Young people get behind Holocaust Memorial Day

YOUNG people from across Rotherham have been getting involved in marking this year's Holocaust Memorial Day.

On the day itself, which falls this year on the coming Wednesday, young people from Oakwood School and pupils from St Ann’s Primary will be taking part in a public event at All Saints’ Square, hosted by the Mayor of Rotherham, Cllr Maggi Clark, with songs and readings.

The following evening around 25 young people from Rotherham will be holding their own Don’t Stand By event at Rotherham Town Hall, to share stories of those past and present of those prepared to bear witness to hate crime and discrimination through presentations, drama and artwork.

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Rotherham’s Early Help Support Services based at the myplace youth centre, were also commissioned to create an artwork honouring asylum seeker Abdulsalam Abdullah as part of a national initiative marking the anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz-Birkenau on January 27.

The Holocaust Memorial Day Trust, the charity responsible for marking Holocaust Memorial Day in the UK, has commissioned 12 groups from each region and nation of the UK to create artworks that share the stories of people who did not stand by in the face of hatred, persecution or genocide.

Rotherham’s young people have created a series of masks, demonstrating the conflict in Darfur, Sudan, and the story of Abdulsalam Abdullah, and their artwork can be viewed on the Trust’s website at

http://heroes.hmd.org.uk/portfolio/items/abdulsalam-abdullahs-journey-of-hope/

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All 12 artworks will be displayed in an exhibition at the UK Commemorative Event for Holocaust Memorial Day in London on January 27, to an audience of Holocaust and genocide survivors, MPs and dignitaries.

The artwork will also be displayed publicly on city centre big screens across the UK.

Olivia Marks-Woldman, chief executive of the Holocaust Memorial Day Trust, said: “I want to thank and congratulate the young people from Rotherham Early Help for their hard work in creating this artwork, which is a fitting tribute to Abdulsalam Abdullah, helping to remind us all of our responsibilities not to stand by to hatred and persecution.”

Cllr Clark added: “Congratulations to our young people who were chosen to take part in this national exhibition — they have really done Rotherham proud.”

 

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