Holocaust Memorial Day 2021 commemorations in Shropshire

Local communities, schoolpupils and individuals took time to reflect upon the Holocaust and other genocides in a number of ways in Shropshire, for Holocaust Memorial Day on 27 January 2021. This included following the national call by the Holocaust Memorial Day Trust to put a candle in their windows at 8pm that night.

The planting of two cherry trees in the county, to add to Shropshire’s cherry tree orchard of remembrance, will be marked with tree dressing ceremonies due to be arranged later in the school year if the coronavirus pandemic eases.

For Mereside CE Primary Academy in Shrewsbury, where the very first cherry tree in the memorial orchard was planted in 2015, the Day was the focus for a number of interlinked activities. Ffion Carr, Assistant Principal, told us that the children studied the online resources and Year 6 children wrote a poem. They read the poem around the tree when they went out to measure it: it is now around 2m 95cm, with hundreds of buds on it.

Each child chose a person to remember and they did illustrations with the person’s name on it with candles and “we will remember” on them. The children then displayed their work in their windows at home that evening, with a candle to remember them.

A short video has been produced and kindly shared by the school, for which the link is as follows. It is also on the school website.

Mr Michaels from the South Shropshire Interfaith Forum, who lit the first candle with Mereside pupils in 2015, said:

“These are the kinds of moments the children will hold forever and lead future generations in remembrance. They are truly the real ‘Light in the Darkness’.”

The South Shropshire Interfaith Forum held an online event on the evening of the day itself, to which they were welcomed by the High Sheriff of Shropshire, Dean Harris JP, and at which people presented their reflections on the Holocaust.

Sohayb Peerbhai, Imam at Craven Arms Mosque, said: 

“We all gave different angles to our perspective of ‘the light in the darkness’. We ended with a short prayer which we are consistent with every year and which encompasses much of the Holocaust reflection. Our chair, David Wiseman, then closed the event.”

Gwilym Butler, Shropshire Council’s Cabinet member for communities, place planning and regulatory services, said: 

“In encouraging everyone to light a candle at home if they were able to do so safely, I had every confidence that the children of the county would play their part. I am really moved to see what the children of Mereside School have been doing, both at school and at home, to commemorate the Holocaust and other genocides.

“We have not been able to be face to face as much as we would like to have been, but this has not prevented us from marking the Day in unity together. I am delighted that further commemorations will continue during the coming months, as we continue to grow our cherry tree orchard of remembrance in Shropshire.”

One of the individuals taking time to reflect upon the Holocaust and its lessons was Alden Whittaker-Brown at the council. He said: 

“I may prove an example of why first impressions don’t always give the whole picture, and why our collective understanding of the rich tapestry of our varied and personal histories is so important.

“Despite my name, I am of Jewish origin. My maternal grandfather was called ‘Samuel Ezekiel Isaacs’. My mother’s side of the family were constant emigrants, making their way, generation by generation, westward from Russia until they settled in London’s East End just before the War. As the rise of fascism took hold in parts of Europe, the family changed their name, for self-preservation, to ‘Thomas’. So my mother was raised as Pamela Thomas. She then married a wholly Anglo-Saxon descendant, ‘Cyril Arthur Whittaker Brown’, who, in jest, would claim we could trace his lineage back to King Harold Godwinson (Battle of Hastings and all that…).

“But with my own memories of my maternal grandparents, their faith, their practices and their stories of their pasts and their forebears, I very much resonate with the pivotal importance of us maintaining a consciousness of the tragedy of the Holocaust for individuals, for families, for communities, for nations, for faiths and for all human kind.”

 

 Further information 

Shropshire Holocaust Cherry Tree Orchard

There are two cherry trees for 2021, one of which will be planted in the north east at our chosen school for that area, as we continue to grow our cherry tree orchard across the whole county. The school is Longlands primary school in Market Drayton. This follows on from the planting in 2020 of two trees at two rural federated schools in the south west, Onny and Lydbury North.

The second tree will be planted in the locality of Shirehall in central Shrewsbury. to remain as a focal point in that area.

Both trees have been donated by the tree team at the council, as part the Community Tree Scheme, and will be planted by the county arboriculturalist, John Blessington, ahead of tree dressing ceremonies. These are being planned in with children, the interfaith forums, the gypsy liaison officer, and representatives of the Armed Forces here in Shropshire, to coincide with significant dates for the Roma and traveller community and to mark the role played by British forces in the liberation of the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp. 

About Holocaust Memorial Day 

Holocaust Memorial Day is commemorated on 27 January – a date that marks the liberation of Auschwitz-Birkenau, the largest concentration camp in occupied Poland. It is a day for everyone to remember the six million Jewish people murdered in the Holocaust; the millions of people killed under Nazi persecution, including from the Roma and Sinti community; and those killed in genocides which followed in Cambodia, Rwanda, Bosnia, and Darfur.

Holocaust memorial resource pack

Shropshire Archives and Shropshire Council colleagues produced a Holocaust Memorial Day 2021 online resource pack, which is available on the website at www.shropshire.gov.uk

This is focused upon:

• the British forces’ liberation of Bergen-Belsen on 15 April 1945, for which we have regimental records including an eye witness statement and a contemporary bilingual statement in German and English about the atrocities perpetrated at that camp; and
• efforts within Shropshire through the Mayor of Shrewsbury’s Committee for Jewish refugee children, and through the records relating to Bunce Court School for German Jewish refugee children. This last has been produced as a separate Word document which may be used with all schools, as it does not contain material that would be distressing to the younger age groups.