be broken for hatred to be expressed. Often long before crimes occur and laws are broken, hatred has been allowed to flourish and discrimination against minorities has become normal.
Resistance
In Germany, Jews resisted the attempt to exterminate and, mostly, perished in the attempt. Groups such as the White Rose student group distributed political literature which challenged Nazi policies. Individual Jews joined partisan groups or fought in the Warsaw Ghetto uprising. Jehovah’s Witnesses refused to renounce their faith despite the danger to themselves.
Dutch Communists organised a strike to protest the treatment of Jews. To date 21,758 individuals have been recognised as “Righteous among the Nations” by Israel for risking their lives to rescue Jews.
In Rwanda, Tutsis were hidden by neighbours including Beata Uwazaninka who was shielded by a Muslim neighbour who refused to hand Beata to the Interahamwe despite the threats to his own family.
In the UK, we face a much less threatening and extreme time. But we can still challenge hatred, prejudice and discrimination. Stonewall was established by a number of gay and lesbian activists including Sir Ian McKellan who were campaigning against Section 28 - the only example of a post-war British government passing a law which did not in some way liberalise the rights of a minority. After the murder of Stephen Lawrence his mother Doreen campaigned to have the issue of institutionalised racism in British society recognised and tackled. Disabled activists and groups such as the Disabled People’s Council have campaigned for equal employment rights.
Today in Britain we can all choose to Stand Up To Hatred and:
- Refuse to stand by and allow others to commit acts of hatred
- Recognise the language of hatred.
- Challenge newspapers and public figures when they are using the language of hatred.
- Stop using language which is discriminatory and stop others when we hear them doing the same.
- Recognise when hate crime is taking place and report it
- Recognise that a crime does not have to be committed for hatred to be expressed
- Learn from history that the ultimate result of unchecked and unchallenged hatred, prejudice, discrimination and racism is genocide.
Go to www.hmd.org.uk for more information or to watch ‘The Hate Game’.
December 21, 2008
Jane Haining, Scotland's Schindler
Campaigners urge recognition for the missionary who sacrificed her life in Auschwitz to stay with the Jewish children in her care.A British woman who sacrificed her life by refusing to leave Jewish orphans in her care is being hailed as one of the forgotten heroes of the Holocaust. Jane Haining's story of personal sacrifice and bravery is emerging only now, nearly 65 years after her death. She is among a list of British people whose selfless heroism during the Second World War should be recognised posthumously in the honours list, campaigners say.
A Presbyterian missionary, Miss Haining is one of only 10 Scottish people believed to have been killed in a Nazi death camp. After the Nazis invaded Hungary in March 1944, she was ordered to leave the school in Budapest where she worked and return to Scotland. But the 47-year-old refused, saying: "If these children need me in the days of sunshine, how much more do they need me in the days of darkness?"
Miss Haining was ordered to sew yellow Stars of David on the clothes of the orphan girls. A month later she was arrested for "offences" that included spying, working with Jews and listening to the BBC. She admitted to all but political activity and was deported to Auschwitz, tattooed with the number 79467, along with some of her wards. She was gassed in August that year.
Gordon Brown has praised Haining's bravery in his latest book, Wartime Courage: Stories of Extraordinary Courage by Ordinary Men and Women in World War Two, and he spoke about her on his first trip to Israel as Prime Minister this summer.
A film of her life is in production, drawing comparisons to Oskar Schindler, the industrialist who saved more than 1,200 Jews and whose story was portrayed in the 1993 film Schindler's List. BBC Scotland will broadcast a programme about her on 29 December.
The personal acts of resistance of Miss Haining and others like her are also being remembered on Holocaust Memorial Day on 27 January, whose theme in 2009 is "Stand Up to Hatred". The Holocaust Educational Trust is campaigning for the Government to change the honours system to allow posthumous knighthoods and honours to be awarded to British rescuers such as Frank Foley, the MI6 spy who is known as the "Stourbridge Schindler" for saving thousands of Jews.
