Holocaust Memorial Day

Bob Stewart Excerpts

Thursday 23rd January 2014 Commons Chamber

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

I start by congratulating my right hon. Friend the Member for North East Bedfordshire (Alistair Burt) not only on securing this debate, but on the moving and compassionate way in which he spoke. You are truly a good man, sir.

Quite rightly, Madam Deputy Speaker, you called me by the name I have had since my birth: Lee Scott. However, if it had not been indirectly for the holocaust you would have called me by the name of Lee Shulberg, because that is our family name. My late father changed our name, because being caught while fighting in the second world war with a Jewish surname was the difference between going to a prisoner of war camp and a concentration camp. We kept the name after the second world war, but on a personal level I felt that I would like to get the name Shulberg into Hansard in the House of Commons.

Anti-Semitism has not gone away. At the last general election, as many friends on both sides of the House will know, I was approached by some people while out campaigning and called a “dirty Jew” and was told they wished to kill me. On a fairly regular basis I still get anti-Semitic e-mails. Has anyone learned anything from history? I sometimes fear not when we look at genocides across the world that are still happening. Even today, as we sit in this House, there are people in camps in various countries who are being killed.

I want to pay tribute particularly to Karen Pollock and the Holocaust Educational Trust. I have been to Auschwitz with them and I have also visited Theresienstadt and Babi Yar, a ravine where Jews were rounded up, shoved in and shot. I have seen first hand the piles of the children’s shoes, and I am not ashamed to say that I cried at Auschwitz. I do not often cry, but at Auschwitz I cried when I saw what man’s inhumanity toward man can lead to.

I have worked closely with my hon. and good Friend the Member for Finchley and Golders Green (Mike Freer) on various projects that have involved holocaust survivors. I went into schools to talk about what happened and I try to make some semblance of sense of what happened and to explain it to people. But it is impossible to make any sense of it. I pay tribute to everyone from all political parties who were involved in getting Holocaust memorial day into our calendar. On Holocaust memorial day on Monday, I will be in the London borough of Redbridge, my local council. I pay tribute to Councillors Alan Weinberg and Leon Schaller, who paid for and dedicated a memorial to the holocaust, which is in our main park, where we will hold a ceremony of remembrance. I have looked around the Chamber today and seen people with tears in their eyes, and at that ceremony there will be tears in all of our eyes because people, not only Jews but Gypsies, homosexuals, and anybody that the vile Nazi regime wanted to get rid of, were exterminated.

Last night I happened to be flicking through the TV programmes quite late and saw a drama about the Nuremberg trials. I saw the evidence of what was done. I again could not comprehend, even though I know it, even though I have seen it, what we saw and what we heard. The work that the Holocaust Educational Trust does, the work that many people do to teach the next generation—because let us face it, there will not be many survivors left as years go by—recognises that if we dare forget what has happened in the past even for one second, it is not impossible that history will repeat itself.

[Bob Stewart (Beckenham) (Con)]

Of course history repeats itself. I have seen genocide. I have buried 104 women and children in a mass grave. I have picked up the head of a child thinking it was a ball and dropped it with horror. I was so upset with myself when I discovered it was a child. I have seen this. Of course history repeats itself. The purpose of Holocaust memorial day is to remind us that it continues in another form, and that is the purpose of this debate and of our remembering—to try to stop it happening again. My goodness, we are human beings and it will happen, but we must make every endeavour to stop it.

[Mr Scott]

I thank my hon. and gallant Friend for his intervention. Yes, as I have said, things are going on as we sit here today, but I still say we can remember and we can do our utmost to make sure such things do not happen anywhere again.

I know that many hon. Members wish to speak, so I will not detain the House too much longer. My final statement is that I am proud to be a Member of this House. I am immensely proud and grateful to Great Britain for taking in my grandparents, because without any question I would not be alive today if it had not. And I am proud to be Jewish.

--- Later in debate ---

[Stephen Lloyd (Eastbourne) (LD)]

Like my colleagues, I thank the right hon. Member for North East Bedfordshire (Alistair Burt) for securing the debate, and it was a privilege for me and my hon. Friends to assist him in that. I thank the Backbench Business Committee. Such debates have taken place since 2008. I have been involved in them all since being elected in 2010.

I also thank colleagues for their powerful, resonant and quite modern speeches. I say “modern” because they are here today to represent their constituencies in the year 2014, yet two of my colleagues’ parents were Jewish and survived the holocaust. If they had not survived, my colleagues would not be here. That really does bring things home to me and is the reason I was always determined if I got elected to give my full support to the Holocaust Educational Trust and the Holocaust memorial day on 27 January.

All colleagues have alluded to the obvious reasons for the memorial day. It is about the memory of those millions of people who died simply because of their race, colour or creed. Another reason relates to the modern day. As other Members have mentioned, we cannot forget what happened or let it go because, if we did, we would demean the memory of many people who were slaughtered in this desperate way and make it easier for society, for nations and for people to continue to behave disgracefully.

