Remembering victims on Holocaust Memorial Day

03/02/2023

Holocaust Memorial Day is remembering the lives of six million Jews who died in the Holocaust, alongside the millions of other people killed in subsequent genocides in Cambodia, Rwanda, Bosnia and Darfur.

At 4pm on 27 January, the Hywel Dda Spiritual Care Department (Chaplaincy) held a ceremony at Hafan Derwen where a seedling Crab Apple tree was planted to remember all those killed.

During the ceremony, Euryl Howells, Senior Chaplain at Hywel Dda Health Board spoke of this year’s theme of ‘ordinary people’, which prompts and invites us to think about how easy it is for ‘ordinary people’ to become perpetrators.

“Ordinary people should reflect on how to challenge prejudice, discrimination, and hatred in society/workplace. As ‘ordinary people’ we need to learn from the lessons of the past, and offer resistance and persevere in creating a safer, better future.”

Holocaust Memorial Day also remembers the other victims who died. Gay people, priests, Gypsies, people with mental or physical disabilities, communists, trade unionists, Jehovah's Witnesses, anarchists, Poles and other Slavic peoples were all killed.

A representative of the Gypsy community, Leeanne Morgan, read a beautiful poem ‘Chickens in a Pen’ by Raine Geoghegan at the ceremony in remembrance of all those Gypsy’s who lost their lives.