This will be followed by a special performance of The Fool of the Warsaw Ghetto - A Fairy Tale from Auschwitz, on Sunday 29 January. Shonaleigh Cumbers - a storyteller in the Yiddish oral tradition, whose own mother is a Holocaust survivor - will present the story in the Millennium Chapel at 2pm. 

The tale is of three children who are put onto the last trucks leaving the ghetto for the death camps. Inside that seemingly hopeless place they encounter the "Fool of the Warsaw Ghetto", who offers them a moment of magic in which to escape, if they have the courage to take it.

Visitors to the Arboretum can also take the opportunity to visit the tree dedicated to diarist Anne Frank, who died in the Bergen-Belsen camp aged just fifteen. Symbolising the taking of a young life, every year her haunting tree at the Arboretum has its blossoms removed before they bloom.

Holocaust Memorial Day is commemorated internationally on January 27 each year. This date was chosen as it’s the anniversary of the day in 1945 on which the Soviet Army liberated Auschwitz-Birkenau, the largest Nazi concentration camp. It provides an opportunity for everyone to learn lessons from the Holocaust and subsequent genocides, including Cambodia, Rwanda, Bosnia and Darfur, and apply them to the present day in order to create a safer future.

The theme for Holocaust Memorial Day 2012 is Speak Up, Speak Out. It is intended to encourage people to give voice to the things in which they believe and aims to show the different ways in which we can speak up and take inspiration from the past.

The Arboretum is open daily from 9am to 5pm (or dusk if earlier). Entry is free but donations are appreciated. A donation of £5.00 is suggested for the performance of The Fool of the Warsaw Ghetto - A Fairy Tale from Auschwitz.

Throughout January, February and March, the car parking fee is reduced to £1.50. 

For further information call 01283 792333.

Media contact:
Kate Habberley, The Royal British Legion, 07943 333362, kate.habberley@talapr.co.uk