Lowestoft Holocaust Ceremony Goes Ahead This Week

Monday, 24 January 2022 14:48

A service to mark Holocasust Memorial Day has been held in Lowestoft this week.

A service to mark Holocasust Memorial Day has been held in Lowestoft this week.

As well as the millions who were killed - the event remembered the hundreds of child refugees who were brought to Lowestoft ahead of World War 2 - as part of the ‘Kindertransport’ rescue effort. Lowestoft Town Council held the service at Lowestoft Railway Station on Thursday (27th January). Holocaust Memorial Day takes place annually on 27th January – which is the anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz-Birkenau, to remember the six million Jewish people that were murdered during the Holocaust. Millions of other people were also killed under the Nazi regime and subsequent genocides around the world, such as in Cambodia, Rwanda, Bosnia and Darfur. The Kindertransport was the organised rescue effort of children from Nazi occupied Germany that commenced in November 1938 ahead of World War 2. This was when the British Government agreed to allow the temporary admission for up to 10,000 unaccompanied children from Germany, Austria and Czechoslovakia, who were at risk from the Nazis. Some 520 child refugees arrived at Lowestoft Central Station the following month. In all, it is believed that 9,500 children came to the UK and hosted by foster families, hostels and camps, before the Kindertransport ended with the outbreak of War. The majority of children saved, never saw their families again.