Northern civic leaders who saved Jewish children from Nazi persecution have been hailed – as their modern day equivalents unified in calls to ensure another genocide is never allowed to happen again.
Groups across the Highlands and north-east marked Holocaust Memorial Day, congregating virtually due to the pandemic.
And landmarks in Aberdeen and Inverness were illuminated purple to highlight the cause.
The annual event marks the systematic murder of six million Jews in Nazi-occupied Europe between 1941 and 1945, as well as the millions of other minorities targeted by the regime.
But it also highlights subsequent atrocities, including in Darfur, Rwanda, Bosnia and Cambodia.
And this year, Debby Taylor, of Aberdeen Holocaust Memorial Committee, highlighted the current persecution of the Uyghur community in China, who, she said, was facing “crisis”.
“An estimated one million Muslim Uyghur have been forcibly loaded on to trains, held in detention camps for torture and brainwashing of anyone suspected of disloyalty to the authorities.”
Meanwhile, Aberdeen Lord Provost Barney Crockett paid tribute to those in the north-east who played their part in saving thousands of children from the grips of the Nazis.
Mr Crockett said: “The very first thing my predecessor Tommy Mitchell said, when elected in November 1938, was that he wanted to do something about the plight of Jewish police in Germany
“And within a few weeks he had organised a meeting at the Music Hall to try and get help for people leaving Germany and Austria, coming to this area for protection in what was known as the kindertransport scheme.
“He managed to convince bids of help from various organisations in the city, Aberdeen University, the Seven Incorporated Trades, the Trades Council, and Lady Aberdeen at Haddo House – who vouched for about 90 children.
“We don’t have very much legacy of that as most young people would go home or elsewhere, but we know many came and it’s something to take great pride in.
“We shouldn’t forget these things.”
Ness Bridge in Inverness and Aberdeen’s Marischal College was lit up in purple to mark Holocaust Memorial Day.
Due to the pandemic, national charity Interfaith Scotland hosted its annual ceremony, aimed at educating secondary school pupils, online.
The broadcast featured testimonies from Holocaust survivor Mala Tribich, as well as the family of survivors from later genocides.
Tom Mackenzie, secretary of the Inverness Interfaith Group, said: “It is really important that we continue to mark this day.
“As we are living in such a global society these days we need to know about the Holocaust and safeguard ourselves from people who promote hatred and prejudice.
“I visited the Auschwitz camp years ago while I was over in Poland.
“Although the Holocaust day is about the Jewish situation in Nazis Germany, in the most recent years there has been cruelty to other groups of people from Africa to parts of Europe, Syria and Serbia.
“It affects all sorts of people from across the world.”
