A POWERFUL reminder of the horrors of the holocaust was staged in Ipswich as part of a three day memorial.Dozens of people, including the town's mayor, Inga Lockington, attended the 'Imagine' event, held at the Corn Exchange.

A POWERFUL reminder of the horrors of the holocaust was staged in Ipswich as part of a three day memorial.

Dozens of people, including the town's mayor, Inga Lockington, attended the 'Imagine' event, held at the Corn Exchange.

The memorial, which began on Friday, featured photographic exhibitions, films, music, and a talk from a concentration camp survivor.

It is the second event of its kind in Ipswich.

Yesterday marked Holocaust Memorial Day, which is commemorated on January 27 each year - the anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz.

Organiser Tanya White said the memorial's aim was to commemorate and educate, ensuring the holocaust was never forgotten.

She added: “This was a chance for everybody in the county to come together and remember those lost in the holocaust, as well as present day victims of genocide.

“This year marks the 65th anniversary of the creation of the term 'genocide' so it's a special year in that respect.

“Importantly, the holocaust curriculum in the county's schools is going to be developed to reflect the stories of survivors living in the area.”

Several holocaust-inspired films were shown over the weekend, including Schindler's List, The Pianist and The Counterfeiters.

A number of groups and agencies were behind the event, including the borough and county councils, police, Unison and the mental health trust.

More than six million Jews were killed during the holocaust in a systematic campaign of persecution and extermination.

In 1933, when the Nazis came to power in Germany, the Jewish population of Europe stood at more than nine million.

By the war's end in 1945, close to two out of every three Jews in Europe had been murdered.

Should more be done to remember the holocaust? Write to Your Letters, Evening Star, 30 Lower Brook Street, Ipswich, IP4 1AN or e-mail eveningstarletters@eveningstar.co.uk

OF the many speakers to address the Holocaust memorial, Dora Love's words were undeniably the most poignant.

Mrs Love, 85, is a survivor of the Stutthof concentration camp in Germany, where 65,000 people were murdered - more than half of those who passed through its gates.

Born and raised in Lithuania, Mrs Love was 16 when war broke out in 1939 and on March 20 that year, German SS troops invaded her home town of Memel, forcing her family to flee.

They were rounded up along with thousands of Jews from Poland and Lituania and forced to live in a ghetto in northern Lithuania.

A year later, Mrs Love and thousands more were herded on to cattle trucks and taken to Stutthhof.

The new inmates were stripped, shaved, ordered to shower in cold water and issued with striped clothing and clogs.

Mrs Love's younger sister, eldest brother and mother all perished at the camp, where she spent more than a year and two months.

She said: “People should know what happened, especially the young.

“Their life is ahead of them and they have to know that the horrors and bad behaviour from one group to another will only cause millions of deaths.

“Somebody has to survive to tell the tale. Unless you hear it from somebody who was there, how could you believe it?”