Bristol Evening Post, UK
January 27, 2007 Saturday

We won’t forget Holocaust victims

This small pile of polished rocks was the centrepiece of a ceremony
to remember victims of the Holocaust.

At some Jewish funerals, it is practice to bring rocks instead of
flowers and build a cairn to remember the dead.

But at yesterday’s memorial event at the Victoria Rooms in Queens
Road, the pile of rocks was built in advance – and each person
attending took one of a rock away with them to symbolise the
continuing toll of genocide across the globe.

Yesterday’s event was attended by almost 100 religious and community
leaders, one day before International Holocaust Memorial Day.

The day marks the liberation of Auschwitz – the Nazis’ most notorious
death camp – by the Soviet Army in 1945.

The service was organised by Bristol University’s multi-faith
university chaplaincy. It included music, poems, prayers and readings
from survivors of the Holocaust.

It also remembered the genocides of Bosnia, Rwanda, Sudan and
Armenians in Turkey.

The Lord Mayor of Bristol, Councillor Peter Abraham, attended and lit
a candle as a symbol of hope.

Rabbi Natan Levy, the university’s orthodox Jewish chaplain, said:
"The theme of this year’s commemoration is the dignity of difference.
Genocide has and will exist as long as we fear that which is
different.

"When we can embrace our differences, only then will hope emerge."

Today there was to be a remembrance service at St Mary-on-the-Quay
Church in the city centre after the 12.15pm Mass.