Miss Haining's name is inscribed near to Schindler's on the Holocaust memorial at Yad Vashem in Israel.
Karen Pollock, chief executive of the Holocaust Educational Trust, said: "Jane Haining was a remarkable woman who took a stand during the Holocaust by refusing to leave the Jewish orphans in her care in Budapest, defying calls for her to return to Scotland. Her form of resistance ultimately ended with the sacrifice of her own life and today stands as an example of how ordinary people can do extraordinary things that make such a difference to others' lives.
"At the Holocaust Educational Trust we believe that the time is right to raise awareness of British Holocaust heroes and heroines. Their brave acts have never been appropriately recognised in this country, so we are calling on the Government to review the statutes governing the honours system so these British heroes can receive a posthumous honour they truly deserve."
Miss Haining, from the village of Dunscore in Dumfries and Galloway, worked in Glasgow before volunteering to become a matron of a girls' home in Budapest at the age of 35. She was on holiday in Cornwall when the Second World War broke out and immediately returned to Budapest.
According to her death certificate, she died in July 1944 at Auschwitz of "cachexia following intestinal catarrh", yet it is almost certain she was gassed with a group of Hungarian women on 16 August 1944.
One of Miss Haining's wards who survived the war said later: "I still feel the tears in my eyes and hear the siren of the Gestapo motor car. I see the smile on her face while she bade me farewell. I never saw Miss Haining again and when I went to the Scottish Mission to ask the minister about her I was told she had died. I did not want to believe it, but a long time later I realised that she had died for me, and for others."
The only memorials to Miss Haining in Britain are a stained glass window in Queen's Park church, Glasgow, where she once worshipped, and a tiny plaque in the Dunscore kirk.
The Church of Scotland said of her life: "Typical of all that is best in the Scottish tradition of missionary service, she gave the best years of her life to enhancing that tradition, and at the last gave life itself."
IoS
January 31, 2008
BNP told: 'Don't come to Holocaust service'
A row has erupted after two BNP councillors were asked not to attend a Holocaust memorial service.
Cllr Robert Bailey says he was asked to stay away from the service, marking National Holocaust Memorial Day, at the Peace and Memorial Garden, Rainham Road North, Dagenham, on Monday. But Barking and Dagenham Council leader Cllr Charles Fairbrass said Cllr Bailey had no reason to attend when the national leader of his party denies the Holocaust ever happened.
Cllr Bailey, who said he attended the service with party colleague Cllr Lawrence Rustem, despite the apparent ban, said he "expected an invite" as he was an elected councillor.
But Cllr Fairbrass, referring to BNP party leader Nick Griffin, said: "To quote his words, 'I have come to the conclusion that the extermination tale is a mixture of allied wartime propaganda, extremely profitable lie and latter day witch hysteria'."
Cllr Fairbrass said: "In addition, on a recent TV programme, a member of the BNP commented that they had never thought much about the Holocaust, but does query the number of deaths. Cllr Bailey is a member of the BNP. Why would he want to attend an event that remembers the Holocaust, when the leader of the BNP said it didn't happen?"
But Cllr Bailey, who says he received a letter on Friday explaining Cllr Fairbrass thought it would be "inappropriate" for him to attend, said he did not support Mr Griffin's views.
"What Mr Griffin speaks is for himself. He doesn't speak for the party. If he said those things in the past, that's up to him. We have no policy on the Holocaust. We are not a party of Holocaust deniers. Mr Griffin has acknowledged that what happened during World War Two, and consequently in many countries, has been a very sad event for everybody concerned. It's a time of remembrance. People died and suffered, they should be remembered by all.
Barking and Dagenham Recorder
Cllr Robert Bailey says he was asked to stay away from the service, marking National Holocaust Memorial Day, at the Peace and Memorial Garden, Rainham Road North, Dagenham, on Monday. But Barking and Dagenham Council leader Cllr Charles Fairbrass said Cllr Bailey had no reason to attend when the national leader of his party denies the Holocaust ever happened.
