As part of activities planned in Shropshire to mark the Holocaust and other genocides, school pupils from St Leonard’s CE Primary School, Bridgnorth and St John’s Catholic Primary School, Bridgnorth will be planting a cherry tree at their schools to mark Holocaust Memorial Day (HMD).
The cherry trees will add to the orchard of remembrance that is gradually being grown across Shropshire, following on from the tree planted at Sheriffhales Primary School in 2022.
Shropshire Council has worked with South Shropshire Interfaith Forum and Shrewsbury Interfaith Forum to organise ceremonies with the two Bridgnorth schools, in which Kirstie Hurst-Knight and Christian Lea, the local Shropshire Councillors for Bridgnorth East and Astley Abbotts, will represent the council and share the national HMD theme for this year, which is ‘Ordinary People’.
Holocaust Memorial Day takes place on 27 January each year and is a time to remember the millions of people murdered during the Holocaust under Nazi persecution, and in the genocides in Cambodia, Rwanda, Bosnia and Darfur.
Additionally, the South Shropshire Interfaith Forum is holding a commemorative service on Sunday 29 January 2023 at 5pm at the United Reform Church in Church Stretton, to which all are invited.
In further activity, Shropshire Libraries will be showing the HMD film about the theme Ordinary People in the foyers at Shrewsbury Library and Ludlow Library.
Shropshire Archives has produced a blog sharing information about the Jews in medieval times here in Shropshire, which highlights that Jews were driven out of Bridgnorth as part of national persecution of them at that time.
There is a free poetry reading from 12.30pm to 1.30pm today at Shrewsbury Abbey, as well as a public event by Telford and Wrekin Council at 11am at Telford Minster.
Cecilia Motley, Shropshire Council’s Cabinet member for adult social care, public health and communities, said:
“I am heartened at the range of events being organised by ourselves and by others this year to mark Holocaust Memorial Day. In so doing, we may all seek to ensure that the Holocaust and other genocides are never forgotten, and to continue to send a visible and powerful message of our collective stance against anti-Semitism and any other forms of discrimination.
“I would like to also encourage local people to light a candle to place safely in their windows at home at 4pm tomorrow, to send a further visible message, alongside the memorial cherry trees that we plant with children in Shropshire.”
Kirstie Hurst-Knight, Shropshire Council’s Cabinet member for children and education, added:
“In making the decision as a council on location of cherry trees for 2023, we have been guided by wishing to take further positive action here in Bridgnorth, following a distressing incident of anti-Semitic graffiti found in a public green space area of Bridgnorth town centre in November 2022.
“I and other Bridgnorth councillors were appalled, and also very conscious that local primary school pupils may have come across this graffiti before it was spotted and removed, and not been fully aware that it is a hate crime, and the reasons why it is so abhorrent.
“We will be highlighting that the graffiti could have come from people passing through the area rather than local residents, a point that we made in our Newsroom story at the time: this is more about raising awareness that such incidents may occur anywhere, and will never be tolerated.”