Ahead of Holocaust Memorial Day tomorrow, 27 January, Holocaust survivor Steven Frank BEM visited the Watford Workshop this morning.

The Watford Workshop supplies the memorial candles that are used to commemorate HMD events across the country. It has been providing supported employment, work, and life skills training to adults with disabilities since 1964. Steven was joined by Holocaust Memorial Day Trust CEO Olivia Marks-Woldman OBE, Chair of the Board of Trustees Laura Marks CBE, and Vice Chair Sir Leigh Lewis.

The tour was to raise awareness of the Holocaust Memorial Day Trust’s annual Light the Darkness campaign, which encourages people across the UK to light a candle at 8pm on Saturday 27 January 2024 in remembrance of those murdered in the Holocaust and more recent genocides in Cambodia, Rwanda, Bosnia, and Darfur.

At the same time, some of the most iconic landmarks across the UK will light up in purple to mark the occasion, including Piccadilly Lights, the London Eye, the Gherkin, the Imperial War Museum, Blackpool Tower, and Albert Dock in Liverpool.

Holocaust Memorial Day (HMD) is the international day to remember the six million Jews murdered during the Holocaust, alongside the millions of other people killed under Nazi persecution of other groups and during more recent genocides in Cambodia, Rwanda, Bosnia, and Darfur. It is commemorated each year on 27th January, the anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz-Birkenau, the largest Nazi death camp.

Steven Frank BEM was born in 1935 in Amsterdam. His father was a prominent lawyer who joined the Dutch Resistance and issued false documents to Jews to enable them escape to Switzerland. In 1942, he was betrayed and arrested before being sent to Auschwitz-Birkenau where he was murdered. A year later, Steven and the rest of the family were taken to Westerbork and then to Theresienstadt in Czechoslovakia where they were liberated by the Red Army on 9th May 1945.

Speaking about the tour of the factory, Holocaust Memorial Day Trust CEO Olivia Marks-Woldman said, “We are so pleased to partner with Watford Workshop for our Light the Darkness initiative this year. Watford Workshop does an amazing job offering supported employment and life skills training to adults with disabilities, and the team has done us proud, packing and distributing thousands of candles so that people across the country can Light the Darkness. Sadly, disabled people’s contributions haven’t always been valued and on Holocaust Memorial Day we also commemorate and mourn the horrific persecution of disabled people that the Nazis encouraged and implemented. Nazis targeted people with mental and physical disabilities with forced sterilisations and murder. The message of Holocaust Memorial Day could not be clearer: Every human life is worth living, everyone’s humanity is valued and valuable. We are so grateful to everyone at Watford Workshop for making the candles that enable people across the UK to Light the Darkness.”

ENDS

1. For media enquiries, please contact mackenzie@atalanta.co or call +44 07831 961278.

2. The Holocaust Memorial Day Trust (HMDT) is the charity established and funded by the UK Government to promote and support Holocaust Memorial Day (HMD) in the UK.

3. More information about HMDT, and events happening to commemorate HMD in 2024, can be found at www.hmd.org.uk.

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