Stamford Town Council and Peterborough Liberal Jewish Community mark Holocaust Memorial Day
A moving memorial service reflected on the fragility of freedom.
Crowds of people gathered in front of the memorial stone in St Michael’s Churchyard off Stamford High Street yesterday to pay their respects ahead of Holocaust Memorial Day, which is marked today (January 27).
Mayor of Stamford Andrew Croft noted the event has grown year-on-year and praised the contributions of ‘young people who will help to ensure the Holocaust is never forgotten’.
Scott Coe, Stamford’s former poet laureate, read a moving poem titled Scratch Marks on a Wall, which touched upon the atrocities millions of Jewish people faced in Nazi concentration camps.
Daffodils were laid on the memorial to represent the yellow badges Jewish people were forced to wear by the Nazis, before a Christian prayer by Rev Andrew Hollins of Stamford Methodist Church and the Kaddish, a 13th Century prayer, by Graham Berkman of Peterborough Liberal Jewish Community.
The Last Post was played by Julia Husbands, as well as the Tekiah Gedolah, which she played on a Shofar, a ram’s horn.
Mr Berkman was impressed by the number of people who attended to pay their respects.
He said: “It is so important that people don’t forget the horrors that took place.
“For young people, it is something that happened long ago so we need to keep people remembering.”
He added: “The sad thing of course is looking at various events and genocides, although we want to learn from history we don’t appear to be.”
After the service people gathered at Stamford Town Hall where Janet Berkman read an account on this year’s theme fragility of freedom.
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She told the moving story of Oskar Czapski, also known as Oscar Conway, her husband's cousin, who was sent to England by his parents using kinder transport.
He had been due to be deported on the The Arandora Star, which was torpedoed and sunk by a German U-boat, but a prominent leader of the Jewish community convinced authorities to let him stay, and in turn likely saved his life.
Artwork by pupils on the theme of 'fragility of freedom’ was on display in the courtroom of Stamford Town Hall.
