(JEWISH GROUP) Number of UK schools marking Holocaust Remembrance Day drops nearly 60% since Oct. 7
The number of British schools commemorating International Holocaust Remembrance Day has dropped by nearly 60 percent in the past two years, according to a nonprofit dedicated to promoting the annual memorial on January 27.
Observance of International Holocaust Remembrance Day, which marks the day Auschwitz was liberated by the Red Army in 1945, had been rising in recent years, with more than 2,000 secondary schools in the UK holding commemorative or educational events to memorialize the day in 2023, according to the Holocaust Memorial Day Trust (HMDT), a nonprofit established by the UK Government to promote and support International Holocaust Memorial Day.
However, since the Gaza war began with the Hamas terror onslaught of October 7, 2023, unleashing a wave of antisemitism around the world, observance in the educational system has been waning. Just under 1,200 held events in 2024, and only 854 schools did so in 2025, out of approximately 4,200 secondary schools across the country, HMDT said.
“I fear for what will happen this year,” UK Chief Rabbi Ephraim Mirvis wrote in an editorial published over the weekend in The Sunday Times.
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