Holocaust Memorial Day Marked on Festing Road

Single candle displayed as a symbol of hope for very personal reasons

The candle in the window on Festing Road this Monday

January 29, 2025

Among the many commemorations of Holocaust Memorial Day this Monday (27 January) there was a small but personal gesture made on Festing Road.

Hugh Thompson put a single candle in his window in the quiet residential street in Putney. He explained, ”My family have three reasons to have special and deep feelings. Last week my four-year-old grandson’s play school in Maroubra a suburb of Sydney was firebombed by anti Semites. The reason, there is a nearby synagogue. My wife’s father, Mike was in the Royal Artillery during the war and was present at the liberation of several death camps. He never talked about it but it affected him deeply. And thirty-five years ago I discovered my mother’s lover, my father, was Jewish and left behind a family in Prague who all perished in the camps. It is so sad that the world is not a better place, a candle however is a symbol of hope, and we must never give up.”

There were other displays of remembrance across the borough on the day of the eightieth anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz-Birkenau, the largest of the many Nazi death camps. Wandsworth Town Hall was illuminated as the borough joined the #LightTheDarkness national movement in which people were encouraged to light a candle and place it safely in their window at 8pm.

Councillor Sana Jafri, Mayor of Wandsworth, attended the Holocaust Memorial Day Ceremony at City Hall and said, “We recognise that the Holocaust shook the foundations of modern civilisation and its unprecedented character and horror will always hold universal meaning. We recognise that humanity is still scarred by the belief that race, religion, disability or sexuality make some people’s lives worth less than others’. Genocide, antisemitism, racism, xenophobia and discrimination still continue, and we have a shared responsibility to fight these evils.”

Holocaust Memorial Day It was established in 2000 by representatives from around the world, who signed a declaration committing to preserve the memory of the 6 million Jews murdered during the Holocaust, alongside the millions of people murdered under Nazi persecution of other groups and during more recent genocides in Cambodia, Rwanda, Bosnia and Darfur.

Find out more on the Holocaust Memorial Day Trust website.