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University to remember Holocaust victims

Press release issued: 26 January 2007

The University of Bristol will hold a Holocaust Memorial Day ceremony today [Friday, 26 January]. The ceremony, to mark the anniversary of the liberation of the extermination and concentration camps, will commemorate the victims and survivors of one of the worst acts of inhumanity and genocide committed in modern history.

The University of Bristol will hold a Holocaust Memorial Day ceremony today [Friday, 26 January].  The ceremony, to mark the anniversary of the liberation of the extermination and concentration camps, will commemorate the victims and survivors of one of the worst acts of inhumanity and genocide committed in modern history.

The commemorative service, organised by the Multifaith University Chaplaincy, will be an interactive ceremony with music, poems, prayers and readings, including a silence.  The Lord Mayor and Lady Mayoress of Bristol will also be in attendance. The ceremony will be held at the Victoria Rooms, Queens Road at 1.15 pm.

Through personal stories and pictorials, the ceremony will highlight the individual victims of the Holocaust including, the Jews, gypsies, disabled people and others. It will also focus on the genocides of Armenia, Bosnia, Rwanda and Sudan. The Lord Mayor will light a candle as a symbol of hope and a reminder of the vow ‘never again’. Carrying away stones of remembrance will bring the ceremony to a close.

Rabbi Natan Levy, Orthodox Jewish Chaplain at Bristol University’s Chaplaincy Centre and one of the ceremony organisers, said: “The theme of this year’s commemoration is ‘the dignity of difference’. Genocide has and will exist as long as we fear that which is different. When we can embrace our differences, only then will hope emerge.”

 

Further information

Please contact Caroline Clancy for further information.
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