UK – BBC to broadcast Holocaust Memorial Day

JEWISH CHRONICLE

BBC Two will broadcast the Holocaust Memorial Day UK ceremony in January.

The Holocaust Memorial Day Trust announced that the public broadcaster would be showing the 2016 ceremony, which is held on January 27 each year.

Chief Executive of the Holocaust Memorial Day Trust Olivia Marks-Woldman said: “On Holocaust Memorial Day hundreds of thousands of people will come together at events across the country to reflect on the ways in which silence and indifference can allow discrimination, persecution and genocide to take place, as well as honouring those who refused to stand by, and who saved people, or took action against prevailing views and beliefs.

“These events, and the BBC’s broadcast of the national ceremony, are so important in allowing us to learn from the past and take steps to build a better future.”

Head of BBC Events Phil Dolling said: “I am very proud to be broadcasting this important event marking Holocaust Memorial Day. Last year’s ceremony was one of the most powerful and moving occasions I have ever been involved with and I am sure that the programme in 2016 will be just as poignant and thought-provoking.”

Holocaust Memorial Day commemorates victims of the Holocaust, as well as the subsequent genocides that took place in Cambodia, Rwanda, Bosnia and Darfur.

The 2016 theme for HMD is “Don’t stand by” which calls on people to consider their responsibilities not to stand by in the face of discrimination, persecution and, in the worst excesses, genocide. The ceremony will include testimony from Holocaust survivors as well as explore more recent genocides such as Darfur.