Holocaust Memorial Day

Anne McGuire Excerpts

Tuesday 20th January 2015 Westminster Hall

[Dame Anne McGuire (Stirling) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Weir. I will keep my remarks brief, as I appreciate that other Members want to speak. It is a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Southend West (Sir David Amess). Like others, I congratulate the hon. Member for Hertsmere (Mr Clappison). I also wish to pay a special tribute to my hon. Friend the Member for Liverpool, Riverside (Mrs Ellman), who has shown significant bravery over many years in standing up against anti-Semitism in this country and others.

I will give a few personal reflections about visits to Auschwitz and to Terezin in the Czech Republic, which I have visited a couple of times. That site is not as well known as some other camps associated with the Holocaust but a visit there can have an equally profound effect, because of the sheer cynicism that was shown there in what was, effectively, an industrial process of slaughtering people of all ages.

My first visit to Auschwitz, which I made thanks to the Holocaust Educational Trust, was an emotional experience for myself and the other Scottish MPs and Scottish schoolchildren on the trip. One thing from that trip that has stayed with me is that at the end of our visit, a young woman said, “I don’t believe this happened.” Once I had got over the initial shock, I realised that perhaps she could not understand what had happened because it was beyond her experience as a modern young person who uses electronic equipment and sees lives in colour. It was inexplicable to her. Despite seeing the evidence that the hon. Member for Hertsmere mentioned—the clothes, shoes, glasses and cases—she still could not get her mind around the Holocaust and what had happened in Auschwitz. If ever we needed evidence why the Holocaust Educational Trust needs to continue, she gave it to me that day—it came as such a shock.

[Dr Matthew Offord (Hendon) (Con)]

I am grateful to have had the opportunity to visit Auschwitz with the right hon. Lady last year. Is she concerned that the Campaign Against Antisemitism has found that one in eight people believe that Jewish people talk about the Holocaust to get sympathy?

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[Dame Anne McGuire]

Everyone will find that shocking. Although we were not born when these things happened, we lived with the aftermath, and those of us who, like the hon. Member for Southend West, grew up in the post-war period, saw the images of the Holocaust on BBC television in black and white and had a broadening knowledge of it. That is why such debates, as well as the work of the Holocaust Educational Trust and other organisations, need to be kept alive and to be re-energised.

My second thought is about going to Terezin. On the second occasion, we took two young people with us. For those who do not know much about Terezin, I should say that it was, effectively, a show camp—it had been disguised by the Nazis. They even brought the Danish Red Cross in. They dusted everything off, they painted the walls and they made it look as though this was quite a nice place to be held, but it was, in fact, a transit camp to Auschwitz. For me, that epitomises the fact that we are not talking about some random act of genocide or something that happened because of a few Nazis at the top: this was the industrialised extermination of people. That is very difficult for us to get our heads around.

None the less, some hope came out of Terezin. Despite the lives that people had to lead, the children still had art and music classes. Some of the beautiful pictures by the children, who led a horrible life, can still be seen in, for example, the Jewish museum in Prague and at the Yad Vashem Holocaust museum. Anybody who goes to Terezin, or Theresienstadt, which is the German name for it, will see a small town that carries the weight of history on its shoulders. It is a town of sadness, even though people still live there today. The people in the town appear to carry that burden with them.

[David Simpson (Upper Bann) (DUP)]

I have also visited a number of the places the right hon. Lady has been to, including the museum outside Jerusalem where tributes are paid to a lot of the people whose names have been mentioned today for the work they did. Will she join me in congratulating the Friends of Israel on the work it does, especially in Northern Ireland, where it has started going to schools to teach young people about the Holocaust and its aftermath?

[Dame Anne McGuire]

As the chair of Labour Friends of Israel, I like to think that, although we are not there to be apologists for any Israeli Government or any politician in Israel, the existence of the state of Israel is an important element not only in post-Holocaust history, because of the Holocaust, but in the future of the Jewish people.

I want now to talk about the visit to Auschwitz to commemorate the 69th anniversary of its liberation. It seemed a bit unusual to go on the 69th anniversary, not the 70th, but that was because of concerns about the survivors making the arduous journey—many, but not all, came from Israel. We joined politicians, clergy, rabbis, local government officials and others from across Europe, who came together under the sponsorship, and at the invitation, of the Polish President.

