Two giant puppets were carried through the streets of Huddersfield in memory of the Holocaust and other terrible events.

Professional artists commissioned by holocaust memorial group 6 million+ Charitable Trust and funded by arts organisation Creative Scene in Dewsbury worked with community groups to create two large scale puppets representing the common experiences of women in different genocides, known as The Weeping Sisters.

The Weeping Sisters
The Weeping Sisters

Creative Scene’s Mothers and Daughters Group in Dewsbury created the figure of a Jewish woman from the Lublin ghetto in Poland. Participants had begun to refer to the puppet as Kitty, in tribute to Kitty Hart-Moxon, Holocaust survivor, who was born in the town of Bielsko Biala – Polish twin town to Kirklees! Kitty is still alive and living in this country. The event was attended by Holocaust survivor Iby Knill.

Auschwitz survivor Iby Knill is pictured with the Mayor and Mayoress of Kirklees Clr Jim Dodds and his wife Carol
Auschwitz survivor Iby Knill is pictured with the Mayor and Mayoress of Kirklees Clr Jim Dodds and Carol

Members of the Hilal Bosnian Cultural Association in Batley made the figure of a Muslim woman from Srebrenica, representing mothers weeping over the murder of more than 8,000 men and boys in 1995. Twenty two years on, the bones of the dead are still being discovered and laid to rest.

Fatima Hama, a Kurdish survivor of Halabja who lives in Huddersfield, is pictured lighting a candle of remembrance together with a student from Westborough High School
Fatima Hama, a Kurdish survivor of Halabja, who lives in Huddersfield, is pictured lighting a candle of remembrance together with a student from Westborough High School

Finally, a long, traditional Kurdish belt covered in the faces of children, was carried in the procession, as a way of remembering the story of Huddersfield resident Fatima, who is a survivor of the Halabja gas attack in Iraq and remembers escaping from the city overnight in complete darkness, by hanging on to her father’s long belt, alongside 12 other children.

Watch: This moving Holocaust Memorial Day video

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The main event at the University of Huddersfield involved students from Westborough High School, Colne Valley High School and Honley High School. The giant figures were accompanied by music from street band Slick Stick Sambastic and music from Bosnian and Jewish traditions.