PEOPLE in Redditch are invited to attend this year’s Holocaust Memorial Day (HMD) event to remember the millions of people killed in the Holocaust and genocides worldwide.
Holocaust Memorial Day is tomorrow (Saturday January 27) and to mark this important day, anyone wanting to go along should meet at Redditch Library at 10.30am for the memorial service.
Schools, groups and partner organisations are taking part in the event which is being co-ordinated by the Holocaust Memorial Committee.
Redditch Library will also be coordinating the construction of a piece of community artwork of birds, fragile but free and escaping from a cage.
Residents who would like to contribute to the artwork and commemorate HMD 2024, can pick up a blank bird outline at the library and decorate it however they choose.
Schools and groups are also being encouraged to take part.
No two birds in the artwork will be the same, celebrating the differences between people, cultures, religions, genders, and everyone being free to be their true themselves.
The artwork will be available for all to see after the main event.
Coun Juliet Barker Smith, who has been arranging the artwork, is encouraging people to create their own.
“This year’s theme is Fragility of Freedom, and is why we have chosen the image of a birdcage.
“We want as many birds as we can to commemorate Holocaust Memorial Day.”
Coun Peter Fleming, chair of the Steering Group, said: “We can all reflect on how freedom is fragile and vulnerable to abuse.
“As a community, let’s pledge not to take our freedoms for granted, and consider what we can do to strengthen freedoms around the world.”
Holocaust Memorial Day is the day for everyone to remember the millions of people murdered in the Holocaust, under Nazi persecution, and in the genocides which followed in Cambodia, Rwanda, Bosnia, and Darfur.
This year’s theme of ‘the fragility of freedom’ aims to highlight how easily freedom can be taken and how it is fragile and vulnerable to abuse.
