Holocaust Memorial Day

Bob Blackman Excerpts

Thursday 24th January 2019 Commons Chamber

[Bob Blackman (Harrow East) (Con)]

It is an honour to follow the hon. Member for East Kilbride, Strathaven and Lesmahagow (Dr Cameron), who made such a moving contribution.

Contemplating the systematic murder of 6 million people is beyond credibility, so the brilliant work of the Holocaust Educational Trust to highlight the testimony of survivors and the stories they have told is critical. I pay tribute to the fact that it educates 120,000 people every year about the awful horrors of the holocaust.

I pay tribute to holocaust survivors in my constituency, including Eve Glicksman, Henri Obstfeld and Herman Hirschberger, who all regularly go out to schools, despite being of advanced age, to bear testament to what happened during the holocaust.

The hon. Member for Liverpool, Wavertree (Luciana Berger) mentioned my late constituent Gena Turgel, who sadly died last year. I knew her as the best hostess in Stanmore, with the best apple strudel around, but her story epitomises what happened during the holocaust. She was born in Krakow, the youngest of nine children, and she was only 16 when the Nazis started their blitzkrieg on Poland. She had relatives in America, and the whole family intended to go there, but sadly the Nazis had closed all the doors before the family could get out, so the family moved just outside Krakow to the ghetto, carrying a sack of potatoes, flour and their other belongings.

The second brother fled the ghetto and was never seen again. Gena Turgel was eventually sent to the Plaszow labour camp on the edge of Krakow. She later discovered that her sister Miriam and Miriam’s husband—they had married in the ghetto—had been shot after the Nazis caught them trying to bring food into the camp.

The camp was liquidated in the winter of 1944, and Gena and her family had to walk—they did not travel by train—to Auschwitz-Birkenau. They were sent on a death march from Auschwitz, leaving behind her youngest sister. They never saw her again. After several terrible days, they came to Leslau, where they were forced onto trucks. They travelled under terrible conditions for the next three or four weeks, eventually arriving in Buchenwald. From there they were sent on cattle trucks to Bergen-Belsen, where they arrived in February 1945. Gena worked there in a hospital for the next two months. In 1945, the British Army liberated Bergen-Belsen. Among the liberators was Norman Turgel, who became her husband six months later. Gena and her husband moved to the United Kingdom, which she made her home and where she brought up her family—her children and grandchildren. She wrote a book called “I Light a Candle”. Her light has gone out, but it will survive for ever.

I am very pleased that the Lessons from Auschwitz project involved Park High School, Canons High School and Bentley Wood High School in 2018. No one who attended the Holocaust Educational Trust reception recently could have failed to be moved by the testimony of the survivors.

I want to end by saying that I think there is real hope. Yasmin Mohamed, a student at Canons High School and a Holocaust Educational Trust ambassador, commented after the reception that she had

“seen first-hand where antisemitism, intolerance and hatred has led in the past and I’m now committed to ensuring that the Holocaust is never forgotten. I want to ensure that we learn from the past so that we can build a better future.”

I am pleased that we will soon witness the Holocaust memorial centre close to Parliament so that we can educate young people and have a memorial to the victims of this terrible disaster. The planning application was submitted in December 2018 and the site, as we well know, is Victoria Tower Gardens. I am pleased to be the co-chair, together with my friend the hon. Member for Dudley North (Ian Austin), of the all-party group that is going to see that come to fruition.