Leaders
Yom Hashoah and the London Marathon
This week, two very different open-air gatherings
April 20, 2018 14:461 min read
This week, two very different open-air gatherings
April 20, 2018 14:46For all those gathered at Hyde Park on Sunday for Yom Hashoah, it was — as always — a moving experience. As we report, the March of the Living goes from strength to strength.
And this year also saw the widespread adoption of the yellow candle scheme, each one lit in memory of a victim of the Holocaust.
Next year, the organisers plan to expand its scope even further. All of these are important and very different forms of Holocaust remembrance and education. But the yellow candles in particular are a perfect example of how to deal with an increasingly relevant fact — that every year there are fewer survivors still with us.
There will come a time, relatively soon, when the Holocaust is no longer within living memory. So it is vital that we come up with creative methods for keeping the memory alive.
Even now, a recent poll in the US showed that two thirds of millennials and four out of ten Americans overall have never heard of Auschwitz. The Holocaust Educational Trust does a superb job here in Britain but responsibility cannot be devolved to it alone. This is for all of us.
Among the tens of thousands of runners in Sunday’s London Marathon will be a sizeable contingent raising large amounts of money for Jewish charities.
Some are experienced runners for whom the marathon is just another, albeit longer than usual, outing.
For others, it will be a once unimaginable achievement. Whatever it may be, we have a simple message for them: good luck, and thank you.