In Someone Else’s Shoes: Image from Flyer
Dear colleagues and friends
We are pleased to invite you to the Kirklees Holocaust Memorial Day event which will take place on Wednesday 28 January 2015 at Dewsbury Town Hall. Doors will open from 5.30 onwards. The national theme is Keeping the Memory Alive (taken from a poem by Iby Knill); 2015 is the 70th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz and the 20th anniversary of the genocide in Srebrenica, Bosnia.
The Kirklees focus is “In Someone Else’s Shoes”. At a time when innocent people are suffering and dying as a result of armed conflicts and terrorism across the world, it is more important than ever that dialogues remain open and that we do not confuse any faith or race with the actions of particular governments or organisations. Groups of people across Kirklees have put together decorated shoeboxes containing personal stories of persecution or genocide, combined with background information and requests for people to step into the shoes of someone who is different to ourselves. There will be shoeboxes from Holocaust survivors, Bosnian, Kurdish, Burundian, Hungarian Roma, and Ukrainian communities. the shoeboxes have been exchanged and groups will be responding to one another’s stories.
Kirklees has been chosen to receive a candle commemorating the 70th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz, designed by artist Anish Kapoor. There are only 70 of the candles in existence and of the hundreds of events taking place all over the country, the Kirklees event has been selected to host and light one of them. It will be lit by Holocaust survivor Eugene Black and 10 year old Maja who is the granddaughter of a Hungarian Roma woman who survived Auschwitz too.
We hope you will be able to support this important event and the communities and schools participating in it.
With very best wishes
Kim Strickson