This year’s annual Holocaust Memorial Day will encourage residents in Wigan and Leigh to “Speak Up and Speak Out” to create a safer and better future!
 
Wigan and Leigh will unite on Friday 27 January to remember those killed in the Holocaust and other genocides.
 
Wigan Leisure and Culture Trust (WLCT), in partnership with Wigan Council, has organised two Holocaust memorial ceremonies of commemoration in the Council Chamber at Wigan Town Hall at 10.30am and the Derby Room, Turnpike Centre, Leigh at 1.30pm.
 
Nationally, Holocaust Memorial Day is commemorated every January and marks the anniversary of the liberation of the Nazi concentration camp Auschwitz-Birkenau in 1945.
 
This year’s theme asks us all to Speak Up, Speak Out to create a safer, better future.
 
The theme asks us to think about the rights, responsibility and duty we all have to speak up when we see or hear something which we believe to be wrong. It challenges us to learn about what happens when we don’t speak out and what can happen when we do use our voice.
 
In Wigan the ceremony will combine readings and reflection from the Pemberton Pens, Sacred Heart Primary School and Bill Hampson from the Epiphany Trust.
 
In Leigh the ceremony will combine readings and reflection from pupils from Lowton High School, Sacred Heart Primary and Westleigh High.
 
Organiser Carole Tyldesley, from WLCT’s Heritage Services, said: “This year Holocaust Memorial Day looks at how we make a choice when to speak up and considers the dangers in both choosing to speak out and not speaking.
“We would encourage people to come down to either of these two commemorations and take just an hour out of a busy day to reflect not only on the past but how we can all create a fairer future.”
 
Wigan’s Mayor, Cllr Joy Birch, will also be reading out a Statement of Commitment in honour and recognition of those who lost and risked their lives. 
 
From Saturday 21 January -Saturday 4 February visitors to the Museum of Wigan Life on Library Street will have a chance to view original archive material relating to local men and women who chose to speak up for their beliefs, including First World War conscientious objector, Arthur Turtle.
 
In a display by Richard Jackson they will also be able to see and read about Dr Janusz Korczak who, during the Second World War, stayed with the children in his Warsaw orphanage, refusing sanctuary from the Nazis choosing instead to stay with the children as they were sent to the gas chambers at Treblinka.