The planning for the Croydon Holocaust memorial event takes place from July with steering group meetings every month. Up to October we were planning the usual event at the Town Hall and then due to COVID-19 restrictions we realised that it would have to be a virtual event after all.
We had to get all the participants to film themselves and send them in, the Croydon Music and Arts centre kindly got some pupils to record themselves playing music and two schools, Riddlesdown Collegiate and Oasis Coulsdon, sent in presentations. The Mayor made a very powerful speech and read the Croydon Pledge and Councillor Wood also made a recording and just before the event recorded his thanks to all the presenters. The Keynote speaker was Mr Sokphal Din who was a teenager in Cambodia when he was taken to the killing fields. His testimony about being the light in the darkness, this year’s theme, was very moving indeed. We also had a speech from Marilyn Arbisman of the Croydon Synagogue.
Halima Ikuomola from the Council was fantastic at putting all the recordings together to make a coherent hour-long event and even though with days to go before the event we were told that it had to be subtitled we managed to get it done. The film is still on the Croydon website and can be viewed using this link; www.croydon.gov.uk/HolocaustMemorialDay2021
15.02.21