Comrades joined war veterans, diplomats and anti-fascists
last week at the annual Holocaust Memorial Day commemoration, organised
by the Soviet War Memorial Trust and Southwark Council.
This year marks the 75th anniversary of the liberation of
Auschwitz-Birkenau by the Red Army on 27th January 1945. The liberation of
Auschwitz, the largest death camp in the Third Reich, is now commemorated as
International Holocaust Remembrance Day to remember those who suffered Nazi
persecution. Every year, on that day, the millions of victims of the Nazi
Holocaust are remembered in the gardens outside the Imperial War Museum in
south London.
The Nazis killed six million
Jews during the Second World War. There were hundreds of thousands of Soviet
citizens amongst them. About three million Soviet prisoners of war perished in
extermination camps along with millions of other victims of Nazi terror.
The Act of Remembrance began
with a procession led by veterans’ associations to the Holocaust Memorial Tree
and the Soviet War Memorial, followed by the laying of wreaths and floral
tributes by the company that included the Russian and Israeli ambassadors as
well as the mayor of Southwark, veterans’ associations, representatives of
community groups and local political parties, including the New Communist Party
(NCP). It closed, as always, with a
minute’s silence and the Last Post.
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