A Holocaust Memorial Day Service has been planned in Pembroke for this Friday, January 27, 2023.

The service will take place at 7.30pm at Westgate Chapel, Westgate Hill, Pembroke SA71 4LB.

Rev'd Joel Barder said:

“This Friday will mark 78 years since Auschwitz-Birkenau, the infamous camp created for Nazi Germany's systematic murder of European Jews, was liberated. The small number of survivors remind us of the horrors of genocide, and ask of us to vow 'Never Again.'

“The theme for this year's Holocaust Memorial Day is ‘Ordinary People’, and it focuses our attention on the fact that those targeted were ordinary people like you and I, that the perpetrators in the majority were ordinary people, and the bystanders were also ordinary people, like you and I. 

“The Holocaust, followed by genocides in Cambodia, Bosnia, Rwanda and the Darfur, reminds us of our need to stand up against hatred that leads to violence and murder. As ordinary people, we must not allow these events to happen again.

“My family are Jewish in background, leaving Krakow, Poland in the mid 1850s, fleeing with nothing to try and make a better life. They made their way to the UK, and I am grateful that they settled here, and made a difference, but more, that unlike more than 90 per cent of Krakow's Jews, they were not murdered by the Nazi war machine.

“I choose to remember, mark, and promise 'Never Again' every year. Will you join me?”

The Holocaust Memorial Service will be held at 7.30pm on Friday, January 27 in Westgate Evangelical Chapel, Pembroke.

For further information, contact Joel Barder on [email protected] .