Holocaust Memorial Day 2022
Different groups around Suffolk are holding memorial services to spend time reflecting on the impact of attempted genocide, both under the Nazi regime and in other dreadful events around the world in the decades since.
This year we will be pausing and reflecting on the attempted genocide of people in key demographics. At West Suffolk College, we are choosing to focus our memorial on those with physical and/or mental disabilities.
Interfaith groups in Ipswich will also be marking the Memorial two days before West Suffolk College with a gathering at the University Studies and Professional Development Centre.
We are pleased to welcome the Deputy Town Mayor Cllr Patrick Chung to open the event at 12.30 at the University Studies and Professional Development Centre, Western Way on Friday 29th April. Students and staff from across the college will be contributing with music, poetry, and readings to help us to reflect on these themes. We hope to promote awareness of both the horrors of the past, which we all hoped would never be repeated, and the brutalities being enacted round the world to this very day.
During the Second World War, Suffolk hosted a number of refugees fleeing from the Nazi regime. 25 Jewish refugees found safety at the Palace House Stables in Newmarket. Students from the Newmarket Academy created their own tribute earlier this year. Children were also brought to Suffolk as part of the Kindertransport, many arriving at Lowestoft train station before being relocated to various places, including Barham House in Claydon. In the decades since the War ended, Suffolk has also become home to people fleeing genocides in other parts of the world.
Holocaust Memorial Day was instituted in 2005 by the General Assembly of the United Nations, that year being the sixtieth anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz and many other camps. In response to this, various countries around the world have instituted their own commemorative acts, some of them on different days of the year.
Music for our event has been composed by students David Csontos and Jack Culpin, both from the BA (Hons) Commercial Music Production degree. This free event is open to all students and staff at the college as well as members of the wider public who would like to participate. The event will be filmed and posted on West Suffolk College’s and University Studies’ social media platform so that people unable to attend in person will still be able to listen to the music, poetry readings, and so forth.
Normally this event is held on the day that commemorates the liberation of Auschwitz but, due to the pandemic, it was postponed this year to April 29th, which marks the day that that Dachau was liberated by the Americans in 1945.