Carol Jempson, one of the organisers explained:

 “‘Holocaust’ is a word of Greek origin meaning ‘sacrifice by fire.’

 The Isle of Man National Holocaust Memorial Day was introduced by the Isle of Man Government to Commemorate the Nazi state sponsored persecution and murder of approximately six million Jews who were deemed to be ‘racially inferior’ and an alien threat to what they perceived as the German racial community. During the era of the Holocaust, German authorities also targeted other groups because of their perceived "racial inferiority": Roma (Gypsies), the disabled, and some of the Slavic peoples (Poles, Russians, and others). Other groups were persecuted on political, ideological, and behavioural grounds, among them Communists, Socialists, Jehovah's Witnesses, and homosexuals.

Despite the horror engendered by the Holocaust when the allied armies liberated the concentration camps, genocide continues to this day. 

Each year the Holocaust Memorial Service remembers those who died in all genocides including Rwanda, Darfur, Bosnia and others.

ENDS