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.
