A MEMORIAL will be unveiled in Thurrock in memory of the millions who were killed in the Holocaust.

An event titled ‘The Journey from Hate to Hope’ will see the tribute revealed at the High View Avenue Memorial Gardens, in Grays, from 11am on Monday, January 27 – which is International Holocaust Memorial Day.

Young people who have visited Auschwitz will unveil the memorial after raising £600. It has been created because the young people attending the service last year did not think the pebbles should be laid on the day and then put away till the following year.

Thurrock’s mayor will lay an extra permanent pebble every year to the memorial to mark the anniversary.

The memorial service will be on the anniversary of the liberation of the Auschwitz concentration camp in 1945.

The event is open to all and free to enter.

Other events to mark the day will be held at the Thameside Theatre on the same day.

These include a screening of ‘The Boy In the Striped Pyjamas’ at 1.30pm and a presentation by young people who visited Auschwitz-Birkenau this year, at 6pm.

Young people from different schools in the borough have visited a concentration camp every year since 2009 to learn about the horrors of the Holocaust while exploring contemporary examples of genocide, discrimination and bullying.

An exhibition on reporting Hate Crime in Thurrock will also be held.