Outdoor service set to mark Holocaust Memorial Day in Haywards Heath this year

It starts at 2pm on Thursday (January 27) at the War Memorial in Muster Green, Haywards Heath, and has been organised by Haywards Heath Amnesty International with support from Haywards Heath Town Council.

“It is vital that the genocide of Jewish people is never, ever forgotten,” said Irene Balls, chair of Amnesty International Haywards Heath.

“All the other victims of Nazism, and other genocides, must also be remembered,” she said.

Haywards Heath town mayor Howard Mundin and Mid Sussex District Council chairman Margaret Belsey will participate in the event.

School students, members of the Jewish community, faith groups and residents will also help mark the Holocaust with prayers, readings and poetry. Everyone is welcome.

January 27 marks the 77th anniversary of the Soviet Red Army liberating Auschwitz, one of the most infamous Nazi death camps, in 1945.

The day was chosen to remember those murdered in extermination and slave camps in occupied Europe.

The victims included six million Jewish people, hundreds of thousands of Roma, homosexuals, disabled people, Christian clergy, Russian prisoners of war and Polish civilians.

Irene said: “If we forget the Holocaust, there is always a real danger of history being repeated.

“Even today it is widely believed that acts of genocide are taking place in China against Uyghurs, and in Myanmar (Burma) against Rohingya.

“Anti-Semitism and all other forms of racism, intolerance, bigotry and hatred is of grave concern, which we ignore at our peril.”