Cllr Bailey, who said he attended the service with party colleague Cllr Lawrence Rustem, despite the apparent ban, said he "expected an invite" as he was an elected councillor.
But Cllr Fairbrass, referring to BNP party leader Nick Griffin, said: "To quote his words, 'I have come to the conclusion that the extermination tale is a mixture of allied wartime propaganda, extremely profitable lie and latter day witch hysteria'."
Cllr Fairbrass said: "In addition, on a recent TV programme, a member of the BNP commented that they had never thought much about the Holocaust, but does query the number of deaths. Cllr Bailey is a member of the BNP. Why would he want to attend an event that remembers the Holocaust, when the leader of the BNP said it didn't happen?"
But Cllr Bailey, who says he received a letter on Friday explaining Cllr Fairbrass thought it would be "inappropriate" for him to attend, said he did not support Mr Griffin's views.
"What Mr Griffin speaks is for himself. He doesn't speak for the party. If he said those things in the past, that's up to him. We have no policy on the Holocaust. We are not a party of Holocaust deniers. Mr Griffin has acknowledged that what happened during World War Two, and consequently in many countries, has been a very sad event for everybody concerned. It's a time of remembrance. People died and suffered, they should be remembered by all.
Barking and Dagenham Recorder
January 28, 2008
Teenagers of all faiths remember Holocaust
The warmth which encompassed every faith community in Liverpool yesterday embraced elderly survivors of the Holocaust and victims' relatives at a memorial concert in the city. There to welcome them were teenage Jews, Christians, Hindus and - for the first time in an official capacity - Muslims who had been on a "walk of faith" to call for tolerance, friendship, and the sanctity of individual life.
"The Holocaust was not so much six million deaths as one death six million times," said the Archbishop of Canterbury, Dr Rowan Williams, taking up the theme which won Liverpool the honour of hosting National Holocaust Memorial Day this year.
He and Sir Jonathan Sacks, the Commonwealth chief rabbi, prayed together by a huge heap of spectacles, sent to Liverpool town hall from across the world and piled on a set of railway tracks like the infamous ones at Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration camp.
"This is the darkness," said Liverpool councillor Tina Gould, who worked for a year to organise the mixture of religious service, music, poetry and drama, before visiting Auschwitz earlier this month. "As a Jew and as someone who loves Liverpool, I find it very hard to bear. But look, here is the light."
She opened one of the big, mahogany doors of the town hall and colour flooded in from thousands of paper butterflies - an age-old symbol of the human spirit - made by children in honour of named individuals who died in the Nazi camps.
The main commemoration at the Philharmonic Hall, on Hope Street, which unites the two once warring cathedrals, also dealt in names rather than numbers. The packed audience listened to music by Hans Krasa, who died at Auschwitz, and Hans Gal, who escaped and ended up in Liverpool interned as an "enemy alien" during the war, but was shown around the city by friendly Scouser guards.
Martin Bell, the former independent MP and BBC reporter in the Balkans, then introduced the true story of Bosko and Admira, the Romeo and Juliet of Sarajevo whose love was destroyed by the hatred between Serbs and Bosnians.
Tahira, 15, a Muslim who joined Catholic, Anglican and Hindu teenagers on the faith walk, said: "That is what we must prevent, and we do it by meeting together and making friends - simple, and just what we do in Liverpool's youth council."
Guardian
"The Holocaust was not so much six million deaths as one death six million times," said the Archbishop of Canterbury, Dr Rowan Williams, taking up the theme which won Liverpool the honour of hosting National Holocaust Memorial Day this year.
He and Sir Jonathan Sacks, the Commonwealth chief rabbi, prayed together by a huge heap of spectacles, sent to Liverpool town hall from across the world and piled on a set of railway tracks like the infamous ones at Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration camp.
"This is the darkness," said Liverpool councillor Tina Gould, who worked for a year to organise the mixture of religious service, music, poetry and drama, before visiting Auschwitz earlier this month. "As a Jew and as someone who loves Liverpool, I find it very hard to bear. But look, here is the light."
