Holocaust Memorial Day: special events and film screenings across Northern Ireland

Fermanagh and Omagh District Council will also be illuminating Enniskillen Castle and the Strule Arts Centre, Omagh, purple on Saturday 27 as nations around the world remember the genocide in the genocide that claimed the lives of six million jews.

In Belfast, the Crescent Arts Centre is celebrating the legacy of dance teacher Helen Lewis who survived Auschwitz, then moved to Northern Ireland where she taught modern dance.

Two films are being screened on Saturday. In ‘A Time to Dance’ Helen Lewis, known as Helly Katz when the Nazis entered Prague in 1939, tells how she was required to wear a yellow star and was eventually sent to the horrific concentration camps in the east.

In the film she reflects on her survival against the odds and how she came to build a new life in Belfast. Several of the dancers taught by Helen teach regularly in The Crescent dance studios.

The second film is the 16-minute long Abii ne viderem (I turned away so as not to see), recalls how Helen choreographed the Waltz from Coppelia during her incarceration at Stutthof Concentration Camp in December 1944.

Further information is available at www.crescentarts.org/events/remembering-helen-lewis-film-screenings-and-conversations.

A number of exhibitions on the Holocaust are also being held in libraries across counties Down and Antrim on Saturday.

In Ballyclare library, the display is open to the public from 9.30am to 1pm.

A similar exhibition will be on public display at Newtownards library – remembering “those affected by the Holocaust and genocide,” between 10am and 4pm.

A Holocaust commemorative exhibition is also open to the public at Bangor’s Carnegie library until Wednesday, January 30.

Earlier this week, almost 300 people gathered at Belfast City Hall to remember the millions of victims and survivors of the Holocaust, as well as those impacted by the horrors of more recent genocides in Cambodia, Rwanda, Bosnia and Darfur.

A special evening of remembrance was held at Monkstown Jubilee Centre last Sunday.

More information on Holocaust Memorial Day can be found at The Holocaust Memorial Trust via www.hmd.org.uk