Society must learn from the tragedies of the Holocaust of the past to build a stronger world for future generations.

That was the message from Bethnal Green & Bow MP Rushanara Ali, as Holocaust Memorial Day was marked in the East End on Sunday.

“It’s important we use Memorial Day to commemorate the millions who were murdered in the Holocaust and subsequent genocides,” she said.

“But we must also learn from these tragedies to build a more positive world in which these atrocities are never repeated.

“We are all responsible for challenging hatred and discrimination wherever it exists.”

Mayor Lutfur Rahman, meanwhile, attended this year’s Holocfaust commemoration at Stepney’s Nelson Street Synagogue, when he joined members of Tower Hamlets Interfaith Forum who reflected on the Holocaust in which six million Jews were murdered by the Nazis.

The gathering also looked at historic events in the East End with speakers including Ubby Cowan, 94-year-old veteran of the 1936 Battle of Cable Street, and retired GP Dr Freddy Shaw whose father fought in the Spanish Civil War against Franco in 1938. Window Mary McCory read works by her late husband, the renowned Jewish East End writer Emmanuel Litvinoff, who died last year.