Page 5 - link magazine

www.swindonlink.com The Link Magazine • January 2001 5
What are you doing for Holocaust Memorial Day? 102 victoria road
Britain's first national Holocaust Memorial Day will be held on 27 Janua ry, an annual day of remem- % old town
brance to both commemorate the Holocaust and act as a reminder of other human rights tragedies. ^.' Swindon
wilts
The date was chosen as it marks the liberation of mass killings are part of human behaviour. It pro- SN 1 3B0
Auschwitz in 1945. In January last year forty-four vides a national focus for educating younger genera-
governments including Britain attended a confer- tions about the continued relevance of the lessons gel/fax:
ence in Stockholm to commemorate the Holocaust learned from the Holocaust and showing a continu- (01793) 43 57 57
and unanimously signed the Declaration of the ing commitment to oppose racism, anti-Semitism,
Stockholm Forum that has led to the Holocaust victimization and genocide.
Memorial Day to ensure that the horrendous crimes, As we go to press no formal civic events have been creative
racism, and victimisation committed are neither planned in the town but council leader Sue Bates said,
forgotten nor repeated. "I hope that people of all ages in Swindon will take inspiration for
After half a century it remains an event close part in the activities to mark the day and to show their your home
enough in time that survivors can still bear witness commitment to building an inclusive society that is
to its horrors. The day is also very much about free from the evils of prejudice and racism."
b c w
looking to the future. Genocides in Cambodia, More information and an education pack is avail-
Rwanda and Kosovo show how persecution and able from www.holocaustmemorialday.gov.uk I u: a
i r
Forget-me-not n t
Rhoda Manook, 21, from Toothill, a former Ridgway School student and now at Cambridge University, t d a p
gives a very personal reflection on the first National Holocaust Remembrance day in Britain and says
history should not be used selectively to ignore victims of repression. ° s i a
n
The focus on 27 January 2001 will Ottoman Turks issued the seeking to deny the truth of history, y n p
be upon the Jewish victims of Nazi extermination, the first ever termed and thereby aligning itself with the s e
persecution between 1936 - 1945, 'Genocide' of this century, of the Turkishgovernmentwhichhitherto
k
and subsequent oppression by whole Armenian race. Some one has refused to admit the occurrence r
fascist regimes. and a half million Armenians were of this heinous crime against s
I do not, by any stretch of the massacred. humanity: the Armenian
imagination, intend to undermine My grandfather (when he was 6 Holocaust. ° free
w
this important memorial, but this years old), was himself made a Faced with recent human right design and
sacred memory seems to crudely refugee in this genocide, being violations across the world, dare
neglect a previous Holocaust, the dressed by his mother as a little we give Hitler's words the status of ° measure service
first genocide of modern history: girl, walked across Eastern Turkey prophecy and let his conclusions o 3_ V u
The Armenian Genocide. to the south of Iraq, losing a linger on today?
To quote the perpetrator of the significant number of his family
Jewish Holocaust Adolf Hitler who Sim p
'Who now remembers the could not
liquidation of the Armenians?' walk any odd& s. DEPILA^?E
longer. Beau &Aromathera
A photo of victims of the Armenian Only his ^ py
genocide displayed the National Geno- mother and Swindon's Depilase Laser Centre Hair-Removal
cide Museum in the Armenian capital Aunty Miriam • No hair growth required
Yerevan, taken by Rhoda on her first during treatments
survived. His
visit to Armenia last summer • Treats fair to dark skin types ;.^^^u G
father was
taken, in a line • Within Leisure Centre
along with environment
other men, to Ask about Laserplan tir . ntc ,
be put to Rhoda Manook Set your budget & pay as you go
death. Creche, ample free parking, o
Interestingly, strengthened by his Up to 40o reduction
Christian faith, my grandfather's open late evenings of u wanted hair
ordeal did not result in a hatred of 01793 825525 yeaCh la aser
the Turkish people. But he always Stratton Leisure Centre, Grange Drive trea[rTlerlt, for long term
removal
sai . ono a e u ono orge t
'd 'd
th t b td
tf
what has happened.'
All Armenians will have a story
to relate from previous generations.
Today the Armenian race is found PHOENIX SURGERY
all over the world - Cher, Charles Dunwich Drive, Toothill Village Centre
Aznavor, Andre Agassi, Gary
Kasparov, Calouste Gulbenkian,
Armenia is a tiny landlocked Katchachurian, Youri Djorkaef, Swinyard
country which was the first nation Boghosian to mention but a few.
to be pronounced Christian in 303 Their stories include the horrors of
AD. Tucked away between Turkey, children, who were thrown to the Dr Robert Forrester
Iran, Georgia and Azerbaijan on air and spiked on Turkish officers
the major trade routes, it has been swords and atrocities of horse shoes Sevtitj Weft ajuL Central' SWi4ct4OV
fought over and its people nailed to peoples' feet. The killings,
oppressed for centuries. ordered from above, were
Towards the end of the 19th unspecified of method, which was New patients welcome
Century, in particular 1915 to 1918 left to the creative evil of the
when the world was preoccupied individual executors. (01793) 600440
with the first world war, the Our eovernment is seemingly