Archbishop of York joins anniversary events for Holocaust Memorial Day

[Office of the Archbishop of York] Archbishop of York Stephen Cottrell and the bishop of London, the Rt. Rev. Sarah Mullally, attended two remembrance events Jan. 27 to mark Holocaust Memorial Day and the 80th anniversary of the liberation of the Auschwitz-Birkenau death camp.

The theme of this year’s Holocaust Memorial Day is “Learn for a better future,” urging people to reflect on the lessons of the Holocaust and more recent genocides.

The first was a service at the Great Hall at Lambeth Palace, hosted by the Council of Christians and Jews. Cottrell introduced the event along with Rabbi Jonathan Wittenberg, rabbi of the New North London Synagogue and senior rabbi of Masorti Judaism UK. It then included testimonies from Holocaust survivor Martin Stern and second-generation Roma survivor, Daniela Abraham. Stern survived camps at both Westerbork and Theresienstadt, held there after the Nazis invaded the Netherlands.

Writer and ceramicist Edmund de Waal, whose Jewish ancestors were driven out of Vienna by the Nazis in 1938, offered a reflection. He also had created a candleholder especially for the ceremony, which Mullally and others lighted.

Cottrell and Mullally later attended a national service of remembrance at the Guildhall in London, joined by members of the royal family, members of Parliament, faith leaders, and survivors of the Holocaust and the Cambodia, Rwanda, Bosnia and Darfur genocides.

Cottrell said, “Eighty years on since the liberation of Auschwitz, we gather to mark Holocaust Memorial Day remembering the millions of people who were killed during the Second World War. The Holocaust is a horrifying reminder of what can happen when the world turns its head. Across their death camps, the Nazis murdered more than six million people, mostly Jews, each made lovingly in God’s image. We must not ignore such crimes.

“I pray for the survivors of this sin against humanity, the majority of whom were children at the time, born into a world that wanted to kill them. Each one of them is a living testimony to the horrors of war, but also the towering resilience in the face of such unspeakable evil. I give thanks for them, and pray for God’s protection over them as they confront again this painful part of their past, and our history.

“‘Evil triumphs when good men do nothing’ – let us strive for peace and recognize we are of the one same humanity.”