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Holocaust remembered


Memorial services took place across Europe on Saturday, to mark Holocaust Memorial Day, in memory of the six million Jews and other victims of the Nazi death camps. Victims of more recent atrocities including Cambodia, Rwanda, Bosnia and Kosovo were also remembered. January 27 is the date on which the Auschwitz concentration camp was liberated by the Soviets in 1945. On the eve of the memorial, the UN General Assembly on Friday adopted a resolution condemning Holocaust denial. The resolution, proposed by the United States and co-sponsored by more than 100 countries, says: "ignoring the historical fact of these terrible events increases the risk they will be repeated". On Saturday evening, hundreds of people attended a concert at Berlin Cathedral. The proceeds will go to a group that provides counselling and support for survivors of the Holocaust living in Israel. In Poland, where the day is marked in the official Catholic Church calendar, many services and memorial events were held. In Bristol, Father Michael Cleary SVD, Parish Priest of St Mary-on-the-Quay near the city centre, offered special prayers and lit a Candle of Remembrance after the 12.15pm Mass. Fr Michael said: "The dreadful and haunting memory of what happened to Jewish people here in Europe over sixty years ago is a reminder of the holocausts that have taken place since and continue to do so in our own day. "They point to one of the darker aspects of human sinfulness: the capacity of seemingly ordinary people to participate on all sorts of levels in the destruction of those who are somehow 'different'."

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