Communities Secretary James Brokenshire was among 100 MPs and peers at a reception in Parliament to launch resources for Holocaust Memorial Day 2019.

Reflecting on the new HMD theme of “torn from home”, Mr Brokenshire said: ‘Home usually means a place of safety, a place of comfort, a place of security. But in the case of the Holocaust and subsequent genocides, this safety, this comfort, this security was lost for ever.

“Holocaust Memorial Day goes from strength to strength each year. I am proud that my department continues to support the [HMD] trust to deliver the annual commemoration and the thousands of activities across the country, which the launch of today’s materials will help support even further.”

Labour MP and HMDT trustee Tulip Siddiq hosted the reception at which Shoah survivor Helen Aronson urged MPs to support HMD activities in their constituencies.

“Children must be allowed to grow up safe and secure and not be wrenched from their homes, like I was,” she said.

“That’s why it is so important that you, as Members of Parliament, are here today and that we make a commitment to mark Holocaust Memorial Day every January.”

HMD is on January 27, the anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz-Birkenau.

It remembers the six million Shoah victims and those killed in subsequent genocides.