Tomorrow is Holocaust Memorial Day.  It is a day to remember the millions of people murdered in the Holocaust under Nazi persecution and in other genocides which followed in, amongst other places, Cambodia, Rwanda, Bosnia and Darfur. January 27th marks the day that Auschwitz camp was liberated by the Red Army nearly 80 years ago, but genocide did not begin with the Nazis nor did it stop with the defeat of the Nazis. The killing of large groups of people because of their race, their religion or their nationality has been with us throughout history.

Genocide is recognised as an international crime, and whether or not individual states have ratified the Genocide Convention of 1948, they are all bound by the principle that genocide is a crime prohibited under international law. It does not just refer to killing a large number of people from a particular nation or ethnic group with the aim to destroy that group, but also includes deliberately inflicting conditions of life calculated to bring about a group's destruction, imposing measures to prevent births, forcibly transferring children of a persecuted group to other groups, or causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group just because they are members of the group. It is still going on in different areas of the world and we need to recognise this fact and speak up when we see injustice, prejudice and violence.

This year's theme for HMD is One Day.  One day that we can put aside to come together to remember, to learn and to hope that there will be One Day in the future with no genocide.

For the victims of the Holocaust and other systematic persecutions, those who were targeted tried to hold out for the One Day when their suffering would be over. On this One Day in 2022 we all need to learn from the past in order to build a better future. We need to think about what we can do to achieve "one day with no genocide."  It is not enough to do nothing. We must always take sides when we witness injustice, however difficult that may be. As individuals, we may not have great influence on the world stage but we all have influence within our own sphere and I believe that is where we must start. For evil to prosper it requires good men to do nothing and we must strive to be those good men who do something, however small.

So on 27th January, please try to educate yourself about what happened during the Holocaust. Perhaps think about what you might have done had you found yourself living in Nazi Germany. How might you have resisted the insidious drift towards what in hindsight is unthinkable, but clearly, at the time, millions of ordinary people went along with.? Think about your life today - the purchasing decisions you make every day, the dodgy regimes that you are prepared to give legitimacy to because they happen to be in countries which are interesting to visit or produce goods that you want to consume, the prejudices that are apparent within our own communities. Think and then speak up because it is only by the majority speaking up that one day things can be better.

Don't cross the road like that little girl in the quote because you are scared of the consequences.