Monuments to be lit up in purple as region marks Holocaust Memorial Day

North East landmarks will be illuminated in a purple light on Wednesday evening to mark Holocaust Memorial Day.

The event takes place every year on the anniversary of the liberation of the Auschwitz death camp and remembers the millions of Jews and other minority groups murdered by the Nazi regime during the Second World War.

Penshaw monument in Sunderland, Newcastle's Civic Centre and the City Walls in York will be lit in purple. Memorial ceremonies around the region will be streamed online because of the pandemic.

People across the country are being urged to place a lit candle in their windows at 8pm to mark the event.

Primary school pupils at Redby Academy in Sunderland were among those to commemorate the victims of all genocides. The students heard the testimony of Anita Lasker-Wallfisch, a Holocaust survivor, and learned about ethnic cleansing in Bosnia and elsewhere.

• Sam Borin, who helped organise Holocaust Memorial Day in York, says local events are an important part of the commemorations.

Karen Pollock, chief executive of the Holocasut Educational Trust (HET), said the "strength and resilience" of Holocaust survivors "gives us hope and positivity" in the midst of the pandemic.

"There has been real distress and pain and suffering felt in this country and around the word in this pandemic", she said.

"But the survivors I spoke to - many who are shielding - are the epitome of strength and are getting on with it.

"Bearing in mind what they have experienced and suffered, they give words of wisdom to just keep going, we are going to get out of this."

"I find that pretty inspiring from 90-year-old survivors who have been through the very worst and could easily let this get on top of them. But this says a lot about them because they are remarkable."