Yesterday was the 80th anniversary of the Holocaust Memorial Day, and while world leaders who support the genocide in Gaza were laying flowers and signing the visitor’s book at Auschwitz, many British Jews wanted to mark the day with it’s true message of NEVER AGAIN.

In the rain and wind of a cold January day, a loose network called Jews Against Genocide met at the Cenotaph in Whitehall. The group includes holocaust survivors and descendants.

Several people spoke, and as well as holding a three minute silence, they listened to a recording of a Palestinian friend calling out the Muslim prayer for the dead. They also read out the Jewish prayer for the dead in Yiddish and English, before laying two wreaths – one, a wreath of Stars of David, the other in Palestinian colours.

Later the same afternoon, they joined others at the Kindertransport statue at Liverpool station, which commemorates the arrival of around 10,000 Jewish children who, in the Thirties, were given sanctuary by the UK from all over Europe.

There, they sang, made speeches and gave readings (including Refaat Alareer’s poem “If I must die”), and laid their wreaths at the foot of the Kindertransport children.

A different group, International Jewish Anti-Zionist Network (IJAN) organised a protest in the evening outside the Polish embassy. This was in response to Polish PM Donald Tusk’s announcement that Benjamin Netanyahu would be free to come to a memorial in Auschwitz without fear of arrest in spite of his international warrant for war.

In the end, it appears the Israeli PM did not travel to Poland.

Thousands of London Jews do not support the State of Israel’s apartheid and genocidal treatment of Palestinians, and are frustrated that their voices are not heard. Yesterday was a chance to remind us that ‘Never Again’ should mean never again for anyone, and as Polish activist Marek Edelman said, “to be a Jew means always being with the oppressed, not the oppressors”.