Kensington spent ten hours on Saturday, remembering and commemorating, the Holocaust of WW2, affecting principly Jews, but also gays, people with disabilities, non-conformists and gypsies.
We also remembered and commemorated more recent genocides and ethnic cleansing in countries who now have a community within Kensington
Principly; D R Congo, Rwanda, Birindi, Dafur, Kosovo, Kurdistan, Roma people, Czechs and Slovaks
We watched the deeply disturbing film "A painful reminder" filmed during the liberation of Auschwitz by Sidney Bernstein, we debated rape as method of control in African civil wars, we heard about new schemes in Liverpool to help raped Asylum seekers.
We had an hour of performances from young people - the Polish Saturday School, Yellow House and Home Grown Music, all very moving and uplifting, our future as a country is in very safe hands.
We had different ethnic foods (although nobody was very hungry after watching films of people starving to death) and we finished with two and a half hours of individual commemorations from the communities above.
A long day, a hard day, everyone was weeping, everyone was moved, but everyone had their chance to say what was in their hearts and there was a palpable love and warmth and support throughout the room (the main hall in St Francis of Assisi Academy)
I want to thank everyone for their contributions, you were all magnificent, thank you for letting me chair the day
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