Holocaust Memorial Day event will share survivor stories and bridge generations
Holocaust Memorial Day takes place next week (Tuesday 27th January) with residents invited to honour the anniversary alongside St Helens Borough Council.
Article date: 20 January 2026
Held annually on 27th January, Holocaust Memorial Day falls on the anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration camp where more than a million people died during the Second World War.
Six million Jewish people, including children, were murdered in the Holocaust. Separate Nazi persecutions killed millions of other non-Jewish civilians and prisoners of war. While millions more were killed in subsequent genocides in Cambodia, Rwanda, Bosnia, and Darfur - all remembered on Holocaust Memorial Day.
The council's Library Service marks Holocaust Memorial Day every year, with this year's event bringing performances and readings from school children and young people, who will invite residents to reflect and consider the national theme: Bridging Generations.
The theme is a reminder that the responsibility of remembrance doesn't end with the survivors - it lives on through their children, their grandchildren and through all of us.
Special guest, Sam Neumann (Northern Holocaust Education Group) will attend to share the story passed down from his mother, Bobby, who as a Jewish teenager in Nazi Germany allied Hungary, was deported to Auschwitz concentration camp in 1944 - a terror she endured and survived.
Councillor Sue Murphy MBE, Cabinet Member for Localities, Culture and Heritage, said:
"As the years pass, we grow more distant in time from the Holocaust and from other, more recent genocides that are commemorated on Holocaust Memorial Day. While time can heal many wounds, that distance also brings a risk - memory fades and the reality of what happened becomes abstract or even questioned.
"It is vital that we take opportunities like Holocaust Memorial Day to learn from the life stories and experiences of the victims and survivors, to pass them down and to counter all forms of discrimination. I'm so grateful and proud that our Library Service has dedicated themselves for many years now in service of these aims, and I hope that residents can join us on what will be a poignant and significant day."
The event takes places on Tuesday 27th January, 10am-11:30am, at St Helens Town Hall.
Attendance is free but places are limited, so you must book your seat online.
Learn more about Holocaust Memorial Day.