IHRC is urging local government and other organisations to boycott the 2025 official Holocaust Memorial Day commemorations after the government led charity that holds the event refused to say that it would include Gaza in the list of genocides being marked.

In a letter to 460 councils and universities across the UK, IHRC said that the Trust’s omission undermines the collective responsibility of people and a key aim of HMD which is to prevent current and future genocides.

IHRC wrote to the HMD Trust on 27 Nov (the letter can be read here) requesting that it includes Gaza among the genocides being commemorated in January but to date we have not received a reply.

HMD Trust is a government funded charity that established Holocaust Memorial Day in 2001. Every year in January it host events to mark the Nazi Holocaust and promotes its commemoration among schools, universities, councils, prisons and other bodies.

The failure to include Gaza has prompted us to write to local councils and universities to request that they boycott the official body’s commemorations and replace them with something more inclusive.

The letter, which can be read here, reminds them that numerous organisations, including most recently Amensty International, have classified Israeli actions in Gaza since October 2023 as a genocide. By ignoring a genocide that is unfolding in our time, the failure to include Gaza directly undermine the principle of “Never Again” which is claimed to lie at the heart of HMD.

The failure of the HMD Trust to respect such an axiomatic principle also speaks to the racial exclusivism that has come to characterise the official commemoration.

IHRC chair Massoud Shadjareh said: “We have suspected for a long time that HMD promotes exceptionalisation of genocide through the Nazi Holocaust. Any failure to include the actual genocide that is unfolding so graphically in our own time gives the lie to the slogan “Never Again” exposing it as a political device to promote one genocide over all others. Civil society cannot allow the Gaza genocide to be legitimised by the misappropriation of the Nazi Holocaust”.

[ENDS]

For more information or comment please contact the Press Office on (+44) 208 904 0222  or (+44) 7958 522196 or email media@ihrc.org