THE Chief Rabbi, Jonathan Sacks, urged people of all creeds to challenge prejudice and intolerance to ensure that nothing comparable to the Holocaust can happen again.

Speaking at the Holocaust Memorial Day event at Westminster Hall, Dr Sacks said a “murdered generation” of six million Jews, together with tens of thousands of Roma, disabled, homosexuals and others, had been gassed and burnt for no other reason than that they were different. The victims included 1.5 million children.

Dr Sacks paid tribute to survivors, of whom 600 were present along with former soldiers who liberated the camp, but questioned how they had found the courage to continue, having witnessed such horrors. “Just as the eye can be blinded by too much light, so the soul can be broken by too much darkness. Yet theirs were not,” he said. “They reaffirmed life, built families and cared for one another. They bore witness to what happened, with no hate or desire for revenge, but simply to remember the victims, so that robbed of their lives they would not be robbed also of their deaths.”

He continued: “The survivors have borne the weight of memory. Now we must carry it and hand it on to our children.”

Referring to the Jewish memorial prayer Eil Malei Rachamim sung by Cantor Steven Leas and the Central Synagogue Choir during the event, Dr Sacks said: “May it light a flame in our hearts so that never again shall the cry of the afflicted go unheard.”

Earlier Dr Sacks said he was “saddened” that the Muslim Council of Britain had boycotted the event. The Labour peer Baroness Uddin represented the Muslim community.

Christians were represented by church leaders including the Archbishop of Canterbury, Rowan Williams, and the Roman Catholic Archbishop of Westminster, Cardinal Cormac Murphy-O’Connor. Neither spoke during the event but both issued statements to mark the occasion. Dr Williams said: “On the 60th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz, we confront again not simply the darkness of those years but the darkness that can always take hold of the human spirit.”

He continued: “Holocaust Memorial Day should make us think hard — about evil, about hatred and about ourselves. We should take time today to remember all of the victims of hatred and to reflect on the courage, dedication and commitment that needs to be found in her party.”

Cardinal Murphy-O’Connor said: “The Jewish people remain a force of conscience in the world today. Their memory of the Shoah is a warning, a witness and a silent cry to all humanity.” He said genocide, as events in Rwanda illustrated, remained a feature of the world and that the Pope had urged Catholics to renew their understanding of the Jewish roots of their faith.

Explore World News

• World Agenda

• Iraq News

• US & Americas News

• Europe News

• Middle East News

• Afghanistan News

• Asia News

• Africa News

• Ireland News

Times Recommends

• The lives of the Lehman ladies
• The training school for teenage Taleban