This exhibition is provided by the Devon and Cornwall police diversity team and it outlines how hate speech and hate crime fed into the genocide of the Jews, and others, in the Second World War. It further reflects on how prejudices in other countries, and between peoples, have fed genocides that have followed in Bosnia and Rwanda and elsewhere since that time. The exhibition aims to break the link between the demonising of difference and the conflict and atrocities that can follow. There will be artwork from KS3 pupils displayed in the gallery space in the South Choir Aisle.
The theme of Holocaust Memorial Day this year, held on the 27th January, the date that Auschwitz was liberated – is ‘Ordinary People’. The day reflects on the Holocaust against the Jews and others in the Second World War – and other acts of genocide since then. It notes that those who perpetrated the atrocities were ordinary people and recognises that other ordinary people stood back and simply watched these things happen while other ordinary people looked to intervene and protect. Finally, though we can place them in the category of victim, it remembers that those caught up in these outrages were ordinary people too – people like us.
Holocaust Memorial Day is a collaboration between the Devon and Cornwall Police diversity team, the cathedral and other community groups and seeks to educate against behaviours and attitudes that lead to irrational hatred which in turn is a step on the pathway to genocide occurring again.
