Holocaust survivor warned against rise of anti-Semitism in UK as he attended memorial service Piccadilly Circus in London.
At 4pm on Friday, candles were lit all over the UK in memory of the victims of the Holocaust and other genocides.
Thirty artworks of youths of someone affected by the Holocaust, genocide or identity-based persecution were projected onto the digital billboard overlooking the Eros Fountain in Piccadilly Circus.
The artworks have been selected by the Holocaust Memorial Day Trust through its (Extra)Ordinary Portraits contest.
Photos taken by the photographer of genocide survivors Rankin were also shown.
A crowd, including survivors, gathered to pay their respects.
Holocaust survivor Dr Martin Stern, 84, arrived in the UK in 1950 and lived with relatives in Manchester.
He survived the Westerbork transit camp in the Netherlands and the Theresienstadt ghetto in North Bohemia (now in the Czech Republic) after being taken away by officers at the age of five.
Dr. Stern warned of a “plague” of anti-Semitism in the UK.
Be brave, be a light in the world
“There is a plague of it, and it is very sinister, because without centuries of anti-Semitism, Nazism and the Holocaust would not have happened,” he told the PA news agency.
“And the danger is that we are leading to a similar catastrophe.
“Remember, the extremists, the populists, claim that there is one problem you have to solve and everything will be great.
“They claim to have a simple answer, and the answer is to kill the Jews and get rid of the Jews.
“In reality they killed opponents, gypsies, Jehovah’s Witnesses, people who were homosexual, people who were disabled in some way and people for the sin of being Polish. They didn’t just kill Jews.”
He said he was “very grateful” for his British citizenship.
“Britain gave me a nationality when I was 16,” he said.
“I did not have Dutch nationality, even though I was born there.
“I am very grateful to be a British citizen, and I went to a wonderful school – Manchester Grammar School – and a great university – Oxford University – where I was trained in physiology and medicine.
“I had the most amazing education, which still stands on me after I’ve retired from medicine.”
Holocaust survivor John Hajdu, 85, also attended the memorial.
He said he had fled Hungary as a child during the war, first to Austria and then to the UK.
Asked if he had noticed a rise in anti-Semitism in recent years, he warned that more than 2,000 anti-Semitic events take place in the UK each year.
“When I talk to schools, as I regularly do, I mention that there are more than 2,000 anti-Semitic events in this country alone,” he said.
“We have the anti-Semitic problem all the time, not just in this country but all over the world.
“That’s why I’m talking to as many people as possible to make sure people understand that what I’ve been through should never happen again.”
The theme of this year’s commemoration is ‘ordinary people’.
Mr Hajdu told how a ‘common man’ hid him from the Nazis in Budapest as a child.
“When I was in the yellow star house, my mother was taken to the concentration camp,” he said.
“I was hidden in the closet by a non-Jewish man, an ordinary man.
“If I hadn’t been in that closet, I wouldn’t be here today.”
TV presenter Robert Rinder light a candle at the monument.
He said he was “aware” of an increase in anti-Semitism in the UK.
“I live a short distance from Orthodox Jewish communities,” he said.
“My nephews go to school behind barbed wire every day.
“I think and reflect on that. At the same time, I’m sure communities across the country are inclusive of Jewish communities.
“They don’t want to see any kind of prejudice, whether it be Islamophobia, homophobia, bullying or undermining any minority community.”
He sent a message to the young people of Britain asking them to “be a light in the world”.
“Be brave, be a light in the world,” he said.
“Young people, whoever you are, Maya Angelou said that without courage you cannot practice any of the virtues consistently.
“Have the courage to go out into the world and stand up against hate in all its forms, and never tolerate it.”
Holocaust victims are commemorated each year on January 27 – the anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz-Birkenau, the largest Nazi extermination camp.
The day is also used to commemorate the millions killed in subsequent genocides in Cambodia, Rwanda, Bosnia and Darfur.