Holocaust victims laid to rest in poignant ceremony
THE remains of six Holocaust victims murdered at Auschwitz have been buried as Britain’s Chief Rabbi urged an end to an “increase in anti-Semitism”.
About 50 Holocaust survivors joined hundreds of other members of the Jewish community at the United Synagogue New Cemetery in Bushey, Herts, for the funeral.
Chief Rabbi Ephraim Mirvis warned that anti-Semitism is on the rise and unchecked hate speech “can easily be translated into hate crime”.
The ashes and bones of the six unknown victims were sent from Auschwitz to the Imperial War Museum in London in 1997 and kept in an archive. Tests revealed they were five adults and a child, but nothing else is known.
A small coffin which held the remains of all six was buried with earth from Israel as survivors and other mourners lined up to throw earth on to it.
Rabbi Mirvis said the funeral, the first for Holocaust victims to be held in the UK, was a reminder “to confront all forms of racism and discrimination”.
He added: “The message that you convey through the presence of your remains before us today is that if anti-Semitism exists, and it goes by unchecked, then hate speech can easily be translated into hate crime.”
Communities minister James Brokenshire MP, who was at the ceremony, said he hoped “we must continue to challenge racism, anti-Semitism and bigotry and where hatred can lead”.
Survivor Agnes Grunwald-Spier, an author and historian born in Budapest in 1944, said: “In a way these people represent all those millions who have no grave and whose families can’t mourn them properly because they don’t know what happened to them.”
The remains were returned by the museum to the Jewish community after a stocktake of its Holocaust material last year.