THIS year's Holocaust memorial service will take place at Trinity Methodist Church in Douglas on Sunday (January 29).

The annual "interfaith" event is open to all and those attending are asked to take their seats by 2.45pm. 

Carol Jempson, one of the organisers of the service, 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'."

Other groups were persecuted on political, ideological and behavioural grounds - among them communists, socialists, Jehovah's Witnesses and homosexuals.

Carol continued: "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."