CATHY Jamieson met with Holocaust survivor Lily Ebert at launch of theme for Holocaust Memorial Day 2015 Holocaust Memorial Day (HMD) is commemorated each year on 27 January – the anniversary of the liberation of the Auschwitz death and concentration camp.

HMD provides an opportunity for everyone to learn lessons from the Holocaust, Nazi persecution and subsequent genocides in Cambodia, Rwanda, Bosnia and Darfur. HMD asks people to apply these lessons to the present day to create a safer, better future.

The Holocaust Memorial Day Trust (HMDT) promotes and supports HMD activities in the UK. Each year HMDT selects a theme around which HMD activities can focus. The theme for 2015 is Keep the memory alive.

Cathy met with Lily Ebert, who was deported to Auschwitz with her family at the age of 14. She was separated from her mother, brother and sister, who were sent to the gas chambers.

Cathy said:‘Having visited Auschwitz I understand the impact that visiting places and meeting people affected by the Holocaust can have. Lily’s story, which is immensely moving, is just one of many incredible stories told by survivors of the Holocaust.

With the end of the WW2 now almost 70 years ago, it is essential that we listen and learn from Holocaust survivors while we still can. Theirs are stories of cruelty, suffering and unspeakable loss; but they are also stories of compassion, courage and, above all, the will to survive.

"Lily’s story brought back to me the importance of marking Holocaust Memorial Day, a day on which we remember and honour not only the memory of those whose lives were destroyed by the Holocaust, but the victims of all genocides, both historical and contemporary.

"If we don’t learn from the past we are condemned to repeat it. I want to encourage people in Kilmarnock and Loudoun and across Scotland to mark Holocaust Memorial Day on 27 January 2015."