THIS year's Holocaust Memorial Day will take place online next week.

The annual day chosen to remember the millions of victims of genocide around the world will be marked by Bradford Council on Wednesday.

At 11am, 6 million+ Charitable Trust and Creative Scene, in partnership with Bradford Council, Kirklees Council and the Holocaust Exhibition and Learning Centre, invite everyone to join Be the Light in the Darkness, an online event to mark Holocaust Memorial Day.

You can join from home to reflect and remember at https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC3P5--UHuY1QNI3IQuMKhKQ/videos

It is the day we remember the six million murdered Jewish people and other victims of Nazi persecution before and during the Second World War.

Further victims of genocide in Cambodia, Rwanda, Bosnia, Darfur (Sudan) and Myanmar are also remembered.

Local authority leaders, faith representatives and local people involved in community projects will share reflections, candle lighting and stories depicted through puppetry. This is the first time that Bradford Council and Kirklees Council have come together with the other partners for this joint commemoration.

Iby Knill, 97-year-old survivor of Auschwitz, will light the first candle of remembrance from home. She says: “I was there in the darkness of the Holocaust. Walk towards the light and take people with you.”

The theme of Be the Light in the Darkness for Holocaust Memorial Day 2021 is an affirmation and a call to action for everyone marking this anniversary.

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It asks us to consider different kinds of ‘darkness’, for example, identity-based persecution, misinformation, denial of justice; and different ways of ‘being the light’ for another, such as resistance, acts of solidarity, rescue and illuminating mistruths.

Bradford Council Leader Cllr Susan Hinchcliffe said: “Never has there been a more apt theme for the circumstances in which we all find ourselves.

"We must all stand in solidarity. The need to stand together with others in our communities in order to stop division and the spread of identity-based hostility in our society is just as important today as it was in our history.

"We can choose to be the light in the darkness.”