Holocaust Memorial Day is marked

Holocaust Memorial Day has been marked at a event in Stornoway.

Robert McNeil (above) - a forensic pathologist who examined bodies of people brutally killed and recovered from mass graves in Bosnia following the 1995 Srebrenica massacre - lit a special candle to remember the millions of people murdered in genocides across the world.

Special candle lit to mark Holocaust Memorial Day

28 January 2015

Mr Mcneil’s work helped gather evidence of war crimes, resulting in putting the perpetrators in jail.

At the event, hosted by Lews Castle College, Mr McNeil said: “It is important to remember. Lighting this candle was an extremely powerful moment for me.

“What was going through my mind were the victims of Srebrenica. It struck me this was a symbolic moment for all victims of genocide throughout the world.”

Lews Castle College principal Iain Macmillan said the event served to “remind us about history of mankind and how it has taken us in certain wrong directions at various time.

He highlighted that many think of genocide as the Holocaust in the Nazi era but “unfortunately, it is not confined to history - it is real, even to this day.”

“That same inhumanity is just as prevalent today” as it was in past atrocities, he said.

Stornoway was chosen as one of 70 locations to receive a candle designed by internationally renowned sculptor Sir Anish Kapoor, a Turner Prize winner.

The candle was commissioned by the Holocaust Memorial Day Trust to mark the 70 years since the liberation of Auschwitz-Birkenau on 27 January 1945.