Exeter commemorates Holocaust Memorial Day

Harry Craig and Charlie Gershinson

Music Editor and News Editor

EXETER commemorated Holocaust Memorial Day on Friday 27th January with a service at Exeter Cathedral that included several guest speakers and representatives from across the city’s secular and religious communities.

The Lord Mayor of Exeter, Cllr. Yolonda Henson, was joined by special guest Robert Rinder, a TV personality, barrister and descendant of a Holocaust survivor. Leaders of Exeter’s Christian, Jewish, Muslim, Humanist and Romani communities were also represented, making a powerful statement of solidarity across religious and ethnic groups.

Each year, the Holocaust Memorial Day Trust chooses a theme, around which commemorations are centred. This year’s theme was ‘ordinary people’ and their role in the Holocaust, whether as collaborators, bystanders or victims. This was a key part of Exeter’s service, raising poignant questions relevant to us today about what ordinary people can do to challenge the prejudice and ignorance that led to the Holocaust eighty years ago.

The service opened with reflections by the Dean of Exeter, the Very Reverend Jonathan Greener, as well as a performance of an original song by St. Thomas Primary School about accepting those in need of refuge. The first part of the service concluded with dignitaries and special guests lighting candles in remembrance of the victims of the Holocaust.

The second section focused on the stories of two of the special guests, Mr. Rinder and psychologist Bernie Graham, who both participated in the 2020 BBC documentary series ‘My Family, The Holocaust and Me’.

After showing a short clip from the documentary, Mr. Graham spoke about how he discovered the story of his mother as a child refugee on the Kindertransport, and the impact this had on him. This was followed by a speech by Charlotte Lane, a committed Holocaust educator, who spoke about the schools project she is a part of. This served as a reminder of the importance of education and young people in Holocaust memory, as well

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as the value of the stories of ordinary people, which can “humanise” an otherwise complex narrative.

The final part of the service was a speech by Mr. Rinder, who spoke movingly about what the day meant to him. Like many of the morning’s speakers, he warned against complacency to avoid a repeat of the Holocaust, and emphasised how, “in an age of fake news […] and hate, these stories have a power to make change.”