Holocaust Memorial Day: Special talk at Bradford Cathedral

Holocaust Memorial Day 2020 marks 75 years since the liberation of Auschwitz-Birkenau and Lilian Black, Chair of the Trustees of the Holocaust Survivors’ Friendship Association and the Holocaust Exhibition and Learning Centre at Huddersfield University, will give the address.

Her late father, Eugene, was deported from his home in Hungary in 1944 and sent to Auschwit-Birkenau. He lost most of his family to the Holocaust but survived concentration camps and forced labour to make a new life in the UK.

Lilian Black said: “The theme this year is Stand Together so I will speak about our family’s experience of what happens when we don’t stand together, about the Hungarian deportations to Auschwitz-Birkenau, life after liberation and making a new life.

“The anniversary is important because it marks symbolically the beginning of the liberation of the camps and the awful revelations at first hand of the horrors which left all humanity with the challenge of wondering how such horrors were possible.

"These crimes against humanity were carried out by ordinary men and women in a terrible coalescing of conditions where genocide became part of a civilised society’s racial ‘rationale’ which allowed millions to be murdered systematically in a German Nazi state sponsored act over years across the whole of occupied Europe.

“[Through this address] my hope is for people to understand better the circumstances which led to the Holocaust and to see the relevance for today and how every person can make a difference in their own lives and those of others and to have the courage to stand together.”

The Evensong and Address will take place from 4pm to 5.30pm on Sunday, January 26, with refreshments served afterwards.

The public can find out more and read the cathedral's blog with Lilian Black at bradfordcathedral.org/whats-on/holocaust-memorial-day/.

Holocaust Memorial Day takes place on Monday, January 27. More details can be found on the official website at hmd.org.uk.