Holocaust Memorial Day

Chris Williamson Excerpts

Thursday 24th January 2013 Commons Chamber

[Chris Williamson (Derby North) (Lab)]

I congratulate the hon. Member for Weaver Vale (Graham Evans) on securing this important debate, the most spellbinding that I have been party to in my short period—two and half years—in the House. We have heard incredibly powerful contributions from Members on both sides of the Chamber. I shall say a few words about each of them in turn, if I may.

My hon. Friend the Member for Leeds North East (Fabian Hamilton) made a moving contribution about his experience, and the experiences of his family and constituents who were holocaust survivors. It must have taken a lot for him to share those experiences, given that they were so close to home.

My hon. Friend the Member for Liverpool, Riverside (Mrs Ellman) talked about the importance of communicating what happened and the need for ongoing vigilance. She cited examples of Islamophobia and anti-Semitism, which is, incredibly, still going on today, and the need to continue to guard against it. The hon. Member for Ealing Central and Acton (Angie Bray) reminded us of the role that this country played in offering refuge to people fleeing the Nazis, and in defeating the Nazi tyranny that led to the many horrors that we have heard about this afternoon. She stressed the importance of education and ensuring that we, as a nation and a society, continue to remember what happened.

The hon. Member for Beckenham (Bob Stewart) spoke incredibly powerfully about his time at Belsen, and about seeing the mounds that were mass graves. He spoke about his period in Bosnia, where he saw thousands of victims and witnessed appalling atrocities. I pay tribute to him for sharing his experiences today. He spoke very movingly and powerfully about what he witnessed.

The hon. Member for Pendle (Andrew Stephenson) spoke about his experiences visiting concentration camps, and about working with the victims and survivors of the horrors in Srebrenica. The hon. Member for New Forest East (Dr Lewis) talked about the impact on young people of visiting the scene of Nazi atrocities. He took an important principled stand in resigning his membership of the Oxford Union when it gave the fascist David Irving a platform from which to spread his vile ideology.

The hon. Member for Rugby (Mark Pawsey) spoke about the genocide in Rwanda. It is incredible, really, that after the horrors of the holocaust in Nazi Germany, a genocide on such a scale could be repeated in relatively recent times. He talked movingly about speaking to survivors of the genocide in Rwanda.

The hon. Member for Eastbourne (Stephen Lloyd) spoke very thoughtfully and thought-provokingly. He said it was essential for this place to guard against the normalisation of the horrors of genocide, and for us to remember that monsters are few. For atrocities to be perpetrated on the scale that they were, the acquiescence of functionaries is required. He also said it could happen again—it could happen here. It is worth reminding ourselves that Nazi Germany, which has been the focus of much of the debate this afternoon, was a sophisticated western civilisation when the Nazis came to power. Who would have thought that a “sophisticated” nation could perpetrate such horrors? Yet it happened. I pay tribute to the hon. Member for Eastbourne for reminding us that it was not due simply to some monsters over there. It can happen anywhere, and we must guard against the normalisation of the horrors of genocide.

Finally, the hon. Member for Harrow East (Bob Blackman) spoke about how he heard at first hand from his friends in the Jewish community with whom he grew up about their parents’ experiences. He spoke about the incomprehensibility of what happened, and I share his view. To me, to all of us in the Chamber and to any decent-minded person, it is utterly incomprehensible that such horrors could be perpetrated. Again, the hon. Gentleman spoke about the importance of education to ensure that those horrors are not repeated in the future.

I pay tribute to the 294 Members who have signed the Book of Commitment relating to the holocaust. It is an important statement of intent that almost half the Members of the House have signed that.

It is a triumph for democracy that, for the past six years, the House has hosted this debate, and it is a triumph for decency that Holocaust memorial day continues to attract significant interest since it was first launched 12 years ago this Sunday. Perhaps the most famous line of remembrance comes from Laurence Binyon’s poem, “For the Fallen”—“We will remember them.” Those words, captured most famously in the “Ode of Remembrance”, were written in the year that the first world war ended. That was about 25 years before the unspeakable horrors that took place in Nazi Germany, but they remain just as relevant today because today is about remembering the millions who suffered those barbaric deaths—the innocent children who must have followed their parents and grandparents, perhaps naive in their anticipation, but innately sensing that something dreadful was about to happen, and the knowing parents, so many of whom must have endured the unimaginable agony of foreseeing the most horrific fate that awaited them, as first their captors extinguished their hope, then extinguished their dignity and finally extinguished their lives.

