Holocaust Memorial Day on 27 January, each year, encourages remembrance of genocide across the world. In common with other public buildings across the UK, the offices of Epping Forest District Council will be lit in purple to mark this special day. This year’s theme is Bridging Generations. This year’s theme reminds us that the responsibility of remembrance does not end with the survivors. It lives on through their children, their grandchildren and through us all.

Epping Forest DC representatives explain: 

"Six million Jews were murdered during the Holocaust, alongside millions of others killed under Nazi persecution of other groups, and in genocides that followed in Cambodia, Rwanda, Bosnia and Darfur.

"We pay tribute to the survivors and those impacted by such horrific events, some of whom are Epping Forest district residents."

Councillor Louise Mead, Chairman of Epping Forest District Council

Councillor Alan Lion has his own personal story of the holocaust.

"I am the son of a Holocaust Survivor. My father escaped from Germany after Crystal Night and in 1939 came to England, his sister, my aunt, arrived on the Kinder Transport a year before.

"His parents – my grandparents – were sent by train to the Riga Concentration Camp in Poland in 1941 and were shot. Many of my family were murdered by the Nazis, only one returned."

Councillor Alan Lion, Vice-chairman of Epping Forest District Council