She opened one of the big, mahogany doors of the town hall and colour flooded in from thousands of paper butterflies - an age-old symbol of the human spirit - made by children in honour of named individuals who died in the Nazi camps.
The main commemoration at the Philharmonic Hall, on Hope Street, which unites the two once warring cathedrals, also dealt in names rather than numbers. The packed audience listened to music by Hans Krasa, who died at Auschwitz, and Hans Gal, who escaped and ended up in Liverpool interned as an "enemy alien" during the war, but was shown around the city by friendly Scouser guards.
Martin Bell, the former independent MP and BBC reporter in the Balkans, then introduced the true story of Bosko and Admira, the Romeo and Juliet of Sarajevo whose love was destroyed by the hatred between Serbs and Bosnians.
Tahira, 15, a Muslim who joined Catholic, Anglican and Hindu teenagers on the faith walk, said: "That is what we must prevent, and we do it by meeting together and making friends - simple, and just what we do in Liverpool's youth council."
Guardian
January 15, 2008
Holocaust Memorial Day commemoration in Lancaster
Holocaust Memorial Day (HMD) aims to commemorate, educate and prompt action in the UK. The Day commemorates the lives lost in the Holocaust and as a result of Nazi racial and social policies, victims of more recent genocides and those affected by present day discrimination. HMD educates about the Holocaust and its lessons for today. It encouragesaction in the UK highlighting the continuing dangers of racism, anti-semitism and all forms of discrimination.
HMD is commemorated on or around 27th January each year. This is the anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration camp in 1945.
The atrocities of Cambodia, Bosnia, Rwanda and Darfur and ongoing hate crimes show that the international community, and each of us as citizens, has not truly understood or learnt the lessons of the Holocaust.
Ultimately the aim of HMD is to motivate people – individually and collectively – to ensure that the horrendous crimes, racism and victimisations of the Holocaust and more recent genocides are neither forgotten nor repeated, whether in Europe or elsewhere in the world.
Holocaust Memorial Day commemoration in Lancaster
A candlelight ceremony to remember all those targeted by the Holocaust and a procession to the Town Hall for performances by young people.
Attending this event
Where is the event being held?
The Town Hall, Lancaster
When is the event being held?
Thursday 24th January 2008 starting at 18:30
How can I attend this event?
Turn up on the evening
What will it cost?
Free
Organiser details
Name: Liz Neat NCBI Lancashire
Email: ncbilancs@ncbi.org.uk
Phone: 01524 383899
Web: http://www.ncbi.org.uk
Want to know what's going on in your area? Click here.
December 03, 2007
Muslim Council ends Holocaust Memorial Day boycott
Britain's largest Muslim body has voted to end its boycott of Holocaust memorial day, the Guardian has learned.
The Muslim Council of Britain voted this weekend to end its six-year protest, which had angered the government and Jewish groups.
The decision may lead to some groups leaving the MCB, an umbrella organisation with over 500 members. Its working committee voted 18 to 8 to end the boycott, which began in 2001. Those who voted to attend said the stance had allowed the MCB to be accused of antisemitism and seeming to disrespect the suffering of Jews.
Representatives of the MCB will attend the next memorial day, on January 27, in Liverpool. The decision is an emotional one for members. Those supporting the boycott believe the memorial day is too narrowly focused on Jewish suffering and ignores recent genocides such as that in Rwanda and of Muslims in Srebrenica.
Daud Abdullah, the council's deputy secretary general, voted against attending and said: "I'm against it [attending]. Nothing has changed, we saw no reason why it [the boycott] should change."
The former secretary general Sir Iqbal Sacranie voted to end the protest and said: "There are voices who have been attacking us from day one and trying to misconstrue our non-participation as antisemitism."
Sacranie's last years as secretary general, which ended in 2005, saw him publicly justifying the boycott despite personally opposing it. He called on groups upset by the decision to respect the democratic vote and stay within the MCB: "There will be some who will be very unhappy about it."
