THE country's first Holocaust Memorial Day was being marked today in Manchester.

On the 55th anniversary of the liberation of the Auschwitz death camp the city paused to remember the thousands of lives that were lost with a candle-lit vigil in St Peter's Square.

''The Holocaust Memorial Week will help us keep both history alive and allow us to look forward to the future,'' said Coun Bernard Stone, Manchester council's executive member for education.

''The purpose of having this first annual day is to ensure that the terrible crimes against humanity committed during the Holocaust are never forgotten and lessons are learnt for each generation.''

Throughout last week schoolchildren across the city have been taught about the Holocaust and the realities of Nazi concentration camps.

History teacher Paul Lennon, from Ducie High School, hopes that over the past two weeks he has given his pupils a sense of the scale of the horrifying events of the Second World War.

Georgina Haley, 14, said: ''I knew nothing at all about the Holocaust.

''It is wrong that it ever happened. It shouldn't happen again.''

Classmate Robert Souter, 13, said: ''This is in memory of the people who died and all the people that suffered.''

Rob Isaac, from the Manchester Schools Improvement Service, said: ''We want young people to know that we are all responsible for the way the world is.

''The Holocaust is the most dramatic example of what goes wrong when responsibility isn't taken for actions.

''This is a multi-faith and multi-cultural society celebrating the variety of different faiths.''

The candle-lit vigil will be held at the Peace Gardens in St Peter's Square at 6pm tonight, during which Lord Mayor Coun Hugh Barrett will plant a memorial tree and unveil a plaque.

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