Holocaust Memorial Day (HMD) – the international day on 27th January to remember the six million Jews murdered during the Holocaust, alongside the millions of other people killed under Nazi Persecution and in genocides that followed in Cambodia, Rwanda, Bosnia and Darfur. The 27th January marks the anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz-Birkenau, the largest Nazi death camp, and has been chosen to be the International Holocaust Memorial Day. Each year across the UK, thousands of people come together to learn more about the past and take action to create a safer future. 

As HMD falls on the same day as Tu B'Shevat this year we have decided to hold this session on the 20th January instead, to make sure we mark it. 

In the session, Annie Cohen will present an overview of the history of the Holocaust using a mixture of well-known and less familiar sources, including some of the archival materials from her own research. The focus on the session will be on understanding the historical factors and events that paved the way to genocide, as well as how Jewish victims at the time responded to and resisted it. 

Annie is currently in her final year of a Masters in Historical Research at Goldsmiths, University of London and in her first year of a PhD in Modern Jewish Studies at the Jewish Theological Seminary of New York, where her major focus is on Jewish responses to the rise of fascism. She previously completed a research internship at the Weiner Library where she curated an exhibition on the Kindertransport, and she is currently writing a thesis on a Jewish militia unit who fought in the Spanish Republican army during the 1936-1939 civil war. She is a former Bnei Mitzvah Teacher at Westminster Synagogue, and continues to work as a Yiddish teacher and Yiddish-English translator.

For more information and to find the recommended reading to do before the session, please sign up below.