The “proud daughter” of a Holocaust survivor addressed the community at the International Holocaust Remembrance Day Ceremony held at City Hall yesterday in Hamilton.

Judy Maybury’s Hungarian mother was twice sent on a death march from Budapest to the notorious concentration camp of Auschwitz — and twice escaped.

The ceremony brought by the Bermuda Christian Jewish Alliance marked the 81st anniversary of the liberation the camp.

Ms Maybury told the gathering: “I hope there will always be world peace.”

More than a million people were killed at the Auschwitz concentration camp in German-occupied Poland, including an estimated 960,000 Jewish people, before the Soviet Army freed the survivors on January 27, 1945.

In the aftermath of the war, it was discovered that 568,000 Hungarian Jews perished during the Holocaust.

Ms Maybury said: “I am sad to say that my mother’s only sibling — her sister — and her brother-in-law were among those that were in the death trains in 1944 to Auschwitz.”

She added: “I’m proud to say that our great mother passed on a great legacy.”

The BCJA, which described itself as a “grass roots solidarity group uniting Christians and Jews”, has committed to standing with the island’s Jewish community in the face of a global rise in anti-Semitism.

Charles Gosling, the Mayor of Hamilton, told more than two dozen attendees that the Holocaust stood as one of history’s darkest chapters because of its scale, fuelled by “corrupt ideas” and the globalisation of intolerance.

“Remembrance should be passive, to remember is to reflect, to reflect is to learn and by learning it should empower us to act,” he said.

Mr Gosling said ceremonies of remembrance meant that “history is not forgotten”, allowing a pause to honour those who lost their lives.

Tony Reid, of the Bermuda Christian Jewish Alliance, called on the Government to issue annual proclamations to commemorate International Holocaust Remembrance Day.

He added: “This day was set by the United Nations for nations to take this day to pause, to reflect but more importantly to learn a lesson from one of the darkest periods of history.”

Mr Reid also called on the island to “adopt Holocaust and anti-Semitism education”.