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Holocaust Memorial Day at Millennium Bridge & Soviet War Memorial

London SE1 website team

Holocaust survivor Ben Helfgott lit a candle at the Millennium Bridge on Sunday morning to mark Holocaust Memorial Day.

Ben Helfgott at Millennium Bridge
Ben Helfgott at Millennium Bridge

This year's Holocaust Memorial Day – held annually on 27 January to mark the anniversary of the liberation of the Auschwitz concentration camp in 1945 – had the theme 'communities together: build a bridge'.

The short ceremony at the north end of the Millennium Bridge included speeches by Foreign Office minister Alistair Burt MP and communities minister Don Foster MP as well as performances by a gospel choir.

A symbolic candle was lit by Holocaust survivor Ben Helfgott – president of the Holocaust Memorial Day Trust – and carried onto the bridge across the Thames.

Southwark's local commemoration of Holocaust Memorial Day began at Amigo Hall with an address by Rabbi Baroness Neuberger and concluded with a ceremony at the Holocaust memorial tree in Geraldine Mary Harmsworth Park and wreath-laying at the adjacent Soviet War Memorial.

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