Members of the NEC (National Executive Committee) are mandated to attend an event to commemorate the Holocaust. I was very fortunate to attend the National Holocaust Memorial Day commemoration programme, coordinated by the Holocaust Memorial Day Trust (HMDT), the charity responsible for coordinating HMD.

Imagine… remember, reflect, react

“Good things happen when people make them happen, bad things happen when people let them.”

These were the words of veteran journalist and former independent MP Martin Bell at the National Holocaust Memorial Day commemoration on Sunday (27 January). Martin Bell reported from war-torn Kosovo during the early 1990s. His story was one of many moving accounts given by a distinguished line up of speakers and performers at the Liverpool Philharmonic Hall.

Holocaust Memorial Day is an extremely important event in the calendar. This year’s theme challenged us to consider the past and act in the present. The theme for the 2008 event, ‘imagine…remember, reflect and react’, explores the Jewish experience of the Holocaust, more recent genocides and persecutions of other communities by the Nazis. Recent experiences have demonstrated the emptiness of the promises made after the Nazi persecution of the 1930’s and 1940’s. ‘Never again’ was the promise, which time and again has fallen upon deaf ears: Kosovo, Rwanda, Burundi, the Democratic Republic of Congo and today in Darfur; these are all experiences that have gone, not unnoticed, but ignored at crucial times.

Throughout the programme of this powerful and challenging event, the themes of ‘imagine, remember, reflect and react’ were addressed in sequence. Through dance, music and spoken accounts, performers and speakers told of past and present discrimination in a bid to address the need for cross-faith approaches to securing peace and preventing future genocides and crimes against humanity. Young people were targeted with a message: we must discuss the atrocities of the past and act now to prevent repeated humanitarian catastrophes.

Fundamental to the work of NUS is the commitment to challenging discrimination in all its forms. HMD is an important event that reminds us of the consequences of inaction and indifference to discrimination and racism. Let it be a solemn reminder of the consequences of our indifference. Every one of us can take action and contribute towards making a small difference. This is the message that presides; the question is whether or not we want to hear it?

Earlier this year, NUS produced a guide of ideas for actions in calling for an end to the crisis in Darfur. See the Society and Citizenship Zone for more information.

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