Rotherham to host Holocaust Memorial Day music and poetry

YOUNG singers will mark Holocaust Memorial Day with a performance of music and poetry in All Saints’ Square next week.

Shoppers, traders and town centre workers are being encouraged to gather in the square at noon on Wednesday (27) for a series of songs and readings linked to this year’s HMD theme of Don’t Stand By.

Joining civic dignitaries including Mayor of Rotherham, Cllr Maggi Clark, cuncil leader Cllr Chris Read, council opposition leader Cllr Caven Vines and Lord Lieutenant of South Yorkshire, Andrew Coombe, will be young people from across the borough.

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Students from Oakwood High School will read inspirational quotes from survivors of the Holocaust and sing John Lennon’s Imagine.  

An original song called Don’t Stand by will be performed by Nic Harding, reaching communities co-ordinator at myplace Rotherham, while 16-year-old Tom Jackson, a Youth Cabinet member, will read a poem entitled First They Came, by Pastor Martin Niemoller. Children from St Ann’s Primary School will also sing at the event.

People will be invited to hang “pledges” against all forms of hate crime and discrimination on a symbolic “message tree”.

Young people from Rotherham will be holding their own Don’t Stand By event at Rotherham Town Hall next Thursday evening to share stories of those past and present of those prepared to bear witness to hate crime and discrimination.

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A GLOBALLY-renowned exhibition about the life of Anne Frank will come to Riverside House in Rotherham from February 15.

The Anne Frank + You exhibition will be staged in the Gallery at Riverside until March 30.

It includes personal photos of Anne and her sister Margot, replica artefacts from Anne's life and the Holocaust and a near life-size replica of Anne’s bedroom in the secret annexe where she hid.