To mark the UN International Holocaust Remembrance Day Ceremony, the Hong Kong Holocaust and Tolerance Resource Centre (HKHTC), organised a programme on 27 January at the Hong Kong Jewish Community Centre.

Attendees included a mix of Jewish community members, the wider Hong Kong community, government officials, foreign consulate representatives, spiritual leaders and rabbis.

The evenings programme included an open address by Jeremy Amias, Chairman HKHTC, lighting of the memorial candles, poems and music. Hong Kong’s Consul General of Germany, Nikoluas Graf Lamdsdorff and Sargi Karni, Consul General of Israel to Hong Kong both gave speeches. A special Kaddish prayer was recited by Rabbi Stanton Zamek from the UJC Hong Kong community.

Invited keynote speaker was Olga Horak, a Slovakborn Australian author and Holocaust survivor. Olga was recently honored by the Australian government, in its Order of Australia 2014 awards for services to the Jewish community. She is a member of the Sydney Jewish Museum and has been a volunteer guide since 1992.

Together with her daughter, Olga visited Hong Kong for over a week and spoke to many local and international schools during her stay. Olga told her story to the audience. Born in 1926 she was transported by the Nazis to Auschwitz in 1944 and later, in February 1945, to Bergen-Belsen. She was the sole survivor of her family. Her sister, Judith died in Auschwitz in 1942 after being one of the first Jews transported from Bratislava. Her father was transported to Auschwitz in 1944.