Hartlepool residents invited to light a candle in honour of Holocaust Memorial Day
Hartlepool is commemorating Holocaust Memorial Day by holding a programme of virtual events and a candle-lighting ceremony in support of ‘standing up to persecution and inhumanity.’
Residents are being encouraged to join a host of virtual events today, Wednesday, January 27 organised by Stand Together, a group of young people in Hartlepool aged 13-16, with the support from Hartlepool Youth Service.
The programme, in honour of Holocaust Memorial Day will be streamed on Facebook and YouTube this year due to coronavirus restrictions and will follow this year’s theme of ‘Be The Light In The Darkness.’
Stand Together, who ‘promote solidarity, tolerance and the need to value difference and diversity’, are holding a candle-lighting ceremony at 7pm where viewers will be invited to light their own candle in memory of those murdered in the Holocaust and in other genocides in Cambodia, Rwanda, Bosnia and Darfur.
The events will run from 10am until 8pm on Facebook and YouTube where films, poetry, music, photography and a display of light creations made by schools, community groups and young people will be featured.
Stand Together member Mark Popplewell said: “Our event encourages people to reflect on the depths to which humanity can sink, but also the way individuals and communities resisted the darkness to be the light before, during and after genocide.
“It’s a call for action – we can all be upstanding rather than bystanding. We can all stand in solidarity. We can all choose to be the light in the darkness.”
Here is the full programme and timings for the day.