HOLOCAUST MEMORIAL DAY (HMD) 2019

Today is Holocaust Memorial Day and I was once again delighted to be able to record a short message in the Holocaust Memorial Book of Commitment for 2019, organised by the Holocaust Memorial Day Trust and the Holocaust Educational Trust (UK).

The theme this year is "Torn from Home" which encourages us all to reflect on how the enforced loss of a safe place to call ‘home’ which is part of the trauma faced by anyone experiencing persecution and genocide. ‘Home’ usually means a place of safety, comfort and security. On HMD 2019 we will reflect on what happens when individuals, families and communities are driven out of, or wrenched from their homes, because of persecution or the threat of genocide, alongside the continuing difficulties survivors face as they try to find and build new homes when the genocide is over.

HMD 2019 will include marking the 25th anniversary of the Genocide in Rwanda, which began in April 1994 and the 40th anniversary of the end of the Genocide in Cambodia, which ended in 1979. HMD activity organisers may particularly want to acknowledge this milestone anniversary, and reflect on how this theme impacts on members of the Rwandan and Cambodian communities.