Events planned to mark International Holocaust Memorial Day
President Michael D Higgins will speak at the National Commemoration at Dublin's Mansion House on Sunday for International Holocaust Memorial Day. Photo: Evan Treacy / © RollingNews.ie
The central event in Ireland marking International Holocaust Memorial Day will be on Sunday at the National Commemoration at Mansion House, Dublin, where President Michael D Higgins will speak.
There are a range of other events as well as television and radio coverage on RTÉ and BBC.
The United Nations General Assembly designated Monday, January 27, as International Holocaust Memorial Day. It marks the 80th anniversary of the liberation of the Auschwitz-Birkenau death camp in Nazi-occupied Poland.
When the Soviet Army liberated the camp they found 7,000 remaining prisoners.
International estimates put the death toll at the camp at more than one million people. It is estimated that six million Jews were exterminated in the various death camps.
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An estimated five million more people also died in the camps, including Gypsies, Poles and other Slavs, people with physical or mental disabilities, Jehovah's Witnesses, homosexuals, dissenting clergy, communists and socialists.
The commemoration at the Mansion House on Sunday, 26 January, is organised by Holocaust Education Ireland (HEI), in association with the Department of Children, Equality, Disability, Integration and Youth.
Preparations for the event have been overshadowed by public disagreement between Israeli ambassador to Ireland, Dana Erlich, and then Taoiseach Simon Harris and Tánaiste Micheál Martin as well as President Higgins.
The President’s determination to speak at the event and the organiser’s decision not to invite Ms Erlich to speak at it has sparked further public commentary.
It drew the ire not only of Ms Erlich but also of the Jewish Representative Council of Ireland.
“Memorial Day used to be a deeply apolitical event,” a senior source told the , “now it is a much more policised event. Holocaust commemorations in Europe have become extremely fraught."
On Monday, the day of the anniversary, Holocaust Awareness Ireland (HAI) will hold a talk at 6.30pm in Trinity College Dublin. Oliver Sears, founder of HAI, will speak at the event along with Irish Times journalist and author Fintan O’Toole.
Mr Sears is the son of a Holocaust survivor and has lived in Ireland for more than 30 years. The event, entitled 'Why Talk About the Holocaust?', is being held at the Edmund Burke Theatre and is being moderated by Zuleika Rodgers, associate professor in Jewish Studies at TCD.
In Belfast, Holocaust Memorial Day 2025 is being held at the Northern Ireland War Memorial Museum.
Dan Lewis from the Northern Holocaust Education Group will share the story of his grandmother, Helen Lewis, who, when living in Prague, was deported to Terezin in 1942. She managed to survive Terezin, Auschwitz, Stutthof and a death march, before returning to Prague at the end of the war and emigrating to Belfast in 1947.
In a month’s time, on February 27, HEI will hold its Annual Memorial Lecture at 6.30pm in the Thomas Davis Theatre at Trinity College Dublin. The lecture, entitled 'Surviving Liberation: Jewish Camp Survivors 1945-1948', is being given by Emeritus Professor of History at University of Limerick, Anthony McElligott.
His recent book 'The Last Transport: The Holocaust in the Eastern Aegean' was published by Bloomsbury in 2024.
On RTÉ Radio 1 at 10pm on Friday, the religious programme Divine Sparks will be dedicated to the 80th anniversary with personal accounts from two sons, Yanky Fachler and David Reichental, of Jewish Holocaust survivor, speaker and author Tomi Reichental, who moved to Ireland in 1959.
Dr Gisela Holfter, from the University of Limerick, will give a radio essay that looks at Ireland's response to Jewish refugees fleeing Germany.
Also on the programme, Rabbi Joshua Rubin, Director of the Liberal Jewish Fellowship in South Bend, Indiana, US, will talk about how Jewish people are finding it particularly challenging this year to commemorate the Holocaust.
On RTÉ Radio 1 at 8pm on Sunday, Drama on One will be in memory of Dutch soprano, writer and vocal coach, Judith Mok.
It will present her radio piece, , in which recurring lockdowns prompt echoes from her family’s history during the Second World War, including of her Aunt Saar, who perished in the camp of Bergen Belsen.
Morning Ireland is also expected to report on Monday on the anniversary.
On television, the One O'Clock News, Six One News and Nine O'Clock News will hear from reporters in Poland and at home marking the day. The RTÉ News channel is planning to broadcast live coverage of the Auschwitz Ceremony from Poland on Monday afternoon.
RTÉ 2 will also be broadcasting ' ' on Saturday, February 1, at 8pm, a documentary about Mauthausen concentration camp. The BBC also has an extensive programme, including live coverage from Poland on Monday.
Three new TV documentaries will explore the lasting impact of the Holocaust, including ‘ ’ on BBC One on Monday at 9pm, which tells the story of Anita Lasker-Wallfisch who, at 99, is the only surviving member of the Women’s Orchestra at Auschwitz.
In a commission to be broadcast later in the year, historian Simon Schama will present a personal story in ‘ ’.
