A SERVICE beamed across the country, to remember the lives taken in the Holocaust, was led by a Carlisle charitable foundation.

Members of Rose Castle Foundation led BBC Radio 4’s Sunday Worship on January 24 to mark the Holocaust Memorial.

Reverend Julia Hedley, chaplain to the Rose Castle Foundation in Carlisle, joined The Archbishop of Canterbury’s special advisor for reconciliation, Canon Sarah Snyder for the special Sunday service.

The key message was “be the light in the darkness” as the memorial of over six million lives lost coincided with the UK approaching 100,000 Coronavirus deaths.

The Rose Castle Foundation welcomes a variety of faith and political perspectives – the uniting factor being an impetus to reconcile.

Based at the 800 year-old seat of the bishops of Carlisle, the foundation offers virtual and residential programmes to help people from all walks of life, navigate their journey of reconciliation.

Reverend Julia Hedley prayer called on the public to: “Be kind to one another, tender hearted, forgiving one another.”

Canon Snyder told the story of Dutch watchmaker Corrie Tenbaum who along with her sister was arrested and taking to a Nazi concentration camp.

Corrie survived the horrors there and reported the cruelty which led to her sister’s death, in her book The Hiding Place.

Canon Snyder quoted a passage of the book in which Corrie forgives her former gaoler of the Nazi death camp.

Fady Nasser, partnerships manager at Rose Castle Foundation, gave a reading from the Biblical Book of Ruth. The titular character and her mother in law were widowed and homeless on a long journey, they were welcomed into a refuge.

Reverend Julia said: “Holocaust Memorial Day is a day of challenges, it’s primary purpose is of course to remember and honour the Jews that were murdered in the Second World War.

“That six million people could be murdered by an evil Government regime remains the greatest horror of our time and we’re right to recall that history in the hope that humanity has learnt its necessary lessons.

“It is however all too clear that those lessons haven’t been learnt, anti-Semitism is still thriving in many parts of the world, and genocide, violence and oppression are the reality for many.”

She said: “By keeping the horrors of the Holocaust clearly in view, we have the ability to recognise and condemn more recent genocides. There will never be an equivalence between what happened to the Jews and other atrocities but then this isn’t a competition about whose suffering is worse.

“The point of Holocaust memorial day is to hear again the stories of the harm that perverted power can inflict.”

Reverend Julia said that “if we don’t tell the stories we are left with statistics.”

The charitable foundation is based at Rose Castle Farm Cottage in Dalston, Carlisle and their activities are open to people of all beliefs.

For more information, visit: www.rosecastle.com/rcf/brochures