Joining Instructions

To join the event on MS Teams, please click here.

This hybrid event for Holocaust Memorial Day 2024 will be held in person in the Auditorium in 1 Horse Guards Road and online via MS Teams. It will be an opportunity to hear first-hand testimony from Renee Salt BEM, as well as from the Financial Secretary to the Treasury and other senior representatives. Karen Pollock CBE, CEO at Holocaust Educational Trust, will also speak.

Key info

Thursday 25 January at 11:00, via MS Teams and in 1 HGR. There will also be viewing rooms for Cabinet Office staff in Glasgow and for HMT staff in Darlington.

When you sign up, please indicate whether you will be joining in person or virtually. Online attendees will receive dial-in information nearer the time. (Closed captions will be available via MS Teams.)

Holocaust Memorial Day (HMD) is a Government established national day, created in 2001. It takes place on 27 January each year and officially remembers the millions of people murdered during the Holocaust, under Nazi Persecution and in the genocides which followed in Cambodia, Rwanda, Bosnia and Darfur. At times of increased tension, particularly the rise in antisemitism and anti-Muslim hatred that we're seeing in the UK at present, the day is an important opportunity to build tolerance and understanding. As we commemorate HMD 2024 across the Civil Service, we call on all colleagues to focus on these key messages and to combat hate wherever they encounter it in our communities.

Renee's bio

Renee was born in Zduńska Wola, Poland, in 1929. After the invasion and occupation of Poland in September 1939, Renee and her family were evicted from their home and thrown out with no possessions and forced into a ghetto that had been established nearby. In 1942 everyone was told to assemble. Renee narrowly avoided being separated from her parents by hiding under her mothers’ coat. They were transported to the Łódź Ghetto. In 1944 they were taken by train to Auschwitz-Birkena, where Renee survived another selection and was transported soon after with her mother to the harbour in Hamburg to work on demolition. In March 1945, Renee and her mother were once again moved, this time to Bergen-Belsen. They were liberated from Bergen-Belsen on 15 April 1945 by the British Army but Renee’s mother died in hospital 12 days after the liberation.

After the Holocaust, Renee returned to her hometown to try and find any surviving members of her family and found an aunt who was living in Łódź. She and her aunt relocated to Germany in 1945.

Renee subsequently moved to Paris, marrying her husband in 1949 and today has five grandchildren. She has been sharing her wartime experiences for several years, so that people today can try to understand the events of the Holocaust and its essential lessons for the contemporary world.