DOZENS of people gathered around the Soviet Memorial in the grounds of the Imperial War Museum last Sunday to commemorate the Holocaust.
They included the Mayor of Southwark, Local MP Simon Hughes, ambassadors from many of the former Soviet republics, uniformed veterans, their friends and supporters and a platoon of youthful RAF cadets.
The event began with a short service conducted by Rabbi Alan Greenblat, who told those assembled that Holocaust Memorial day is to remember all the victims of Nazism: Jews, Romanies, gays, the sick and handicapped and those deemed by the Nazis to be “politically undesirable” – totalling many more than six million.
He also warned of the dangers of those who now try to deny the truth of the Holocaust and the importance of keeping the memory alive as the number of eye-witnesses diminishes every year.
Just before the wreath-laying Local Mayor Bob Skelly reminded everyone of the crucial role played by the Soviet forces in turning the tide of the war and what is owed to those who gave their lives fighting Nazism.
Those who laid wreaths included Robert Laurie of the New Communist Party, ambassadors from Russia, Belarus, Kyrgyzstan, Ukraine and Uzbekistan, the Association of Jewish ex-Servicemen and Women, the North Russia Club, the Royal British Legion, the Russian Convoy Club, London Region Ucatt, the Marx Memorial Library, the Society for Cooperation in Russian and Soviet Studies and the Soviet Memorial Trust Fund.
They included the Mayor of Southwark, Local MP Simon Hughes, ambassadors from many of the former Soviet republics, uniformed veterans, their friends and supporters and a platoon of youthful RAF cadets.
The event began with a short service conducted by Rabbi Alan Greenblat, who told those assembled that Holocaust Memorial day is to remember all the victims of Nazism: Jews, Romanies, gays, the sick and handicapped and those deemed by the Nazis to be “politically undesirable” – totalling many more than six million.
He also warned of the dangers of those who now try to deny the truth of the Holocaust and the importance of keeping the memory alive as the number of eye-witnesses diminishes every year.
Just before the wreath-laying Local Mayor Bob Skelly reminded everyone of the crucial role played by the Soviet forces in turning the tide of the war and what is owed to those who gave their lives fighting Nazism.
Those who laid wreaths included Robert Laurie of the New Communist Party, ambassadors from Russia, Belarus, Kyrgyzstan, Ukraine and Uzbekistan, the Association of Jewish ex-Servicemen and Women, the North Russia Club, the Royal British Legion, the Russian Convoy Club, London Region Ucatt, the Marx Memorial Library, the Society for Cooperation in Russian and Soviet Studies and the Soviet Memorial Trust Fund.
photo: Robert Laurie laying flowers on behalf of the NCP
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