HOLOCAUST Memorial Day will be marked online this year in Colchester due to coronavirus restrictions.
Colchester Holocaust Memorial Day Group will be posting a series of videos online to keep up the tradition of marking the international event in the town.
The group normally organises a host of well-attended events at Firstsite gallery to mark the day, which this year is on Wednesday.
Member Rachel Howse-Binnington said: "The aim of Colchester Holocaust Memorial Day Group is to ensure that the people of our special town never forget the terrible consequences which can arise when we discount the lives of others as somehow less important than our own.
“Since 2017 our group has organised well attended events at Firstsite.
"We have had international, national and local speakers who have helped us consider how we as individuals might rise to the challenges of hatred and intolerance we will face as a community now and in the future.
“This January we will miss meeting new people, and our friends, and the beautiful traditional Jewish food but our online programme will be just as good as our speakers from previous years.”
Online speakers include Essex University academics Jean Boase-Beier and Marian de Vooght who will be reading selections from the Anthology Poetry of the Holocaust.
There will also be an interview with Emma Hinton-Chesters, who is the creative force behind Colchester’s Good Souls Vegan Bakery.
Professor Rainer Schultze of Essex University will be discussing the life and work of Holocaust survivor and Colchester resident Dora Love.
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Dora spent most of her life raising awareness of the attitudes which made the Holocaust possible and each year schools in Essex and Suffolk come together to take part in Essex University's Dora Love Prize.
Professor Shultze said: “Dora Love raised awareness of the Holocaust in order to challenge attitudes of intolerance, discrimination and outright hatred of those who are regarded as ‘different’.
"She has a remarkable story which inspires so many people no matter how often they hear it, and it is lovely to be able to tell her story to a new generation in the interview.”
The online material will be released on the Colchester Holocaust Memorial Day Facebook and Instagram pages from Monday.
Essex University is also running a series of events online.
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