My hon. Friend the Member for Beckenham (Bob Stewart) made a strong point about when he was serving in Bosnia and the reality of genocide there. That demonstrates poignantly, powerfully and horribly what life and death really mean in such situations, and it reminds us all of what is happening in the Congo and Syria and of the rise of profound political and religious extremism, which has got worse over the past few years. We all have views about why that has happened, but it is undeniably continuing to get worse. A number of colleagues have mentioned the Jobbik party in Hungary, with 15% of the vote, and another is the neo-Nazi Golden Dawn in Greece, with 12 MPs.

These things do not go away, because humanity is basically interchangeable. Feelings, ignorance, fear and anger are the same today as they were 5,000 years ago. The only difference is that we now dress differently, we have computers and a few other things, and we drive very fast in cars, which we could not do 500 years ago, but humanity does not change. However, a positive aspect of humanity is a continuous determination to get better, to improve and to be kind and generous. Alongside all the horror that the Holocaust Educational Trust helps us to understand as parliamentarians, and Holocaust memorial day helps us to remember and commemorate those who died, there is the other side of human nature. That is also part of this remembrance.

I shall give colleagues an example. There is a country at the moment that does not get a busting lot of good media coverage in the Daily Mail and the rest called Bulgaria. Perhaps all hon. Members know—I did not know until a few months ago—that, although Bulgaria is smack in the middle of the Balkans and central Europe and has had a history of virulent anti-Semitism for hundreds of years, the Bulgarian people would not accept what the Nazis wanted, so 50,000 Jews survived in Bulgaria. Is that not fascinating? That is the flip side of this horror of the holocaust; so many good things were done. As another colleague said, we should not forget the individual families in Poland and other parts of Europe who saved Jewish families, at enormous cost to themselves. I was determined to mention the 50,000 Jews saved in Bulgaria in the Chamber today, because whenever I read certain papers at the minute I find that poor old Bulgaria does not get a lot of good coverage. So I pay tribute to that nation, in my small way as a Member of Parliament within Westminster, for what its people did. A lot of the Bulgarian Government wanted to go along with the Nazis and pack all 50,000 Jews off, but the Orthodox Church in Bulgaria and the people there just would not have it.

[Bob Stewart]

What the hon. Gentleman has said rings a bell, and I want to place on the record the fact that in the middle of the war in Bosnia, in 1992-93, the one section of society in Sarajevo that was not threatened was the Jewish section. The Muslims, Croats and Serbs were all up against it. The one people protected, or seemingly protected, was the Jewish community, and guess what that community did? It tried to help other people. I pay tribute to that.

[Stephen Lloyd]

I appreciate the hon. Gentleman’s intervention, as he makes such a powerful point.

So where are we at? Human nature is never going to act in a way that means these things will never happen again—we all know that. The reason for this commemorative day and the reason it is so important that the mother of Parliaments keeps having this debate year after year, even though it is 40, 50, 60, 70 years since these tragedies took place, is that it is a small way of holding the mirror up to man’s bestiality. That small attempt, that bit about knowledge and that emphasis on trying to ensure that the memory never disappears goes some way in helping us to challenge bigotry, of whatever type. Wickedness is not specific to any particular character or race; it covers humanity generally. So I am proud and privileged every year when I take part in these debates, even though I am not Jewish and have no personal family connection with the holocaust; I was always determined that if I had the privilege to be elected I would be here to do what I can in a small way to support this.

I pay tribute to the Holocaust Educational Trust, which does a fantastic job. I also pay tribute to the right hon. Member for Kirkcaldy and Cowdenbeath (Mr Brown), as I know through my involvement with the trust that he was immensely important in getting the resources to ensure that the trust went on. All in all, this is a powerful annual debate, and it is a privilege to be here and to listen to the real, powerful experiences set out by some of my colleagues.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lyn Brown (West Ham) (Lab)]

It is an absolute privilege to participate in this debate. I wholeheartedly congratulate the right hon. Member for North East Bedfordshire (Alistair Burt) not only on securing the debate, but on his deeply moving contribution.

Members on both sides of the Chamber have made some incredibly powerful contributions reflecting on the events of decades ago and pondering their relevance today—and I certainly believe that they are relevant today. We said then that never again would the world stand by while a state killed its own citizens in such a planned and systematic way. Today, and even then, it was unimaginable—completely and utterly incomprehensible —that a state could inflict such suffering and despair by exterminating its own people and those of other countries simply on the basis of a perceived difference.

Yet, as we reflect on the holocaust, how can we not also consider, as has been said, Cambodia, Bosnia, Rwanda and Darfur, where we have seen communities systematically dehumanised and killed because of a perceived difference, whether it be one of race, religion, ethnicity or belief?

[Bob Stewart]

Will the hon. Lady give way?

[Lyn Brown]

Can I not?

[Bob Stewart]

Of course.

[Lyn Brown]

With the help of the Commons Library, I have looked at some of this place’s wartime debates about the holocaust. They make it absolutely clear that there was a high level of awareness of the situation. In a debate on refugees on 19 May 1943, a Home Office Minister said that since the outbreak of the war, 8 million people in Poland had suffered barbarous punishment or death, and many others spoke knowingly of the Nazis’ intention to exterminate the Jewish people.

