80 Candles for 80 Years - HMD digital exhibition

80 Candles for 80 Years is a special nationwide arts and education project, marking this year's 80th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz-Birkenau. 

In May 2024, Holocaust Memorial Day Trust (HMDT) invited communities and schools across the UK to design and create 80 unique candleholders, honouring Jewish individuals and other communities persecuted and murdered by the Nazis in the Holocaust. The project aims to learn from the past for a better future by illuminating the experiences of those affected by this dark chapter of human history.

Participants from schools, craft groups, prisons, and faith communities got involved to learn and be inspired to create commemorative candleholders, expressing their understanding of the Holocaust and its enduring lessons.

HMDT is curating an exhibition with a selection of the candleholders, images and film, alongside quotes and reflections from participants about their learning and experiences with this special commemorative Holocaust project.

This will be a moving exhibition, travelling across the UK between March and December 2025. For April, this moving digital exhibition will be at Leicester Guildhall.