RESIDENTS and visitors are invited to join youth groups, organisations and readers to take part in this year's Holocaust Memorial Day in Redditch later this month.

American humanitarian aid worker and author of the book I’m Not Leaving, Carl Wilkens, will be stopping by during his whistle stop tour of the UK to take part in the event.

This year’s theme looks at the Power of Words and Carl will be sharing stories of his experiences in Rwanda during the '100 day' Genocide of 1994.

His harrowing yet hopeful journey weaves together stories of tremendous risk and fierce compassion, in the midst of the senseless slaughtering of 800,000 innocent people.

Carl was the only American to remain in Rwanda during this period.

Councillor Bill Hartnett, leader of the council, said: “Every year we set aside time to remember and think about the Holocaust as well as subsequent genocides in Rwanda, Darfur, Bosnia and Cambodia.

"We are proud to receive Carl Wilkens as our speaker this year and I think discussing his story as an aid worker and the genocide in Rwanda will remind us that so many lessons have unfortunately not been learnt since the terrible events of the Second World War and the Holocaust.

"We all have a responsibility to reflect on why such things are allowed to take place despite what history tells us.”

This year’s event will be held on Saturday, January 27.

It will start at 10.30am from the town hall.

There will be a procession to the memorial marker on Church Green and then through the Kingfisher Centre.

The event will continue at the Ecumenical Centre at 11am where there will be music from local young people and readings based on Holocaust and genocide survivors’ experiences, before finishing with an talk from Carl Wilkens.

In The Holocaust 11 million people including six million Jews were systematically murdered in Europe between 1941-45 by the Nazis and their collaborators.