Sources say the MCB would have ended its boycott last year, but was attacked by the then communities secretary, Ruth Kelly, over the boycott, and did not want to be seen to be caving in to government pressure.
Last year the MCB's central working committee voted by 23 votes to 14 to continue the boycott. Sacranie said Kelly's intervention had backfired.
In a statement the MCB assistant general secretary, Inayat Bunglawala, said: "We have always sought a more inclusive title such as Genocide Memorial Day so that it would also give recognition to more recent massacres such as in Rwanda and that of Bosnian Muslims in Srebrenica. We wanted to uphold the principle of the equality of all human beings.
"However, there was a growing recognition among our affiliates that non-attendance of HMD was inadvertently causing hurt to some in the Jewish community. The MCB has always placed a lot of emphasis on inter-faith work and building ties ... so this was becoming a problem."
Guardian
The Muslim Council of Britain voted this weekend to end its six-year protest, which had angered the government and Jewish groups.
The decision may lead to some groups leaving the MCB, an umbrella organisation with over 500 members. Its working committee voted 18 to 8 to end the boycott, which began in 2001. Those who voted to attend said the stance had allowed the MCB to be accused of antisemitism and seeming to disrespect the suffering of Jews.
Representatives of the MCB will attend the next memorial day, on January 27, in Liverpool. The decision is an emotional one for members. Those supporting the boycott believe the memorial day is too narrowly focused on Jewish suffering and ignores recent genocides such as that in Rwanda and of Muslims in Srebrenica.
Daud Abdullah, the council's deputy secretary general, voted against attending and said: "I'm against it [attending]. Nothing has changed, we saw no reason why it [the boycott] should change."
The former secretary general Sir Iqbal Sacranie voted to end the protest and said: "There are voices who have been attacking us from day one and trying to misconstrue our non-participation as antisemitism."
Sacranie's last years as secretary general, which ended in 2005, saw him publicly justifying the boycott despite personally opposing it. He called on groups upset by the decision to respect the democratic vote and stay within the MCB: "There will be some who will be very unhappy about it."
Sources say the MCB would have ended its boycott last year, but was attacked by the then communities secretary, Ruth Kelly, over the boycott, and did not want to be seen to be caving in to government pressure.
Last year the MCB's central working committee voted by 23 votes to 14 to continue the boycott. Sacranie said Kelly's intervention had backfired.
In a statement the MCB assistant general secretary, Inayat Bunglawala, said: "We have always sought a more inclusive title such as Genocide Memorial Day so that it would also give recognition to more recent massacres such as in Rwanda and that of Bosnian Muslims in Srebrenica. We wanted to uphold the principle of the equality of all human beings.
"However, there was a growing recognition among our affiliates that non-attendance of HMD was inadvertently causing hurt to some in the Jewish community. The MCB has always placed a lot of emphasis on inter-faith work and building ties ... so this was becoming a problem."
Guardian
March 18, 2007
British Muslims extend a friendly hand to Jews
Opposition to growing racism helps bridge a religious divide
Britain's leading Muslim organisation will tomorrow signal a radical shift in its position when one of its senior members addresses a Jewish audience for the first time.
The decision by the Muslim Council of Britain (MCB) to attend a high-profile debate entitled 'Does more unite Muslims and Jews than divides them?' is being described as 'highly significant' by members of both communities. The move has led to speculation the MCB will drop its controversial opposition to Holocaust Memorial Day.
Inayat Bunglawala, the assistant general secretary of the MCB, who will take part in the debate, said both communities have become concerned at the growing rise of anti-Semitism and Islamophobia. 'It is crucial that we do not allow the Israel-Palestine conflict to hamper good and productive relations between Muslims and Jews in the UK,' Bunglawala said.
