Holocaust Memorial Day 2012

Caroline Nokes Excerpts

Thursday 19th January 2012 Westminster Hall

[Caroline Nokes (Romsey and Southampton North) (Con)]

It is certainly a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mrs Dorries. I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Croydon Central (Gavin Barwell) on having secured what I regard as an important debate, but it is also timely as tomorrow is the 70th anniversary of the Wannsee conference, where the horrific final solution to exterminate the entire Jewish population of Europe was co-ordinated by the Nazis. It may have been 70 years ago, but it is timely to bring that to the forefront of our minds today.

The holocaust was the most horrific act of genocide in history, and it is crucial that we never forget or let the memory of the evil that occurred fade. As holocaust survivors grow fewer and older, our thoughts must be about how we continue to educate our young people about this harrowing episode. I want to focus on education, and I praise the Holocaust Educational Trust, which works tirelessly to teach children about the holocaust. I am delighted that the Government continue to give two post-16 students from every school and college in Britain the opportunity to visit Auschwitz-Birkenau as part of the trust’s Lessons from Auschwitz project.

In November 2010, I joined a group of college students from the south-east and the hon. Member for Eastbourne (Stephen Lloyd) on a visit to Auschwitz, and memories of that visit will remain with me for ever. Several hon. Members have spoken this afternoon about the industrial scale of the genocide, but what instantly struck me, particularly on visiting Birkenau, was the industrial atmosphere. The place looked like a factory, and one felt that this was very much a business that the Nazis undertook.

As we have heard, everyone’s memories of visiting Auschwitz are different. People are struck by some of the small things, but it is always individual and personal. I remember looking at the mountains of hair from thousands of victims, the shoes and the suitcases, which were exactly as the victims had left them, but the thing that struck me—I am sure that this is personal—was the piles of spectacles with the lenses still in place. As someone who wears glasses, I can say that if someone were to take them from me, at that point I would know that there was no future for me, because I simply could not function without them.

In 2006, I was fortunate to visit Yad Vashem, the holocaust memorial in Israel. As a parent, I was particularly struck by the memorial to the children. It is a phenomenally dark place that one spirals down into with candles representing each of the victims. The names of the children who perished in the holocaust are read out. The sombre surrounds are phenomenally moving. As I said, it is dark in both respects. The memorial is dark, but you feel very dark in your heart to know that there was a regime that could consider it acceptable to slaughter 1 million innocent children. I am utterly convinced that that is one of the main reasons why we must continue to educate our children, so that they in turn can teach their children and that the horror of the holocaust is never lost and will remain in history for ever.

The holocaust has many incredible stories of suffering and survival and of families separated, and it is a real testament to the bravery of those survivors that, all these years on, some still continue to speak of the horrors that they endured. They continue to go into schools. As the hon. Member for Ilford South (Mike Gapes) mentioned, it is real privilege to be able to hear them. Individuals such as Steven Spielberg must be congratulated, because they have made it their mission to ensure that, even if only on film, they capture those personal testimonies.

I have heard representatives of the Holocaust Educational Trust say that it is one of their challenges to ensure that the stories live on. The survivors provide the most powerful testimonies, but we have the technology nowadays to be able to capture them. It is crucial that even elderly survivors still have the opportunity to speak their story, so that we can keep it for posterity. The Chief Rabbi, Lord Sacks, has said that

“fighting the pain of ancient wounds”

the survivors have

“told their stories to schoolchildren, teaching them what freedom means and how it must be fought for in every generation.”

The holocaust is part not just of Jewish memory, but of our collective consciousness. All humanity has vital lessons to learn from the holocaust. In my constituency, there is an annual peace walk that is organised by the Southampton Council of Faiths, and different faith groups meet and walk to every place of worship in the city. That could be the Sikh temple, the synagogue or the Catholic church. As we walk, we talk and share our experiences and recognise our differences, but we also celebrate our similarities. We should continue with that important role, so that the community has the opportunity to share its collective conscience.

I am increasingly conscious, however, that anti-Semitic incidents are still reported every year in Britain. In 2005, Chief Rabbi Sacks said:

“After sixty years of saying never again, it is happening again. There can be no doubt as to the most tenacious ideology of modern times. German fascism came and went. Soviet Communism came and went. Antisemitism came and stayed.”

Again, I return to the work of the Holocaust Educational Trust. It helps students understand the results of prejudice and racism. It is of paramount importance in understanding contemporary society and in averting the occurrence of another Rwanda or Bosnia. It is clear that racism is born of ignorance, and the most effective antidote for that is education.