Holocaust denying trolls hijack Boris Johnson's memorial tweet

A tweet by the UK Foreign Secretary for holocaust memorial day exposed an undercurrent of anti-Semitism on Friday, after it inspired a number of messages which denied the Holocaust.

Boris Johnson's original tweet in remembrance of a "despicable act of genocide" was retweeted and liked hundreds of times, but a number of users took offence to some of its replies.

"Plot twist: there wasn't a holocaust ... at Auschwitz," William Moriarty, an operations associate at Transline in Wolverhampton, wrote over two tweets.

Mr Moriarty refused to comment when asked if he denied the existence of the Holocaust.

"No way you are getting a full explanation from me. Plus it's illegal to debate it in Europe. So."

Mr Moriarty's employer, Transline, commented on Mr Moriarty's tweets saying: "We are very disappointed in the posts this temporary worker has shared – they are, of course, not representative of the views of our organisation.

"We are investigating this internally with regards to our disciplinary procedures with our temporary employees, and will address the situation in line with our policies."

Around 200 Holocaust survivors laid wreaths at a memorial service in Westminster on Friday morning to remember the victims of genocides in Rwanda, Bosnia, Cambodia and Darfur.

"Thousands of heroic Holocaust survivors did not always have much they wanted to talk about but they all did an incredible amount," said Chief Rabbi Ephraim Mirvis.

"Their response to the Holocaust was action and our response to them must be action, action to prevent this ever happening again."

The chief executive of the Holocaust Memorial Day Trust wrote an impassioned blog on Friday around this year's subject of "How can life go on?"

"Survivors of the Holocaust, and of more recent genocides, have had to come to terms with their past, and rebuild their lives around unimaginable loss," wrote Olivia Marks-Woldman.