January 27th 1945, Auschwitz was liberated. The United Nations promised 'Never Again'. Since then, we have seen similar ethnical cleansing in Bosnia, as well as Cambodia, Rwanda, and Darfur.

Since 2005, the Government legislated January 27th as an annual day of remembrance for the millions that suffered genocide at the hands of unspeakable evil. But what is more important than simply remembering, is the vital education this day can offer generations to come. Holocaust Memorial Day is for everyone, and everyone can help with it’s message and purpose – to build a better future.

We must ensure that ignorance or neglect do not cause history to be forgotten, or at worst, rewritten through malice. It is telling how little some people can understand the very basics of the Holocaust and its relevance in modern events.

For example, when I was in my first job post university, the subject came up and I was asked "Dennis, was Anne Frank Jewish or was she a German?"

Their lack of understanding thankfully was ignorance rather than any legitimate thoughts that to be Jewish meant that you could not be a member of a county, or that on Jewish people were killed or effected.

"Following on from this very small history lesson, they went on to research how the Nazi sterilised those who had disabilities, such as being born deaf, and the Warsaw Ghetto uprising in 1943 as well as the liberation of the Nazi concentration camps. and likened it to what they say growing up in 1995 in Bosnia. "You would have thought people would have learned" was their feedback.

The Holocaust altered the lives of millions more than the millions it initially killed. It threatened civilizations across Europe, Asia and Africa and genocide must be combated on all fronts.

Published last year, Doris Rubenstein’s book "The boy with for names" encapsulates just how far reaching the Holocaust was. It details the true story of when she met a Jewish community in Ecuador that had fled Europe to safety. People fled from Central Europe all over the world.

So just think for a moment. How many people that you have met in your life, or even this year, are descendants from those who fled persecution, and may not have been there had they been caught.

Dennis Watling

Callowland Councillor, Watford Borough Council

Jewish Labour Movement member