The importance of future generations keeping memories of the Holocaust alive has been raised by a survivor of Nazi persecution.
Ann and Bob Kirk today (January 27) shared their moving testimonies of fleeing Nazi Germany. They took part in an online service held to mark Holocaust Memorial Day in Newham.
Asked how important remembering the genocide is, Bob said: "We often speak in schools. The comment we often get is, 'It's becoming history. It's only when we listen to you that it becomes real'.
"We have much hope that the next generation and the generation after that take on the mantle and pick up our stories and keep on telling them in order to keep the memory alive."
Up to 140 people listened to the couple share childhood memories of life in Germany becoming "intolerable" for Jews under Nazi rule.
Ann remembered the days after Kristallnacht in 1938 - when 100 Jewish people were killed during attacks in Germany and Austria - finding refuge in a family friend's flat and tiptoeing around to avoid detection.
Bob and Ann spoke of coming to England as part of the Kindertransport - a rescue effort which brought 9,354 Jewish children out of Germany and other Nazi occupied areas nine months before the outbreak of the Second World War. Ann was 10 and Bob 13.
"It must have been so hard for our parents to let us go. To the children, this was the great adventure. We were the pioneers. The parents would follow," Bob said.
Ann recalled arriving at the railway station in Germany where there were crowds of weeping parents and children.
"As the whistle went for a final goodbye, mum and dad kissed and hugged me and whispered that I should look out of the train window at the next station but one.
"This I did and there were my parents on the platform, waving as if their arms would drop off. But that was the last time I ever saw my parents," she said.
Bob recalled arriving by train in Holland en route to England.
"The sudden feeling of safety and freedom was incredible," he said.
When the war broke out, messages were exchanged between Ann and her parents via the Red Cross but in February, 1943, Ann received what would be the last note from her father.
"After that, there was just silence," she said.
Years later, Ann learned both parents were transported to Auschwitz. Bob stopped receiving messages in 1941. His mother and father's lives ended in a concentration camp near Riga.
The theme of this year's Holocaust Memorial Day is, Be the light in the darkness.
Paying tribute to the men and women who sponsored their journeys to England, Ann said: "Millie and Sophie Levy for me, and the mysterious Mr Smith and the Morris family for Bob, were the lights that enabled us to escape from the darkness of Nazi Germany."
Bob added: "We were the lucky ones. Many people had to go through the camps with the most terrible experiences."
He urged listeners to combat a "rising" Holocaust denial, ensure the truth is told and confront those who claim it didn't happen.
"It is still happening. We had Darfur. We had Cambodia. We had Srebrenica. We have the Uighurs. Intolerance is still there and it's not going away anytime soon. It's all our jobs to combat it," he said.
During the service, Avital Menahem, whose grandfather Yisrael Abelesz lost his parents and younger brother at Auschwitz, spoke of the need for individuals to drive positive change.
There followed a rendition of Israel's national anthem, Hatikvah, before Kingsford Community School pupil Lily Naidu shared a history of Newham's Jewish population.
Pupils from Dersingham Primary recited a poem, Standing Together Making a Change, which they had written. Performances from Newham Music were also streamed during the event.
Lady Hannah Lowy Mitchell, whose father fled Czechoslovakia before the 1939-45 conflict, compared the grief the Holocaust caused to that of families who have lost loved ones in the coronavirus pandemic.
She said: "It's not just those who died, but the families left behind who are mourning. And think of those five million Jews plus all the others the Nazis murdered during the war. That's millions who mourn and grieve and whose hearts will always be broken."
Mayor of Newham, Rokhsana Fiaz, warned minorities are still being persecuted for who they are including an "ugly" resurgence of antisemitism.
She criticised big tech companies for not preventing false information and lies spread on social media, including Holocaust denial, before urging listeners to pledge to uphold the truth.
"Cherish it, protect it and most of all, fight for it," she said.
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