But today, and every day since the true scale of the holocaust became apparent, has also been about learning. For if society cannot learn from the wrongs of the past, what hope does it have? That is why I echo the sentiments that we have heard from most Members applauding the work of the Holocaust Educational Trust. The work of that organisation is most worthy, not just because of the vitally important issue at its heart, but because of the extraordinary way in which the message is delivered. The strapline on the trust’s logo states: “Reaching Generations”.

Let us think about those words for a moment: “Reaching Generations”. It sounds aspirational, but the incredible thing about this most awful story is that it has reached generations. The contributions from a number of Members, including my hon. Friend the Member for Leeds North East, and the intervention from my hon. Friend the Member for Nottingham South (Lilian Greenwood), who is not in her place, made that point. Ask virtually any child over the age of, say, 10 and many below that age, and they can most likely tell you more than a little about the holocaust. It remains relevant for our children in the same way as it is relevant for us, for our parents and for their parents before them. Was it the lowest ebb known in world history? Very possibly.

But we must not be complacent. Just because society knows what happened before is no reason to believe that it is not capable of repeating those wrongs in the future. We need look no further than the atrocities in Rwanda, Bosnia and Cambodia for proof of that. The painful truth is that we must keep remembering. We must keep learning, too, because the truth is that the dreadful crimes of the late 1930s and the 1940s were not restricted to Nazi concentration camps. Historical evidence suggests that in some areas there was collaboration, and in others there was just abstention.

Some people try to excuse the Nazi soldiers who enacted those awful crimes because they were just following orders. They might apply the same logic to the ordinary citizens who simply accepted it as part of their society, or the other nations outside Germany that simply turned a blind eye because a war was on, a point made by the hon. Member for Finchley and Golders Green (Mike Freer). None of them is a valid excuse—an explanation, perhaps, but not an excuse. The moment we start excusing those who contributed to this—arguably the greatest atrocity for which the human race has been responsible—is the moment we lose sight of why we remember.

Even today, global society has not learnt all the lessons it should have learnt from the past. Let us think about three of the groups the Nazis targeted: people targeted because of their ethnicity, because of their disability, and because of their sexuality. Have we solved the problem of discrimination based on ethnicity? Have we ended discrimination based on disability? Have we got rid of discrimination based on sexuality? We have come a long way on all three, but the answer to each is, unfortunately, no.

The great worry is that in some areas discrimination is increasing. A black footballer might now be much less likely to be abused from a football terrace than he was 30 years ago, but incidents of Islamophobia, for example, are on the increase. That is why our job here today is not simply to agree that the monstrous acts that took place in Nazi Germany must never be repeated; we must be vigilant in preventing the circumstances that enable fascist ideology to grow.

There are not many issues that this House agrees on, but reaching consensus on this issue is the easy part. We should not simply pat each other on the back for agreeing on something on which it would be impossible to disagree and then move on to the next business. The hard part is providing the leadership when we go back to our constituencies, our communities, our towns and cities, our friends and neighbours, our colleagues, customers and clients, showing the leadership that proves that society can learn from its mistakes, that it can move on from its troubled past, but that it will always remember.

It is becoming even more important that we remember because the austerity that is currently gripping European nations has given a foothold for fascist extremists to peddle their insidious doctrine. The hon. Member for Harrow East touched on that when he talked about the circumstances that led to the rise of the Nazis in Germany after the treaty of Versailles. We must never make those mistakes again. We must remember to take steps to tackle the circumstances that provide a breeding ground for fascist and Nazi ideology.

Reaching generations is what the Holocaust Educational Trust seeks to do. It is what we should all seek to do. I take my hat off to the many voluntary organisations, community groups and local authorities that are supporting events in their areas to mark Holocaust memorial day. I know that is happening in my home city and constituency of Derby North, and I am sure that the same is true for every Member here today. I urge everyone in the Chamber and beyond to go back to their constituencies, write to those organisations, congratulate them on the work they have done and pledge their support now and for the future. Holocaust memorial day is vital to ensure that we remember and that we learn, and all of us in this place have a vital role to play in supporting that goal.