The candle designed by Sir Anish Kapoor
Holocaust Memorial Week at the University of Essex has been chosen to host one of the 70 candles designed by Sir Anish Kapoor for the UK Holocaust Memorial Day Trust to mark the 70th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz-Birkenau.
The candles will be lit to symbolically link commemorations taking place across the UK in a particularly significant anniversary year: 70 years after the liberation of the camps.
The candle at Essex will be lit by Holocaust survivor Frank Bright on Tuesday 27 January at 4.30 pm before the annual Procession of Light held as part of the annual Holocaust Memorial Week at the University.
Frank, a friend of Essex Honorary Graduate Dora Love who died in October 2011, is a staunch supporter of the Holocaust memorial events at Essex and an inspiration to all students at the University’s annual Dora Love Prize events.
Every year the University of Essex hosts a week of events, overseen by Professor Rainer Schulze from the Department of History, focused on remembering the millions of people killed in the Holocaust through Nazi persecution and in subsequent genocides in countries such as Cambodia, Rwanda, Bosnia and Darfur.
The week is also an opportunity to look at human rights issues, and lessons still to be learned by the Holocaust with many of our students organising events reflecting on the issues raised.
Professor Schulze, who will be giving a public lecture about the Holocaust during the week, said: “It is a significant honour to be chosen to host one of these 70 candles and an acknowledgement of the work in Holocaust education within the University, with local schools and with the wider community that the University of Essex has been doing for many years.”
Events taking place as part of the University’s Holocaust Memorial Week will include discussions on the Roma community, Syria, Islamophobia and the rise of the far right and film screenings including a special screening of Valley of Sighs with author and director Mihai Andrei Leaha.
Professor Schulze will also give a speech about the Holocaust's continuing significance
The Dora Love Prize on Wednesday 28 January will also see schools from across Essex and Suffolk taking part in an evening of art, film, poetry and performances.
There will also be a chance to find out more about people from all kinds of backgrounds at a Human Library being especially created for two days and East 15 students will create a unique evening of performance at the Lakeside Theatre at the Colchester Campus.