"I am slowly travelling to Bradford, of which I have never heard. A different faith, a different place, it’s a different world.”

The words of Ben Rhydding Primary School pupil Barney Addenbrook reflect the trepidation of a Jewish child fleeing Nazi-occupied Europe on the Kindertransport.

Some of the children who escaped the Holocaust via the child transportation programme ended up in Bradford and, after the war, other survivors came here as refugees. Barney’s verse, resulting from a project leading up to today’s Holocaust Memorial Day commemoration, could apply to any of the displaced people making a new life in the district over the past six decades, including those fleeing genocides in Africa and Europe.

Today, some of them were gathering for Bradford’s Holocaust memorial event.

The Holocaust is remembered annually on January 27, the date the Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration camp was liberated in 1945.

This year’s theme is Untold Stories, focusing on the people behind the statistics – from the millions of Jews, gypsies, homosexuals and political opponents killed in Nazi death camps to the victims of atrocities in Rwanda and Bosnia.

Today’s event, at Victoria Hall in Saltaire, was due to feature poetry readings by schoolchildren and by Bradford’s Poet Laureate Gerard Benson.

Bradford schools are playing a major role in the event, building on their Stand Up To Hatred project initially inspired by an Anne Frank exhibition held in Bradford in 2009.

The Education Bradford project led to a schools resource pack, linking the Holocaust with present-day human rights issues, taken up by education authorities nationwide.

It earned the Bradford youngsters a national award from the Anne Frank Trust, presented at the House of Lords. The Trust described their work as “groundbreaking”.

Last year, Bradford schools followed the Stand Up To Hatred project with Kokeshi: Stand Up, Speak Out, Make A Difference, an education pack inspired by Japanese girl Sadako Sasaki, who died as a result of the atomic bombing of Hiroshima. Sadako, known as ‘Kokeshi’, became a Japanese symbol of peace.

Schools involved in this year’s Holocaust Memorial Day have been using the Kokeshi and Stand Up To Hatred resources.

“The aim of the packs is to raise awareness of human rights as a means of reducing violence, extremism, racism, hate crime and community tension,” says Diane Hadwen, Education Bradford’s manager for diversity and cohesion. “It started with schoolchildren looking at the past and asking, ‘Could this happen again?’ The response from these young people was, ‘Yes, it could’.”

Artwork inspired by the Kokeshi project – created by youngsters from Holybrook, Home Farm and Parkland primary schools and St Bede’s school – is on display at today’s event.

Students from Dixons City Academy and Grange Technology College were lighting candles representing child victims of genocide. Copies of the Stand Up To Hatred packs are on display in all 31 libraries districtwide as part of exhibitions on the Holocaust and genocides in Cambodia, Rwanda, Bosnia and the ongoing atrocities in Darfur. Also on display are the children’s poems.

Bradford Libraries are playing a valuable role in raising awareness of lessons to be learned, and in highlighting stories of people whose lives have been destroyed or changed beyond recognition by regimes of hatred.

Bradford Central Library’s exhibition includes books, images and information, as well as a list of recommended films.

“We have ordered a few more copies, to create a specialist selection. The idea is to help people find out more, and highlight the role libraries play in this,” says Christine Dyson, acting principal libraries officer: information.

“People can access survivor stories and other information online in libraries. The themes are very relevant in Bradford, and learning broadens people’s perspectives.”

* Holocaust Memorial Day displays are in Bradford libraries until Monday, February 7.