Hong Kong memorial service for victims of the Holocaust

Dignitaries from Hong Kong and beyond gathered to light candles and hear from survivors of the horrors of Nazism as the city marked International Holocaust Remembrance Day yesterday.

Hundreds of guests, including several consuls general and former chief executive Tung Chee-hwa, gathered at the Jewish Community Centre in Mid-Levels to remember the 70th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz-Birkenau, the largest Nazi death camp.

Among the speakers was Silvain Gilbert, a Hong Kong resident and Holocaust survivor. He led the dedication of the six candles - one for every million Jewish victims.

"Together, with the unspeakable human loss, we remember the loss of culture, of language, religion and the vitality of Jewish life that was those ways in those years," he said in an emotional speech.

Previously unseen footage from wartime concentration camps was also shown, as director Andre Singer's documentary Night Will Fall was given its Asian premiere after showing in Britain and the US in the past few days.

The film featured footage shot inside the liberated camps by soldiers under the supervision of the legendary director Alfred Hitchcock. So grim was the footage that it was kept out of public view until the 1980s.