Brentwood Borough Council is supporting a special event in Brentwood ahead of International Holocaust Memorial Day on January 27.

An exhibition will be held in the Committee Rooms at the Town Hall, Ingrave Road, from Thursday 21 January until Saturday 23 January, to give people an opportunity to remember the victims of the Holocaust Nazi persecution and other genocides.

The exhibition, which has been organised by the Christian Friends of Israel (Essex) and Tikvah Chadasha Synagogue (Shenfield and Brentwood), is open from:

. Thursday 21st January 9.30am-4.30pm
. Friday 22nd January 9.30am-4.30pm
. Saturday 23rd January 9.30am-1pm

The exhibition will include the story of Corrie Ten Boom, who hid Jewish people in the Ten Boom family home during the Holocaust and a new exhibition on Sir Nicholas Winton, a British humanitarian who organised the rescue of 669 children, most of them Jewish, from Czechoslovakia on the eve of the Second World War in an operation later known as the Czech Kindertransport.

Also included in the exhibition is a model of the Watch Shop/Home in Haarlem, Holland, in which Corrie and her family hid the Jewish people, a display depicting the route the trains took from Czechoslovakia to Harwich, England and replicas of the little amount of personal possessions that the children could bring with them.

You can also hear the stories of the Holocaust survivors of the Kindertransport in the Council Chamber on:

. Thursday at 11am – Otto Deutsch who travelled from Vienna, Austria
. Friday at 11am – Hana Kleiner who was actually one of “Nicky’s children”
. Saturday at 10.30am – Susie Frankenberg with her own unique story

Holocaust Memorial Day takes place on January 27th every year and it commemorates the liberation of the Nazi concentration camp at Auschwitz-Birkenau in January 1945. The exhibition will be open again at Brentwood County High School in the Main Hall between 5pm and 6.15pm on Saturday 23rd January. This will be followed by a Meeting of Commemoration at 6.30.pm which will include a one-woman dramatisation of the life of Corrie Ten Boom, called ‘Corrie Remembers’, featuring actress Susan Sandager as Corrie recounting the efforts of the Ten Boom family. The evening will conclude with a Ceremony of Commemoration.

Mayor of Brentwood, Councillor Mark Reed, said: “Ahead of Holocaust Memorial Day, this exhibition enables us to pause and remember those who have been victims of some of the worst atrocities in recent history – it shows the need to learn from the past in order to create a safer, better future and to take every opportunity to end discrimination.

This year’s national Holocaust Memorial Day theme is “Don’t Stand By”, where people are encouraged not to be bystanders to persecutions. The local exhibition shows this with both Sir Nicholas Winton and Corrie Ten Boom, who are perfect examples of those who didn’t stand by and in turn helped others through their brave actions.”

Organiser Moira Dare-Edwards said: “This is yet again another opportunity to commemorate those lives that were lost in the Holocaust. It is important to educate children, young people and adults about what happens when people are apathetic to their neighbours’ sufferings at the hands of their persecutors. As Edmund Burke said ‘All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing’.”

There is free admission to all the events, but donations are welcome.

For more information about the exhibition you can contact Moira Dare-Edwards 01277 213243 or mdareedwards@btinternet.com. For details on the national campaign, visit www.hmd.org.uk.