His comments have been warmly welcomed by members of the Jewish community. 'This debate is a very significant event,' said Nick Viner, chief executive of the Jewish Community Centre, which has sponsored the debate. 'The MCB and the Jewish community haven't seen eye to eye on many issues. I doubt we'll finish up with both sides saying everything is warm and cuddly, but by bringing people together we hope to have an intelligent debate.'
The debate, at the Everyman Cinema in Hampstead, north London, has already caused deep controversy within parts of the Jewish community. The Observer understands that there was initial pressure on the JCC to withdraw Bunglawala's invitation to speak.
But Jeremy Newmark, chief executive of the Jewish Leadership Council, said tomorrow's meeting could turn out to be 'a very important moment'. 'All too often some national Muslim organisations have endangered such co-operation by allowing rhetoric around the Middle East to slide into demonisation and anti-Semitism,' Newmark said. 'We are pleased the assistant secretary general of the MCB has now publicly acknowledged this and look forward to hearing him expand on how his organisation intends to tackle this problem.'
The MCB has been stung by criticism that it has not done enough to reach out to other faiths. Ruth Kelly, the communities secretary, highlighted the MCB's refusal to take part in Holocaust Memorial Day as a cause for concern. 'I can't help wondering why those in leadership positions who say they want to achieve religious tolerance and a cohesive society would choose to boycott an event that marks, above all, our common humanity and respect for each other,' Kelly said.
Rabbi Julia Neuberger, who will be attending the event, said that it was time for Jews and Muslims to acknowledge their similarities. 'I have always felt Jews and Muslims are much more like each other than Christians in the way they approach their faith,' Neuberger said. 'To Jews and Muslims, their faith is much more a way of life.'
Observer
Britain's leading Muslim organisation will tomorrow signal a radical shift in its position when one of its senior members addresses a Jewish audience for the first time.
The decision by the Muslim Council of Britain (MCB) to attend a high-profile debate entitled 'Does more unite Muslims and Jews than divides them?' is being described as 'highly significant' by members of both communities. The move has led to speculation the MCB will drop its controversial opposition to Holocaust Memorial Day.
Inayat Bunglawala, the assistant general secretary of the MCB, who will take part in the debate, said both communities have become concerned at the growing rise of anti-Semitism and Islamophobia. 'It is crucial that we do not allow the Israel-Palestine conflict to hamper good and productive relations between Muslims and Jews in the UK,' Bunglawala said.
His comments have been warmly welcomed by members of the Jewish community. 'This debate is a very significant event,' said Nick Viner, chief executive of the Jewish Community Centre, which has sponsored the debate. 'The MCB and the Jewish community haven't seen eye to eye on many issues. I doubt we'll finish up with both sides saying everything is warm and cuddly, but by bringing people together we hope to have an intelligent debate.'
The debate, at the Everyman Cinema in Hampstead, north London, has already caused deep controversy within parts of the Jewish community. The Observer understands that there was initial pressure on the JCC to withdraw Bunglawala's invitation to speak.
But Jeremy Newmark, chief executive of the Jewish Leadership Council, said tomorrow's meeting could turn out to be 'a very important moment'. 'All too often some national Muslim organisations have endangered such co-operation by allowing rhetoric around the Middle East to slide into demonisation and anti-Semitism,' Newmark said. 'We are pleased the assistant secretary general of the MCB has now publicly acknowledged this and look forward to hearing him expand on how his organisation intends to tackle this problem.'
The MCB has been stung by criticism that it has not done enough to reach out to other faiths. Ruth Kelly, the communities secretary, highlighted the MCB's refusal to take part in Holocaust Memorial Day as a cause for concern. 'I can't help wondering why those in leadership positions who say they want to achieve religious tolerance and a cohesive society would choose to boycott an event that marks, above all, our common humanity and respect for each other,' Kelly said.
Rabbi Julia Neuberger, who will be attending the event, said that it was time for Jews and Muslims to acknowledge their similarities. 'I have always felt Jews and Muslims are much more like each other than Christians in the way they approach their faith,' Neuberger said. 'To Jews and Muslims, their faith is much more a way of life.'
Observer
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