Leaders from the Muslim Jewish Forum of Greater Manchester visited Sefton Council’s Holocaust commemoration event.
Back in January, Sefton Metropolitan Borough Council (in conjunction with the Association of Jewish Ex-Service Men and Women, and Sefton UNISON) organised a Holocaust Memorial Day commemoration event held in Christ Church on Lord Street, Southport, with the theme of “The Fragility of Freedom.” Two members of the Executive Committee of the Muslim Jewish Forum of Greater Manchester, Co-Chair Cllr Heather Fletcher and Executive Committee Member Qaisra Shahraz, travelled to Sefton to speak at the event.
The Master of Ceremonies was Michael Braham DL of Southport Synagogue. The speakers included Rev Ben Dyer of Christ Church who gave a prayer at commencement, Damien Moore MP, Pauline Collier, Holocaust Fellow of the Imperial War Museum, Cllr Heather Fletcher — Forum Co-Chair, Qaisra Shahraz, Forum Executive Committee Member and founding director of MACFEST
And Rabbi Moshe Perez, one of the visiting rabbis at Sefton Synagogue, who recited the memorial prayer. Also present were Vice Lord Lieutenant of Merseyside Robert Owen JP DL, the Mayor of Sefton Cllr June Burns, and Peter Dowd (MP for Bootle).
Cllr Fletcher said at the event: “How do we preserve freedom today? I believe that often genocides start through mass ignorance. It is ignorance which gives rise to intolerance and bigotry. We all have a duty to challenge all bigotry and racism at the outset as it does not take much for this kind of rhetoric to develop into discrimination, segregation and ultimately genocide. We should ensure that the voices of the tolerant be the clearest and loudest voices.
“To conclude, I believe that we can help to preserve our freedom by becoming a more cohesive and harmonious society and this can be achieved by people of different faiths and cultures mixing together, getting to know each other, and forming friendships. We need a society where it is second nature to mix with other people whose way of life, faith and culture may be different to our own. I believe this can happen. As Anne Frank said: ‘I believe that in spite of everything people are truly good at heart.’”
Qaisra Shahraz said: “I learnt about the Holocaust during our Muslim Jewish Forum’s visit to the concentration camps in Birkenau and Auschwitz – it transformed my life – I was simultaneously traumatised and dehumanized by the experience – visiting the gas chambers, the halls with remains of human hair and shoes of victims – it was so, so distressing – I came away telling my family that they had to visit.
“I witnessed the pain of our friend June whose relatives had perished in those gas chambers. As an author – I was compelled to write a story about the Holocaust. it’s in this book – entitled Train to Krakow. It is about a young pregnant woman called Ella – travelling to Krakow with her daughter and mother – little realising she was heading for the chambers.”