Cheshire East to mark Holocaust Memorial Day

Cheshire East Council will hold a service of remembrance to commemorate Holocaust Memorial Day.

This year marks the 81st anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz-Birkenau, the largest Nazi concentration camp complex on 27 January 1945.

The Mayor of Cheshire East, Councillor David Edwardes, will lead the service in the Council Chamber of Crewe Municipal Buildings at 11am on Tuesday 27th January 2026. 

Members of the public are warmly welcome to attend and will be joined by civic dignitaries representing communities from across the borough. The leader of Cheshire East Council, Councillor Nick Mannion and deputy leader Councillor Michael Gorman will attend and give short addresses.

The hour-long ceremony will include readings of testaments from survivors of genocide, the lighting of memorial candles and a two minutes’ silence.

The guest speaker will be Stuart Ferster, who will tell the compelling story of his father, Chaim Ferster BEM, who cheated death in eight Nazi concentrations camps – including Auschwitz – and survived the Holocaust.
Chaim lost most of his family in the Holocaust, including his mother, father and two sisters. His sister Manya was the only other member of his family to survive.

Invitations to the commemoration are being sent to all town and parish councils across Cheshire East, along with secondary schools in the Crewe and Nantwich area. Further information will be available on the council’s website. Any help to publicise the Cheshire East Council commemorative event in your local community would be much appreciated.

Holocaust Memorial Day (HMD) is marked each year on or around 27th January – the anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration and extermination camp by the Soviet army in 1945. 

On and around this day, schools, communities, faith groups and others across the UK join together in national and local events to commemorate the six million Jewish men, women and children murdered in the Holocaust by the Nazis and their collaborators, as well victims of other acts of Nazi persecution and of subsequent genocides.

Since 1945, there have been several other attempted genocides across the world – including Cambodia, Rwanda, Bosnia and Darfur – and these are also commemorated on Holocaust Memorial Day.

HMD also provides an opportunity to reflect on the contemporary relevance of the Holocaust, an especially poignant consideration for this year’s commemorations, which take place against a background of rising antisemitism in the UK and globally.

Each year’s HMD has a different theme, chosen by the Holocaust Memorial Day Trust, as a focus for educational and commemorative events. The theme for HMD 2026 is ‘Bridging Generations’. It’s a reminder that the responsibility of remembrance doesn't end with the survivors – it lives on through their children, their grandchildren and through all of us.

We hope that HMD 2026 can be an opportunity for people to come together, learn both from and about the past and take actions to make a better future for all.