1.The theme for UK Holocaust Memorial Day 2008 is “Imagine… Remember, Reflect, React.”  This challenges us all to imagine the unimaginable. It asks us to focus on the lives and experience of victims and survivors of the Holocaust; of Nazi persecution and of other genocides. It invites us to find new and creative ways to express this experience through art and media. It marvels at the resilience of enterprise, culture and of life itself in the face of destruction.

2.The Holocaust Educational Trust was established in 1988. Their aim is to educate young people from every ethnic background about the Holocaust and the important lessons to be learned for today. HET works in schools, universities and in the community to raise awareness and understanding of the Holocaust, providing teacher training, an outreach programme for schools, teaching aids and resource material. HET regard one of their earliest achievements as ensuring the Holocaust formed part of the National Curriculum for History. HET continues to play a leading role in training teachers on how best to teach the Holocaust.

3.In November 2005, the Government announced funding of £1.5 million for HET to support its Lessons from Auschwitz Project for teachers and sixth form students. The funding has enabled HET to take the Project nationwide and facilitate visits to Auschwitz for two sixth form students from every school and college in the UK.

4.The Holocaust Educational Trust has produced a BAFTA award-winning DVD-ROM Recollections: Eyewitnesses Remember the Holocaust, in conjunction with the USC Shoah Foundation Institute. The groundbreaking interactive resource integrates testimony from 18 eyewitnesses of the Holocaust, including Jewish survivors, Roma and Sinti survivors, Jehovah’s Witness survivors and political prisoners as well as testimony from survivors of the eugenics programme.

5.The purpose of Holocaust Memorial Day is to remember the horrors of the Holocaust and those who perished. The day aims to ensure that the horrendous crimes against humanity committed during the Holocaust are never forgotten, and its relevance for each new generation is understood.

6.Details of the national event in Liverpool on the 27th January and associated events across the rest of the UK are available on the Holocaust Memorial Day website at www.hmd.org.uk

7.The Holocaust Educational Trust has been closely involved in the establishment and development of Holocaust Memorial Day since its inception in 2000. We are represented on all working groups dealing with education, local activities, the main event and at a strategic level.

8.Holocaust Memorial Day came about following an MP’s visit to Auschwitz-Birkenau with the Holocaust Educational Trust. Moved by his visit, Andrew Dismore MP proposed a bill, “to introduce a day to learn and remember the Holocaust” June 30 1999.