Holocaust Memorial Day to be marked by events across the country

Rememberance events will be attended by survivors, politicians, and members of the public

A former concentration camp prisoner attends a ceremony at the memorial site of the former Nazi concentration camp Auschwitz-Birkenau in Oswiecim, Poland, on Holocaust Day. (JANEK SKARZYNSKI/AFP/Getty Images)

Holocaust Memorial Day, marking the liberation of prisoners from the Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration camp as well as more recent genocides, will be observed on Monday.

Survivors and members of the public will remember victims of Nazi persecution, as well as genocides in Cambodia, Rwanda, Bosnia and Darfur, at events held across the country.

The UK's chief rabbi Ephraim Mirvis will deliver an assembly at Copthall School in Barnet, north London. This will be his first address on Holocaust Memorial Day since taking up the post in September 2013.

Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg will join survivors of the Holocaust and more recent genocides to light a candle of remembrance at King's Cross station in central London.

Prince Minister David Cameron is hosting a reception at Downing Street.

The events mark the 69th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz-Birkenau, the largest Nazi death camp.

On Sunday, anti-fascist campaigners confronted supports of extremist Hungarian political party Jobbik ahead of a rally they planned to stage in London.

Despite pleas from protesters to the Home Secretary Theresa May to ban the group’s leader Gabor Vona from the UK, he staged a rally in Hyde Park after venue managers in London were reluctant to host the group.

Karen Pollock, Chief Executive of the Holocaust Educational Trust, said the party leader Gabor Vona on the eve of the memorial day was “deplorable”.

She said: “At a time when anti-Semitic discourse is so firmly in the headlines, it is more important now than ever before for us to make a national commitment to remember the terrible events of the Holocaust.”

Additional reporting by PA