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Holocaust Memorial Day was created on 27 January 2000, when representatives from 46 governments around the world met in Stockholm to discuss Holocaust education, remembrance and research.

Each year we organise the UK Commemorative Ceremony for Holocaust Memorial Day (HMD). This is the focal point of HMD in the UK and brings together the civic, faith and political leadership of the country, alongside survivors of the Holocaust and more recent genocides.

Many senior Nazi war criminals were never sentenced for their roles during the Holocaust. Some, like Adolf Hitler and Heinrich Himmler committed suicide as the war came to an end. Many escaped Germany and were never found. However, international efforts to bring those responsible for the Holocaust to justice began after the war and have continued into recent years.

On assuming power in 1933 the first people the Nazis targeted for arrest and imprisonment were political opponents – primarily communists, trade unionists and social democrats.

In September 2004, the U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell applied the label of ‘genocide’ to Darfur – the first time the US Congress had done this during an ongoing conflict. However, despite this and the ICC indictments, international intervention in the conflict has been limited.