Holocaust Memorial Day: Robert Rinder speaks at Exeter Cathedral service

Judge Rinder is a TV personality and barrister

TV personality and barrister Robert Rinder spoke at Exeter Cathedral as part of a commemorative Holocaust Memorial Day service.

He was joined by psychologist Bernie Graham at the service.

The pair gave a 45-minute talk on the Holocaust Memorial Day Trust's 2023 theme of Ordinary People.

Their appearance follows Mr Rinder's BBC One documentary series - My Family, The Holocaust and Me.

In the series, both men explore the historical impact of the Holocaust on their families and on their roles as second-generation survivors.

Holocaust Memorial Day is an international day of remembrance marking the anniversary of the Second World War liberation of the Auschwitz-Birkenau Nazi death camp.

As well as remembering the six million Jews murdered during the Holocaust, and millions of others from minority groups killed under Nazi persecution, Holocaust Memorial Day also remembers more recent genocides, including those in Cambodia, Rwanda, Bosnia and Darfur in Sudan.

Robert Rinder gave a talk at the special service at the cathedral

The Holocaust Memorial Day Trust said this year's theme was designed to explore the roles of ordinary people in genocide, and consider how ordinary people might play a bigger role in challenging prejudice today.

Following the service, Mr Rinder said: "Today is Holocaust Memorial Day, and it's important for innumerable reasons, but this year's theme is ordinary people.

"Why that's important is this is not just a commemoration of the six million Jewish men, women and children, amongst them my grandfather's family, who were murdered in the Nazi Holocaust, it's a commemoration of how that happened and why, and unless we learn the lessons of the past, we're doomed to repeat them."

Mr Rinder said people knew "that for bad things to happen it takes good people to do nothing".

'Stand up against hate'

He said: "Today is important because we ask ourselves a question, confronted by a world even today, where we know that even on the Earth as we're talking today - genocide continues.

"How can we have the courage to be extraordinary? How can we not be bystanders?

"That's why today is important: it's a commemoration of the past, to give life and respect to those who passed, to mourn the gifts they would have given to the world, but it's also a call to every single human being that they have a responsibility to be in the world with courage and to stand up against hate and prejudice in all its forms, wherever it manifests.

"That's the way that we stop being ordinary and become extraordinary, and go into our lives with courage."

The Very Reverend Jonathan Greener, Dean of Exeter, said: "It's very important for us as a Christian church to host these events because it seems to be firstly, so many of those involved with the Holocaust came from the Christian church, but secondly, it was ordinary people who caused this to happen.

"What we need to do nowadays is to remember what happened, and to shape our lives so that such things can never happen again."

Dean Greener added we needed to always "avoid becoming complacent" and "embrace rather than reject".