There is also a palpable sense in these pages of powerlessness with regard to tackling the problems, which were known about, and saving lives. Perhaps that sense of powerlessness has been echoed in this Chamber throughout the decades since. Indeed, I remember the debate on Syria.

In 1939 the merchant ship St Louis set sail from Hamburg with 937 German-Jewish refugees on board, seeking asylum from Nazi persecution. Despite setting off with visas to allow them into Cuba, they were denied access. They set sail for the US and Canada, where access was also denied to them. The St Louis returned to Europe, and at that point the UK agreed to take 288 of the passengers. Others went to Belgium, France and the Netherlands, but following the German invasion of those territories, they were again at risk, and historians estimate that 227 of the asylum seekers on that boat subsequently perished in the holocaust.

What makes the holocaust stand out is not only the sheer number of victims, but the concrete evidence of how the killing was organised and implemented on such a scale. Of great significance is the fact that every Jew was defined not by their religion or their own definition, but by the perpetrators’ definition. Jews were singled out and registered on a central database—its purpose was to expedite their murder—before being publicly marked, stripped of their citizenship, forced to hand over their possessions, dehumanised and, ultimately, deported to their death. I am astonished that the Nazis intended to expand the final solution beyond their borders: they drew up lists of Jews in the USA, Great Britain, Israel and so on. There has never before been such an event in history.

Our political forebears in this place did something, but we have to admit that it was not enough. Debates at that time referred to quotas or the numbers that should come here or go elsewhere in our empire. I am sure the Government of the day thought they were acting for the best, but it simply was not enough. Edmund Burke is attributed with saying that the only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men—and, indeed, women—to do nothing. We said, “Never again,” and we set up the United Nations to promote world peace, but we have still seen enormous inhumanities unfold in front of our eyes. Even today, we see credible evidence of the organised murder on a horrendous scale of the people of Syria by the state.

In preparing for this speech, I was reminded of one by my right hon. Friend the Member for Kirkcaldy and Cowdenbeath (Mr Brown) in 2008. In it, he reflected on a visit to a museum in Rwanda that commemorates the millions who lost their lives as the world looked the other way. There is a picture of a young boy called David, a 10-year-old who was tortured to death. His last words were, “Don’t worry—the United Nations will come for us”. But, as my right hon. Friend said, we never did. That child believed the best of us, only to discover that the pieties repeated so often, over and over, in reality meant nothing at all. The words “Never again” became a slogan, rather than what they should be—the crucible in which all our values sit and are tested.

My mother, like many of her generation, watched the liberation of the camps on newsreel footage. She was so profoundly moved by what she saw that she ensured that I was educated about it, and she gave me a copy of Anne Frank’s diary when I was about 10 years old. I devoured that book—trying to imagine myself in Anne Frank’s shoes—and I gained a tiny insight into the injustice and inhumanity to which she and her family were subjected. It was a lesson that I hope I have not forgotten. Years later, my mother and I visited Prague. We went to the ghetto, and saw the walls with the names of the 80,000 Jewish victims and the piteous paintings by the children.

I hope that hon. Members will allow me to say that I am neither a moral nor a political coward, but I know myself: I know how that visit, and the ones to Anne Frank’s house and to Dachau, affected me. I have therefore baulked at making the trip referred to by many hon. Members today, but in the light of this debate, I will face up to the challenge and visit Auschwitz-Birkenau before the end of this Parliament with, I hope, the support of the Holocaust Educational Trust.

This year, we mark the centenary of the outbreak of the first world war—the great war, as it was labelled at the time—and we should use the tone of this debate, which I commend, to fend off the revisionism that such occasions sometimes engender. It is widely believed that the treaty of Versailles created the conditions in which fascism emerged into the 1930s, and from which the horrors of the holocaust unfolded. Let us bear that in mind when we assess the events of 100 years ago and let us apply the lessons to our foreign policy when we encounter inhumanity in today’s world.

We know so much about the holocaust. We should be immensely grateful to the Holocaust Educational Trust for providing the resource that we all need. I join others in commending its work and that of Karen Pollock in particular. I am sure that the trust will rise to the challenge of keeping alive and accessible the stories and lessons of the holocaust as the number of survivors sadly dwindles over time. I commend the Government’s continuing commitment to ensuring that the holocaust is never forgotten, including through their funding for the Holocaust Memorial Day Trust under the admirable leadership of Olivia Marks-Woldman. Both trusts play their part in humanising the holocaust. In my view, that is the only way in which we can begin to comprehend such a vast and enduring tragedy.

In the Chamber today, we have heard how Members have comprehended the horror through seeing the piles of shoes or treading the steps into death chambers. For me, it is those paintings by the children in the Prague ghetto. We know so much, and yet we seem to learn so little. As we pause in the week before we mark Holocaust memorial day on 27 January, with its theme of journeys, we should take time to reflect on our global shortcomings and on our tendency to recognise the absolute horror of the holocaust, and yet to allow subsequent genocides to happen with such depressing frequency.