Holocaust Memorial Day

Lord Massey of Hampstead Excerpts

Monday 26th January 2026 Lords Chamber

[Lord Massey of Hampstead (Con)]

My Lords, it is a pleasure to follow the noble Baroness, Lady Ramsey of Wall Heath. I thank her for all the work that she has done to combat antisemitism. I also thank the Minister, the noble Baroness, Lady Taylor of Stevenage, for arranging this debate and for commemorating so kindly those who witnessed the events we speak of who passed away this year. I congratulate the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Coventry on her excellent maiden speech and thank her for her recognition of the multigenerational trauma experienced by those of us of Jewish heritage. That is a very significant thing, in my view.

Memorialising the Holocaust has never been more important. We know that this grotesque event was based on an ancient hatred, and yet the events since 7 October have produced a level of antisemitism in this country that few of us could really have imagined. Jews in the UK, as has been mentioned by the noble Baroness, Lady Ludford, and my noble friend Lord Shinkwin, can no longer attend school or synagogue without security protection. Israeli football fans have been banned from watching their team play. Members of the other House have been stopped from attending schools in their constituencies, and there have been deadly antisemitic terrorist attacks on our streets. The open statements about killing Jews and the demonisation and vilification of Israel have been normalised to a rather terrifying extent.

I will focus my brief remarks on the term “genocide”, which was the basis of the Holocaust and is now a term, as my noble friend Lord Pickles mentioned, that has been deliberately weaponised in some quarters to inflame a new version of hatred against Jews and Israel. For Jews to be falsely accused of this crime has been one of the most painful aspects of this war of words.

Let us look at the origins of the term “genocide”. It was invented by the Polish lawyer Raphael Lemkin during World War II and entered public discourse for the first time when it was included in the indictments against the Nazi defendants at Nuremberg.

What is genocide? Lemkin’s definition was that it was the extermination of racial and religious groups in order to destroy particular races and classes of people. The genocide convention of 1948 defines the term more broadly, but the key is the intent to destroy a racial or religious group. As we know, the Nazis devised their final solution in 1942 in a state-sponsored, institutionalised programme to exterminate the entire Jewish population of occupied Europe, which totalled 9 million people at that time. They managed to kill 6 million of them.

Let us contrast this with the alleged genocide in Gaza, which was a war of self-defence—Israel’s sovereign right—following the atrocity of 7 October and the kidnapping of 251 hostages, the worst pogrom since World War II, as mentioned by the noble Baroness, Lady Deech. Whether you agree or disagree with Israel’s conduct of the war, there was never an intent to exterminate or eliminate any group or race. Israel’s war is against a terrorist group pledged to destroy it. It has nothing to do with the idea of genocide. Furthermore, Hamas bears responsibility for casualties in Gaza by refusing to release hostages and embedding itself and its weaponry within the civilian infrastructure. It is therefore vital that the Holocaust is remembered for its unique evil. The public need to be reminded of what constitutes a genocide. Understanding the term might prevent its misuse for political ends.

We are in dangerous waters now in terms of Holocaust denial and distortion, as opponents of Israel seek to undermine the unprecedented character of this event with false equivalence. This must begin in schools. As we lose living witnesses to this darkest history, we cannot afford a growing vacuum of knowledge in schools about the Holocaust, or, worse still, for it to be replaced with an ideology that questions it. So I urge the Minister to devote even more resource to ensure that the public understand the Holocaust, what constitutes a genocide, and how fragile societies can become in the face of antisemitism and racism. By doing so, we can make sure that it never happens again.