To mark the annual Holocaust Memorial Day on Sunday, on Monday Redbridge residents will gather at the Holocaust Memorial Garden in Valentines Park, Ilford.
Schoolchildren, residents and faith representatives will hear the reflections of Holocaust survivor Bob Obuchowski who was sent to Auschwitz-Birkenau.
The Mayor of Redbridge Cllr Muhammed Javed and council leader Cllr Keith Prince will also speak to the crowds, and the combined choirs of the South West Essex and Settlement Reform Synagogue and the Ilford Synagogue will perform a hymn.
Redbridge school students, Rabbi Aryeh Sufrin, of the Chabad Lubavitch Ilford Centre, and the Mayor’s chaplain, Fr Stuart Halstead, of St Alban’s Church, Albert Road, Ilford, will recite readings and prayers. There will be a laying of wreaths and tokens at the memorial stone before students read the statement of commitment, which pledges to keep the Holocaust forever in the nation’s collective memory and to promote education and research about it and other genocides.
The memorial service begins at 11am in the park off Cranbrook Road.
Read Thursday’s Recorder for our interview with Mr Obuchowski and a fellow survivor.
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