Previous Years' Themes

Holocaust Memorial Day 2009 challenges us all to Stand Up To Hatred. It urges all of us to look at our behaviour to others; to understand how hate is directed against different minorities in Britain today; to explore how each of us can help make our communities stronger and safer.

The theme for Holocaust Memorial Day 2008 is "Imagine...remember, reflect, react". This challenges us all to imagine the unimaginable. It tasks us to focus on the lives and experience of victims and survivors of the Holocaust; of Nazi persecution and of other genocides. It invites us to find new and creative ways to express this experience through art and media. It marvels at the resilience of enterprise, culture and of life itself in the face of destruction.

The theme for Holocaust Memorial Day 2007 encourages us to look at what we learn from the Holocaust about the consequences of exclusion based on people's difference from us.  It highlights the experiences of a variety of groups under the Nazis.  It also explores the opportunities this history gives us to consider how we can create a society based on respect for difference.

The 2006 theme celebrated the courage of the rescuers who helped the persecuted survive and gave them hope. Many rescuers are still alive and living in the UK and they should be honoured, before it is too late. Their courage enabled many victims of the Nazis to survive the Holocaust.

The theme for Holocaust Memorial Day 2005 was 'Survivors, Liberation and Rebuilding Lives.' The paper highlights the importance of remembering the survivors and what they can tell us about racism and genocide.

The theme for Holocaust Memorial Day 2004 was ‘From the Holocaust to Rwanda: lessons learned, lessons still to learn’. This paper will be of interest to anyone wishing to gain a brief overview of the Rwandan genocide, learn more about the genocide, and the questions it raises.

The 2003 theme was ‘Children and the Holocaust’. This paper set out the historical framework to understand the experiences of children under Nazism, and also provided some valuable approaches to understanding the patterns of children’s experience in all genocide.

The 2002 theme was ‘Britain and the Holocaust’. This considered contemporary British attitudes and policy and the Holocaust’s continuing influence on the country today.

Professor David Cesarani’s paper on the subject was endorsed as an outline of this theme, and is available below.