Coventry leads battle to Stand Up To Hatred
Stand up to hatred is the theme for this year's Holocaust Memorial Day, with a stark reminder that evil will prosper when good people sit back and do nothing.
Sir Jonathan Sacks, the Chief Rabbi, speaking at the national commemoration in Coventry, reminded his audience that Hitler was allowed to get away with genocide because restrictions on the movement of Jews were introduced gradually from 1933 onwards.
Who protested? Almost no one. The tragedy is that if people had protested, it would have made a difference, he added.
He likened the failure to combat growing violence to the difference between a frog being plunged into boiling water, in which case he will jump out, and being gently warmed until the water boils, in which case he will fall asleep and die.
By the end of the Second World War in 1945, some six million Jews had been murdered by the Nazis.
When deaths of other minority groups, including gipsies and homosexuals are taken into account, the final grisly toll is 12 million.
Sir Jonathan quoted Martin Luther King: In the end we will remember not the words of our enemies but the silence of our friends.
He emphasised the need to stand up to prejudice wherever it existed, whether it be anti-Semitism or the targeting of Muslim communities.
We must all take a stand whenever we see hate or prejudice in any form. Each of us can make a difference, Sir Jonathan said.
In a moving ceremony at the Belgrade Theatre, local artists, schools and actors helped Coventry re-emphasise its reputation as the city of international reconciliation. They were joined by survivors of the holocaust.
Organisers of Holocaust Memorial Day, which is on January 27, said the event highlighted the dangers of allowing hate crime to flourish.
They said around 260,000 hate crimes were estimated to have taken place in the UK in 2006 and people were regularly discriminated against because of their race, gender, religion or disability.
There was a strong emphasis on other examples of more recent genocide, including Cambodia, Rwanda and Bosnia.
Dr Stephen Smith, chairman of the Holocaust Memorial Day Trust, said: The Holocaust and all subsequent genocides provide a powerful warning of where hatred can lead us if left unchecked.
People are still attacked, discriminated against, persecuted and bullied because of who they are because of their religion, sexuality, race or disability and we need to do something to prevent it from continuing.
Britain today is not remotely like Nazi-occupied Europe, or Pol Pots Cambodia. But hatred is there, real and dangerous.
Singer and Strictly Come Dancing star Rachel Stevens gave her backing.
She said: The Holocaust, and the terrible hate motivated atrocities that took place, are something that we can now look back and learn from.
If by helping to build awareness, people are encouraged to react differently today and that helps to build a better future, then that can only be a positive step forward.
Holocaust Memorial Day has taken place in the UK since 2001 and falls on the anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz-Birkenau, the largest Nazi concentration camp.
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