Holocaust Memorial Day (HMD) was observed across the world on Monday, including in our Diocese.
Parishioner and District Councillor Clare Apel, from Our Lady and the Saints of Sussex, is the daughter of a Holocaust survivor, and leads the group which brought the opera "Last Train to Tomorrow" (which tells the story of the Kindertransports), to Chichester Festival Theatre this week. Clare told BBC Radio Sussex that being the daughter of a survivor had been challenging:
"I've been to Dachau. My uncle died in Dachau and one experience of a concentration camp damaged me psychologically. I know too much about the misery that was created."
You can read more here.
Also in the parish, St Wilfrid's Church was honoured to host the "Selsey Holocaust Memorial Day Exhibition", including the garment above, which came from Theresienstadt Concentration Camp, and was worn by a child of about three years old.
Reporting over 15 years ago, the BBC highlighted the story of a Brighton-born nun, Mother Riccarda Beauchamp Hambrough, who was baptised in St Mary Magdalen Church and declared a Servant of God by Pope Benedict XVI in 2010. Mother Riccarda is credited with helping to hide persecuted Jews, Communists and Poles in her convent in Rome. Piero Piperno, one of those hidden aged 15, said the nuns “gave us back our dignity [encouraging us to] live our own beliefs" highlighting "that we must not feel any need to pretend, and that we must live and pray as Jews.” Click here to find out more.
Sources: BBC News; Catholic Herald; photo courtesy of Fr David Murphy