People across Bristol and the surrounding area are standing alongside the city's growing Jewish community to remember victims of genocide on Holocaust Memorial Day. Today (January 27) is the anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz II-Birkenau, the largest Nazi death camp - and a poignant day to remember the six million Jews murdered during the Holocaust, alongside millions of people from other groups persecuted by the Nazis.
Holocaust Memorial Day is also a time to commemorate people killed in subsequent genocides in Cambodia, Rwanda, Bosnia, and Darfur. In Bristol, Rabbi Singer from Chabad of Bristol said: “It's a time to focus on what needs to be changed, when we go back and identify what went wrong so we’re not repeating the same mistakes again.
"For Jewish people there’s more to it, the family aspect but also the religious aspect in ensuring our continuity and survival, which is our victory against Hitler and what he represented.” It comes as recently released census figures show the Jewish community in Bristol has grown from 1,079 residents in 2011 to 1,567 in 2021, and now makes up 0.2 per cent of the overall population.
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Some parts of Bristol have strong Jewish communities, according to the census results. For example, 128 residents living in Stoke Bishop are Jewish - or 1.2 per cent of the population of that neighbourhood.
That is the strongest Jewish community in Bristol and the surrounding area. Stoke Bishop is closely followed by Cotham, where 1.1 per cent of the population is Jewish, and then University & Brandon Hill (1.0 per cent).
At the 2021 census, there were 271,347 people living in England and Wales who identified as Jewish, growing from 263,346 a decade ago. That means Jewish people make up 0.5 per cent of the nation’s population.
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While the Jewish community remains a small part of England and Wales, it continues to grow - more than 80 years after Nazi dictator Adolf Hitler launched his evil program of genocide. Holocaust Memorial Day has taken place in the UK since 2001, with a UK Commemorative Ceremony and thousands of local activities taking place all across the UK on or around January 27 each year.
The UK played a leading role in establishing it as an international day of commemoration in 2000, when 46 governments signed the Stockholm Declaration. In May 2005, Holocaust Memorial Day trust was registered as a charity and to date it has overseen massive growth of local commemoration activities.
Auschwitz-Birkenau, the largest Nazi death camp, just west of Krakow in Poland was liberated by the Soviets in 1945. It is estimated that some 1.1 million people were killed at Auschwitz and Auschwitz II-Birkenau alone during the second world war.
The real number will likely never be known as it is only possible to count the recorded deaths that occurred but many more will have taken place. People of all faiths or no faith at all are welcomed to join in the remembrance of the six million Jews massacred in concentration camps, along with more recent genocide victims, by lighting a virtual candle in remembrance.
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