THIS week marks the 75th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz concentration camp – the site of more than one million deaths during the Holocaust.

It also symbolises genocides that have followed, including in Cambodia, Rwanda, Bosnia and Darfur.

At least 500 people took to Poole Lighthouse on Sunday to commemorate Holocaust Memorial Day, which saw candles lit by people across Dorset who represent the cultural diversity in the region.

Amongst the crowds at the event included members of the Bournemouth and Poole Holocaust Committee, Mayor of Bournemouth Susan Phillips and Jewish child Henry Schachter OBE, who told his story of how his two parents died at Auschwitz.

Henry took to the stage and said: “Anti-Semitism knows no borders.

“I was adopted by a Christian family while my mum and dad went into hiding, and on my fifth birthday, my mother brought me a cake and visited me.

“That was the last time she visited before I watched her put on her coat – and I never saw her again for the rest of my life.”

He then spoke of how his parents both were caught and sent to Auschwitz, but they were then sent on a death march.

Soon after that, Harry’s father was shot dead when trying to escape to Flossenberg, and his mother died of typhus. Children also read out mini commitment cards on the day to honour those killed in the liberations and genocides.

Mayor of Bournemouth Susan Phillips said: “We want to provide harmony for anybody who has had loss of family through this.

“We must have events like this to never forget. We put on the event on a Sunday because we want to comfort all those affected and all of the working people. My message is that we should live together in harmony and that this must never happen again.”