What struck me—I hope the hon. Member for Hendon (Dr Offord) will have an opportunity to say more about this—was that we were sitting in a marquee, fully clothed in warm garments, in temperatures of minus 10 or 13° C, and listening to the words of survivors who had not had the luxury of having such clothes or the shelter of a marquee. We then went to say prayers with Christian clergy and rabbis for those who died in that awful camp. For me, that was the voice of Auschwitz—those survivors being there and saying to the world, “Auschwitz happened. We have to recognise that. It is not a figment of anyone’s imagination.” Given that it happened, democrats and people of good will across the world have to keep that flame alive and to make sure that these things never happen again.

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[Mr Lee Scott (Ilford North) (Con)]

I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Hertsmere (Mr Clappison) on securing this debate. Like many others in this Chamber and beyond, I pay particular tribute to Karen Pollock and all the staff at the Holocaust Educational Trust for the vital work that they do—not only for all of us, but for the whole country. If we do not educate young people, I fear history could repeat itself.

Let me speak briefly about a few personal issues. Since becoming a great Member of the House of Commons—[Interruption.] I mean a Member of this great House of Commons—that was a Freudian slip. Over the years, I have received death threats and anti-Semitic abuse. Most recently, just before the end of last year, I was called a “dirty Jew” and told I should die.

I saw something on TV this weekend that saddened me greatly; I do not know whether other hon. Members saw it. A French lady said on one of the news channels that she told her young child that if a man or a woman came to school with a weapon, they should not say they were Jewish. It saddened me greatly and made me reflect on some of the things I saw when I visited Auschwitz and Terezin.

What I saw also made me think of something else—I say this not only for myself; I implore other people to say it. I am proud to be British, I am honoured to be a Member of Parliament and I am proud to say that I am a Jew. That will never change. No matter how many people tell me that I should be killed for being a Jew, while I have the honour of being a Member of Parliament, I will continue to fight for all communities and all religions because prejudice against anybody is unacceptable. If we have not learned anything from history, we should be ashamed of ourselves.

This goes completely beyond party politics. I express my gratitude to the hon. Member for West Ham (Lyn Brown) and the shadow Home Secretary, the right hon. Member for Normanton, Pontefract and Castleford (Yvette Cooper), who came and offered their support to me when I was going through these problems recently, as did the Prime Minister and the Home Secretary. I am not going to name everyone who did this, but the most encouraging thing was that I had hundreds and hundreds of e-mails from people around the whole country deploring anti-Semitism.

We live in a great country where everyone can feel safe. We have a great police force, a great protection unit, and no one should fear living in our country. These vile people who persecute others—whoever that is, whether it be Jews, Muslims or Christians—want us to live in fear. They want us to be scared of them, and they want us to get out, but they are not going to achieve it. We are not going anywhere. We are part of Britain. We have been part of Britain for hundreds of years and we will continue to be part of Britain.

In the few minutes I have left, I want to reflect briefly on my visit to Auschwitz. I am not somebody who cries easily—I have cried a few times—but I did cry when I visited Auschwitz. I have been to other camps and I have seen what happened, but it did not impact on me in the same way as it did standing there in the freezing cold—I am sure that did have something to do it. The hon. Member is perfectly right, and please forgive me for not knowing her constituency—[Interruption.] The hon. Member for Glasgow North—

[Dame Anne McGuire]

Actually, it is Stirling.

[Mr Scott]

We are having a great day, Mr Weir—Southend has become Basildon, Stirling has become Glasgow North. The right hon. Member for Stirling (Dame Anne McGuire) is right. I was wearing a thick jacket, a scarf, a thick shirt and thick trousers, and I knew that I was going home in the evening, but the people who perished there did not have that. They were persecuted because of nothing more than hatred and misunderstanding.

Whenever things are tough, everyone needs someone to blame—so, “Let’s blame the people who are the easiest to blame.” That is the importance of Holocaust remembrance day and of the work done by the Holocaust Educational Trust: to remind people and keep reminding them. When, sadly, no survivors are still alive, we have to keep on reminding people, because if we do not, I fear history will repeat itself. The onus is on us to stop that from happening.