University of Leicester marks Holocaust Memorial Day

The University of Leicester will mark Holocaust Memorial Day on Friday, 27 January with a number of events organised by the Stanley Burton Centre for Holocaust and Genocide Studies and University of Leicester Students’ Union.

Holocaust Memorial Day is an international day of remembrance for the six million Jews murdered during the Holocaust, alongside millions of other people killed under Nazi persecution and during more recent genocides in Cambodia, Rwanda, Bosnia and Darfur.

27 January marks the anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz-Birkenau, the largest Nazi death camp.

At Leicester, The Stanley Burton Centre for Holocaust and Genocide Studies is the oldest of its kind in Britain and the first research centre dedicated to the study of the Holocaust to be established within a British University.  

Founded in 1990 through the determination and effort of Professor Aubrey Newman, Emeritus Professor of History at the University of Leicester, whose passion for such a centre saw him secure an endowment from the Burton Trust that kick-started its creation.

To mark Holocaust Memorial Day, Professor Newman will address the theme of this year’s City of Leicester Holocaust Memorial Day, “Ordinary People”, event at New Walk Museum & Art Gallery on Saturday, 28 January (7pm). More details about this event can be found here:

The Stanley Burton Centre will be hosting a virtual panel in collaboration with the Wiener Holocaust Library and the Institute for the History of the German Jews in Hamburg on Monday, 30 January (7pm).

University of Leicester Students’ Union streamed the Holocaust Memorial Day Trust’s online commemoration in the Sir Bob Burgess Lecture Theatre 2 on Thursday, 26 January (7pm).

Director of the Stanley Burton Centre, Dr Svenja Bethke said: “ On the occasion of Holocaust Memorial Day we commemorate the people murdered during the Holocaust and other genocides; we also draw attention to the fact that we must confront mechanisms of discrimination and exclusion, that have always preceded genocides when we face them. Our event this year discusses responses of ordinary people to persecution in the form of a panel discussion.“

More information about the Stanley Burton Centre for Holocaust and Genocide Studies can be found here: https://le.ac.uk/stanley-burton

More information about what the University of Leicester is doing to mark Holocaust Memorial Day can be found here: https://le.ac.uk/holocaust-memorial-day