Survivor Renee Salt gave an emotive account of her Shoah experience to the London Assembly’s Holocaust Memorial Day ceremony.

Before a digital audience including London Mayor Sadiq Khan and Rabbi Barry Marcus, Mrs Salt recalled her time in Auschwitz-Birkenau, where her father died, and latterly as a slave labourer with her mother at Bergen-Belsen.  

After liberation in April 1945, she was unconscious for ten days. Two days after she awoke, her mother died, aged 42.

She made her way to Paris, where she met her husband Charles, who served in the British Military Police – and had helped to liberate Bergen-Belsen. 

 “We all have a duty to be points of light in times of darkness,” she said in a reference to this year’s HMD theme. 

 “We have a responsibility to remember those lost and to listen to the stories of those who survived.” 

Mr Khan warned that “even in democratic societies, we cannot be complacent. 

“Rather, we must always strive to be the light that keeps the darkness at bay, confronting antisemitism wherever it rears its ugly head, challenging those who seek to sow the seeds of division and standing up against anyone who attempts to demonise or dehumanise our minority communities.”

The Mayor also spoke of visiting Auschwitz, “an extremely humbling and chilling experience”. 

He went on to praise the contribution of survivors, noting that “despite having every right to be consumed by anger and resentment, so many have instead dedicated themselves to educating the next generation. To building a future defined not by hatred but by hope and unity.” 

There was also testimony from a survivor of a more recent genocide, Darfur. Abdul Musa Adam was a child refugee after his parents were murdered. 

He and his brother Yusuf spent time in a Chad refugee camp before he crossed into Libya, where he was exploited as a migrant labourer. He was separated from his brother and has not seen him since. 

Having eventually made his way to the UK, he is working with horses and dreams of becoming a jockey. He is still searching for his brother.

Concluding, Rabbi Marcus observed that words featuring in the pandemic vernacular are “all too well known to Jews all over the world”.

Antisemitism mutates “but we have always recognised the virus for what it is. Despite this, we as a people have never lost hope.”