L-R: Holocaust survivor Walter Sekules, Mrs Sabina Higgins, President Michael D Higgins, Holocaust survivor Suzi Diamond, Holocaust survivor Tomi Reichental, Minister Simon Coveney, Minister Eoghan Murphy
International Holocaust Memorial Day this year commemorates the 75th Anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz.
Rev Trevor Gribben, Clerk of the General Assembly and General Secretary of the Presbyterian Church in Ireland, represented the Church at Ireland’s National Holocaust Memorial Day Commemoration in the Mansion House, Dublin ( yesterday 26 January).
Organised by the Holocaust Education Trust Ireland, in association with the Department of Justice and Equality and Dublin City Council, the event commemorates the six million Jewish people, and millions of other victims of the Holocaust, murdered by the Nazis regime and their collaborators.
“It is an incredibly humbling experience to gather with others from across Ireland to mark National Holocaust Memorial Day, remembering those who lost their lives in a systematic act of depravity, that is still within living memory,” Rev Trevor Gribben said.
“It is so important that as time moves on the Holocaust does not simply become a supremely dreadful moment in history that features in books and documentaries. Genocide has taken place since 1945, and last week, as they gathered in Jerusalem to commemorate the 75th anniversary of the liberation of the Auschwitz, world leaders warned against a global rise in anti-Semitism.”
Mr Gribben concluded by saying, “It was a privilege to represent Presbyterians north and south at this incredibly poignant event. Collectively, as a society, we must always remember and tell each new generation what happened, to ensure that it does not happen again. In that spirit, and as Jesus reminds us, we also remember what is written in the Torah, which is also our Old Testament, ‘… love your neighbour as yourself. I am the LORD’” (Leviticus 19:18).
The National Holocaust Memorial Day commemoration takes place in Dublin on the Sunday nearest to the 27 January every year, the date in 1945, when the Soviet Red Army liberated Auschwitz.
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