Victims of the holocaust to be remembered in Kettering as part of Holocaust Memorial Day

Victims of the holocaust will be remembered in Kettering this year as part of International Holocaust Memorial Day.

The event will take place in the art gallery gardens, off Sheep Street, at 2pm on Friday (January 27).

Hosted by the Mayor of Kettering, Cllr Keli Watts, the event consists of a short, non-denominational service of remembrance for victims of genocide worldwide including the current conflict in Ukraine.

The Holocaust Memorial Flag will be raised during the service from the flagpole in front of the council offices in Bowling Green Road.

Cllr Keli Watts said: “Holocaust Memorial Day is a chance to stop and reflect and remember those who have died in atrocities around the world.

“We will be thinking of people who were murdered in the holocaust as well as those who have lost their lives recently in Ukraine and other conflicts around the world.

“Everyone is welcome to attend and lay a white pebble by the fountain in an act of commemoration.”

The service will be led by the Mayor’s Chaplain, Helen Wakefield-Carr and there will be representatives of the Christian, Hindu and Baha’I communities present.

International Day of Commemoration or International Holocaust Memorial Day is in memory of the victims of the Holocaust marking the anniversary of the liberation of the Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration camp in Poland on the same day in 1945.

On the annual day of commemoration, the United Nations urges every member state to honour the six million Jewish victims of the Holocaust and millions of other victims of Nazism, and to develop educational programs to help prevent future genocides.