Sunday 27th January 2019
Great St Mary’s Church
Market Square, Cambridge, CB2 3PQ
2.45 pm for a 3.00 pm start

On behalf of Cambridge City Council and the Mayor of Cambridge, please know Historyworks would like to invite friends and colleagues and partner organizations of Historyworks to join the 2019 Holocaust Memorial Day Civic event. Please note that this year we are moving to an earlier start of 3pm and to a largervenue to accommodate several large choirs.  We are therefore very appreciative of the University Church of Great St Mary’s which will host us.

This year our theme for the HMD programme will be Torn from Home. We will reflect on what happens when individuals, families and communities are driven out of, or wrenched from their homes, because of persecution or threat of genocide. We will also consider the continuing difficulties survivors and refugees face as they try and build new homes and recover from the trauma such as experienced by those who suffered because of Nazi persecution during the Holocaust and the subsequent genocides in Cambodia, Rwanda, Bosnia and Darfur.
 
HMD 2019 will include marking the 25th anniversary of the Genocide in Rwanda, which began in April 1994, and the 40th anniversary of the end of the Genocide in Cambodia, which ended in 1997.  The Torn from Home theme encourages audiences to reflect on how the enforced loss of a safe place to call ‘home’ is part of the trauma faced by anyone experiencing persecution and genocide, because ‘home’ usually means a place of safety, comfort, and security.
 
The HMD Civic Ceremony will comprise songs, readings, poetry and drama, all inspired and interspersed by moving words from survivor testimonies and uplifting words from groups actively supporting refugees and the homeless, campaigning for equalities and supporting diversity today.  We will hear newly commissioned pieces by the poet Michael Rosen especially arranged for school choirs to perform at the HMD civic ceremony. There will also be pieces co-created and performed by young people from across a range of Cambridge schools. The Holocaust Survivor, Eva Clarke, has kindly agreed to lead us through the ceremony alongside the poet, Michael Rosen.
 
Our speakers will include Eric Murangwa, MBE, a former Rwandan international footballer, a Tutsi and former national team captain. He will tell his story about how he only survived the genocide because his fellow Hutu players protected him from the killers, finally reaching sanctuary in the infamous ‘Hotel Rwanda’.  Eric now dedicates his time to changing lives through sport and story-telling to build a positive future, working for the charity ‘Football for Hope, Peace and Unity’. He works in genocide education to help the next generations learn about the danger of hate and division so that by taking personal or collective actions we can prevent future atrocities.
 
Michael Rosen is the ‘poet in residence’ at Historyworks for our programme and will perform his new poem ‘the Missing’ about Jewish members of his family persecuted in Vichy France who went missing for decades.  Michael will tell the story of his recent historical detective work and the emotional mission to address a gap in his life, to finally find out what happened to his Great Uncle, Oscar Rosen and his wife, Rachel Rosen.  It turned out they were transported to Auschwitz and were never seen again.  Michael reflects with poetic lines about what it means to be torn from home, on the move, a refugee, homeless, a site we see every day on the news far away but also very close to home in our shop doorways in our neighbourhoods.
 
This event promises to be both moving and uplifting and is suitable for children from KS2 onwards. We suggest that children under 9 years of age only attend at the discretion of adults in their family to follow-up and guide their children to discuss issues they will hear and learn about during the civic service. We very much look forward to seeing you there.  It is free of charge and un-ticketed, however can we please ask that you arrive to find your seats from 2.45pm onwards so that you are settled in good time for a 3pm start. The event will end by approximately 4.30pm.
 
The HMD Civic Ceremony is produced by Prof Helen Weinstein of Historyworks on behalf of Cambridge City Council.  For more information about the civic event plus the programme of satellite events please consult NEWS pages at www.creatingmycambridge.com or contact Helen Weinstein directly via email at historyworks@gmail.com