A PACKED Corn Exchange was told of the need to keep the memory alive at a Holocaust Memorial Day event in Dorchester.

Extra seating had to be put out to accommodate all those who turned out for the event.

It began with readings from children from Sunninghill Preparatory School and students from the Thomas Hardye School speaking about subsequent genocides in other parts of the world including Cambodia and Bosnia.

The theme of this year’s Holocaust Memorial Day was ‘Keeping the Memory Alive’.

Reverend Roger Redding, chaplain to Dorset’s gypsies and travellers, and Betty Smith spoke at the event about the gypsy traveller community and the prejudice they still encounter today. Dorset Police and Crime Commissioner Martyn Underhill also spoke at the event and said it was an ‘emotional’ occasion for him.

He said his father served in the 8th Army during the Second World War and was among the first Allied troops to enter the concentration camp at Belsen.

Mr Underhill said: “He only told me about it once and he cried because he just found all these skeletons of people.”

He added: “We still struggle with hate crime and intolerance in our society. We must keep the memory of the Holocaust alive to stop it happening again.”

Another speaker was Harry Grenville, who travelled to England on the Kindertransport, leaving behind his parents and grandmother who were later taken to Auschwitz Mr Grenville spoke of the recent efforts he had experienced in his hometown of Ludwigsburg near Stuttgart, where the victims of the Holocaust have been remembered at the site where a Jewish synagogue was burnt to the ground in 1938.

He said: “I’m gratefully touched by the way in which the second and third generations after the Nazis are doing their best to atone for the crimes of their ancestors.

“In that way they are succeeding in keeping the memory alive of Ludwigsburg’s Jewish victims and their ancestors.”

The event finished with a Jewish song, followed by a minute’s silence and the lighting of candles.