THE DAUGHTER of a Jewish Auschwitz survivor and a Syrian teacher will be the main speakers at Bournemouth and Poole's Holocaust Memorial Day commemorations on Sunday January 28.

Bilha Weider will talk about her mother, Lily Ebert, and how she held on to her family pendant through her deportation and journey through Auschwitz and eventually to settling in London in 1967.

Her fellow speaker will be a Syrian man who was born and lived in Damascus with his young family until the Syrian Civil War forced him to leave. He was an English teacher at home and is now a refugee working as a carer.

The event will take place at the BIC and is organised by the Bournemouth and Poole Holocaust Memorial Day Committee to remember all those who were killed or persecuted during the Holocaust and subsequent genocides and this year's memorial will start at 2pm and end at 3.45pm.

Each year Holocaust Memorial Day - which represents the date when the Nazi concentration camp at Auschwitz was finally liberated in 1945 - takes a theme and this year's is 'The power of words'.

Lynda Ford-Horne, one of the organisers of the event, said:

‘‘This year we are delighted to bring our annual commemoration of Holocaust Memorial Day back to the BIC. We're expecting over 500 people to attend."

Between 1941 and 1945, the Nazis attempted to annihilate all of Europe’s Jews. Over six million men, women and children perished in ghettos, mass-shootings, concentration camps and extermination camps. To commemorate all who died, candles will be lit by representatives reflecting the cultural diversity in the community including Jewish, Muslim, Romany, Black, Minority Ethnic and LGBT people. Tributes will also be paid to the victims of genocides in Cambodia, Bosnia, Rwanda, and Darfur along with the millions affected by the ongoing conflict in Syria.

For more information or to register your attendance, please visit: www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/holocaust-memorial-day-2018-tickets-40708217374?aff=eac2 .