To commemorate Holocaust Memorial Day (HMD) on 27 January, Torfaen council organised a week of free public events across the borough. One of these events is an exhibition of community art, a photographic exhibition by Mark Saunders and the unveiling of a specially commissioned painting by Eileen Mills-Long and Janita Tapp to commemorate the event was unveiled at a launch event held on the 23rd  January. This exhibition is now being shown for a week at Blaenavon Heritage Centre until the 8th  February.

The theme for this year’s HMD was ‘Speak Up, Speak Out’, from the poem ‘First They Came’ by Pastor Martin Niemoller.

This year, Torfaen was the HMD host authority for Wales and the Holocaust Memorial Day Statement of Commitment was recited by the leader of the council, councillor Bob Wellington, and a printed version of the Statement signed by the Mayor of Torfaen, plus the chairs of the six town and community councils in Torfaen Councillor Wellington said: "We commemorate Holocaust Memorial Day on the anniversary of the liberation of the Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration camp, which took place on 27 January 1945.

"HMD is a time for us all to reflect and to remember the victims of Nazi persecution and murder, and subsequent genocides in Cambodia, Rwanda, Bosnia and Darfur."

Auschwitz-Birkenau was the largest Nazi killing camp, where approximately 1.1 million men, women and children were murdered and has become a symbol of the horror of industrialised murder, and what can happen when hatred is left unchecked.

First Minister Carwyn Jones, who read a recital at the launch of the event at Cwmbran Stadium, said: "Holocaust Memorial Day is an opportunity to remember those who died and also to show our respect to those who have survived the horror of genocide.

"Events throughout the week served as both a tribute to the victims, and a reminder of the terror discrimination can bring. It is important we are reminded of the lessons of the Holocaust to prevent such atrocities happening again."

The launch event also heard a harrowing account from Kemal Pervanic, a survivor and witness of the more recent atrocities in Bosnia. Kemal, who visited Torfaen to address audiences in Cwmbran, Pontypool and Blaenavon, and is a survivor of the notorious Omarska concentration camp, which was set up by Bosnian Serb forces in the early days of the Bosnian War. The camp, nominally an ‘investigation centre’, was uncovered by British journalists in 1992, leading to international outrage and condemnation. Kemal now lives in England and is the author of The Killing Days: My Journey Through the Bosnian War.

For information, contact 01495 742775 or email ian.mcgill@torfaen.gov.uk.