Faith news and events

This page features news and events of interest to faith communities in Lambeth.

If you have an upcoming event which you would like to be added to this page, please contact the Community Programme Manager on 020 7926 2681 or email DWiggins@lambeth.gov.uk.

Holocaust Memorial Day 2012

Sunday 29 January 2012
Lambeth Town Hall from 3 to 4.30pm

"First they came for the communists, and I did not speak out…" so begins the famous poem of 1946 by Pastor Niemoller. It's a poem that highlights the dangers of not speaking up when we experience, see or hear injustice.

Under the Nazi regime of hatred (1933-1945), the voices of many were taken away. During the Holocaust Jewish men, women and children were stripped of their right to speak up, to have their own home, to work, to own a radio, or to keep their own name. Time and time again, in genocides in Rwanda, Armenia, Bosnia and in Darfur, people have had their voices taken away, others have not spoken up and lives have been changed beyond recognition.

Whilst these atrocities have taken place, many have stood idly by and did not speak against persecution and discrimination. None of us know what we would do if we were faced with a life threatening decision, but we hope that we will do what is right.

If we do not use our voices we run the risk of having them taken away.

Everyone has a fundamental Human Right to freedom of speech. Each of us has a voice and has the choice to use it. The choices we make and the words and language we use every day contribute to creating a safe and fair society.

Holocaust Memorial Day asks us all to Speak Up, Speak Out to share the lessons of the past and the present and to use our choices to create a safer and better future.

There are voices from the past and present which can inspire our choices:

• The Rosenstrasse protests of 1943 when the German wives of 1600 Jewish men who had been held in Rose Street, Berlin spoke up and secured their release
• The story of Dr Ludwig Guttmann, the founder of the Paralympics, was a Jewish doctor who fled Germany in 1939 to seek refuge in England. He spoke up for the rights of disabled people to be given the same opportunities in the sporting arena as other athletes.
• British diplomat Mukesh Kapila who was head of the UN in Sudan witnessed the start of the genocide in Darfur in April 2004 and alerted the international media even though it cost him his career.

Please join us on Sunday 29 January 2012, in Lambeth Town Hall from 3pm to 4.30pm, to remember the victims of Nazi persecution and those who were murdered under exclusionary polices in Cambodia, Bosnia, Rwanda and Darfur.

Our keynote speaker will be Alphonsine Kabagabo, the Regional Director of the Africa Region of the World Association of Girl Guide and Girl Scouts and a survivor of the Rwandan genocide.