Crowds pay respects to Holocaust victims

The historic events of January 27 1945 saw over 70,000 people liberated from the infamous camp - where the nazis had exterminated 1.6 million people, most of them Jews.

Marking the heroic efforts of the Red Army and the dreadful sacrifice made by millions of victims, Holocaust Memorial Day organisers held a traditional reef-laying ceremony at the Soviet War Memorial in Lambeth, London. Hundreds attended the event.

Speakers from across the political spectrum paid their respects to victims but warned that fascism was once again rearing its head in Europe.

Local Liberal Democrat MP Simon Hughes told the sombre crowd: "We're meeting specifically today to honour those who stood up to nazi oppression.

"To those people who refused to give in and betray others even though they knew they were heading to certain death."

Prior to the event TUC general secretary Brendan Barber pointed out that alongside six million Jewish victims of nazi persecution hundreds of thousands of others were targeted by Hitler's regime - including union members, lesbian, gay, bisexual and trans people, the disabled and members of other ethnic groups.

"Unions have always stood up to the kind of discrimination, prejudice and hatred that led to the nazi Holocaust," he said.

"LGBT people were among the millions of victims of Hitler's brutal regime and today LGBT communities are a vital part of the resistance to modern versions of this hatred."

The Communist Party of Britain, the New Communist Party and the Society for the Co-operation of Russian and Soviet Studies (SCRSS) were part of a plethora of groups and dignitaries who laid reefs at the statue.

SCRSS representative Jean Turner highlighted the vital role of the Soviet Union in winning the second world war at a cost 27 million lives.

"Racist parties across Europe are beginning to express a viewpoint of people who are frustrated and downtrodden.

"We commemorate the Soviet Union and its victories but we also remember the cost of it."

johnm@peoples-press.com