Thought For The Day – Tuesday 27^th January 2026

Today is Holocaust Memorial Day.

The Holocaust was the bullying, persecution, and murder of 6.6 million Jewish people by the Nazis.  The Nazis were an evil, extremist group who took over a country.

In Hebrew, the term “Shoah” is used for The Holocaust. Shoah means immense catastrophe and destruction, conveying an atrocity and tragedy beyond words.

Hannah Lewis M.B.E., who regularly visits T.B.S.H.S., and will, hopefully, do so again in May 2026, had most of her Jewish family murdered by the Nazis. Hannah was eight years of age when she saw her mother shot by the Nazis. Her mother gave up her life to save Hannah, being with Hannah when Hannah was ill (when there was a chance of escape, but in freezing cold conditions), and then hiding Hannah, before answering the door to Nazi guards.

The Nazis also bullied, persecuted, and murdered the:  Black, Disabled, Elderly, Jehovah’s Witness,  LGBTQ+, Mentally Ill, Roma, and Traveller,  Communities.

The Nazis bullied, persecuted, and murdered anyone, including political and religious opponents, who stood against them.

At the close of a recent B.B.C. programme, presented by the respected historian Sir Simon Schama, Marian Turski, a Holocaust survivor, said the following, quoting a poem by Boleslaw Taborski:  “The most important thing is compassion.  Its absence dehumanises.  Take the perpetrators of the Holocaust, the devil’s servants on Earth. They pretended to be humans, nay, super-humans. They were nothing. They knew not what compassion is.”

Holocaust Memorial Day also remembers other atrocities and genocides around the world in, for example:  Bosnia, Cambodia; Darfur, and Rwanda.

This year’s theme of Holocaust Memorial Day is, very appropriately, “Bridging Generations” , as the History of the past is heard, remembered, learnt from, and acted upon. for Good in the present and future.

Today we think of those deeply suffering all around the world, past and present.

In offering words of advice for the future, Holocaust survivor Marian Turski , who passed away from this life last year, said the following to Sir Simon Schama in a recent  B.B.C. programme:

“Auschwitz did not fall from the sky.  It comes step by step.  Evil comes step by step. And therefore, you should not be indifferent. Let’s start with reducing hatred, and trying to understand other people.”

Hannah Lewis M.B.E. says: “I’m telling you this because I like you so much and I want you to be vigilant. We shouldn’t be horrible to each other. We shouldn’t want to kill each other. There’s plenty of room for everything and everybody. We need to be kinder to each other.”