SATURDAY was the first Holocaust Memorial Day and civic leaders, clergy and people from across Britain and Europe united to remember the horrific attempt to exterminate the Jews in many countries on the continent during the Second World War.

In the Test Valley the Wallops led the way with services at both St Peter's in Over Wallop and St Andrews in Nether Wallop.

The Wallops are the home patch of Test Valley Mayor Tony Hope who helped mark the day by lighting some of the six candles in each church - one to mark each million exterminated by the Nazis.

For him the terrible events are still very much within living memory but he feels they should never be forgotten.

"The services were not terribly well attended but they are something that we should build on as the slaughter and murder of six million people should be remembered," said Cllr Hope. "Similar things have happened recently in places such as Cambodia, Rwanda and Bosnia.

"With the film Schindler's List and the attendance of the Archbishop of Canterbury, the Chief Rabbi, the Prime Minister and Leader of the Opposition at the national service in London I feel the present generation has been awaken to the horrors that went on in people's lifetimes.

"I can remember the bombing in London during the war, particularly the attacks on Biggin Hill when we suffered bomb damage, and what happened will only be forgotten if my generation lets it be forgotten."

The mayor pledged that services will be held again next year in the Wallops.

The end of January was chosen as Holocaust Memorial Day as it was the 56th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz, one of the Nazi's most notorious death camps. Hundreds of thousands of people were exterminated in gas chambers and then cremated.

During this period in German history the brutal Nazi regime not only tried to exterminate a whole race but also persecuted groups such as communists, gypsies, homosexuals and people with a mental handicap.