Holocaust to be marked with services
HOLOCAUST Memorial Day will be marked in Guernsey on Monday 27 January with various services and performances.
The day remembers the victims of the Holocaust and other acts of genocide both in the Bailiwick and around the world and serves to ensure that its lessons are learned by future generations.
A memorial service, led by the Very Reverend Tim Barker, will be held at midday at the White Rock memorial next to North Beach.
The 30-minute service will start at the memorial to the slave labourers with an introduction to the commemoration, a prayer and the laying of a wreath by the Deputy Bailiff Richard McMahon.
It will then move to the memorial to the ‘Guernsey Eight’ and keep silence there before a prayer and the laying of a second wreath.
The commemoration will conclude at the memorial to the three Jewish women, which will include silence and the mourners’ Kaddish, to be read by a member of the Jewish community in Guernsey and Mr McMahon will lay a third wreath.
Education, Sport & Culture and the Arts Commission have collaborated with the College of FE and the Guernsey Music Centre to produce a commemorative performance of music and dance by sixth-form students to be held at the Town Church following the memorial service at 1pm.
Students from the College of FE will be presenting new and original dance work to commemorate the occasion at the Town Church.
Year 13 student Alice Atkinson said the class has been exploring survivor stories in choreography lessons and has been working on a piece that sensitively pays tribute to the Holocaust.
Tutor Vanessa Mee added: ‘The dancers are working as a company to devise something unique and impactful.
‘I’m looking forward to seeing it in the beautiful church and with live musicians.’
Also performing in the Town Church are Insieme, a string quartet made up of Guernsey Music Centre sixth-form students who have been playing as an ensemble for over two years and regularly perform at events in the island.
Their programme for the Holocaust Memorial Day performance will feature a collaboration with dancers from the College of FE to Purcell’s Chacony in G minor Arr. Britten as well as works by Mozart, Bach, Pachelbel and Beethoven.
. The service and performances are open to all islanders, regardless of religious affiliation.
