Holocaust Memorial Day 2024

A Civic Remembrance Event, with the theme ‘Fragility of Freedom’.

This international day of remembrance focuses on the six million Jewish men, women and children murdered in the Holocaust, and millions more people killed under German Nazi persecution, and in subsequent genocides in Cambodia, Rwanda, Bosnia and Darfur.

The Lord Mayor will open this year’s civic remembrance event, which will include a keynote speech by Holocaust survivor Dr Martin Stern MBE.

Leeds Heritage Theatres’ Leeds Actors in Training (LAIT) have created a performance for the event focussing on Gregory Stanton’s 10 Stages of Genocide. The ensemble will follow Jean’s story through the stages in a fictional exploration of how the 10 stages could present in the modern world. The story will be told through spoken word and movement in respect of this year’s theme: ‘The Fragility of Freedom’.

There will also be music performed by Steve Shulman and Nigel Waterhouse and a memorial prayer will be sung.

The event will conclude with a reading of the seven statements of commitments with candles lit by representatives of the different groups persecuted, including Holocaust survivors, people with additional needs, the LGBT+ community and Remembering Srebrenica.

The event will be British Sign Language (BSL) interpreted.