MP Marie Rimmer joined survivors of the Holocaust at a reception in Parliament to mark the 75th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz

The MP for St Helens South and Whiston, said: “We must never forget the horrors of the past.

"Jews, Roma, LGBT+, disabled people, and others were systematically butchered by the Nazi state and we must never forget. We have to learn from the past and ensure that history never repeats itself.”

At the event, Ms Rimmer met with Vera Schaufeld, a survivor of the Holocaust.

Vera was born in Prague in 1930, and following the Nazi invasion of Czechoslovakia in 1939, Sir Nicholas Winton brought her to England to save her from a horrible fate.

Ms Rimmer added: “It was heart breaking to hear the stories of Vera and other Holocaust survivors, many of who had tragically lost their entire families in the most horrific of circumstances.

"Around the world religious freedom is still being threatened and as a country we need to play our part in stopping it.”

Chief Executive of the Holocaust Memorial Day Trust, Olivia Marks-Woldman, said: “With increasing division in communities across the world and here in the UK, now more than ever we need to stand together with others in our communities to challenge the spread of identity-based hostility.

“Our Stand Together project is a powerful way for us all to remember people murdered by the Nazis – as individuals with their own hopes, families and friends. It is a chance to restore their human dignity and remember where hatred can lead, and why we must all act to challenge it.”

Holocaust Memorial Day takes place on the January 27 each year.

This year’s theme is ‘Stand Together’, which explores how genocidal regimes have deliberately fractured societies by marginalising certain groups, and how these tactics can be challenged.