Holocaust Memorial Day

Edward Leigh Excerpts

Tuesday 20th January 2015 Westminster Hall

[Sir Edward Leigh (Gainsborough) (Con)]

It is an honour to follow my friend and Jewish brother, my hon. Friend the Member for Ilford North (Mr Scott), who made the most moving comments, and my hon. Friend the Member for Newark (Robert Jenrick), who spoke about the moving life story of his own family.

I know that Holocaust memorial day is next Tuesday, but it is appropriate that this Parliament should be talking about this issue today. On 20 January 1275, on the other side of the street, in the Westminster chapter house—one can see it through the windows—our first Parliament was founded. That is what the British people are about. Where does the word “Parliament” come from? It comes from the French word “parler”—to talk together and understand each other, and to understand our differences and try to sort them out. It is important that we have this debate to try to recognise what in human nature creates these appalling events. It is still here; there is some of it in all of us. Unless we recognise that, we are doomed to repeat history.

Solzhenitsyn said in “The Gulag Archipelago”:

“If only there were evil people somewhere insidiously committing evil deeds, and it were necessary only to separate them from the rest of us and destroy them. But the line dividing good and evil cuts through the heart of every human being.”

That sort of hatred, somehow and inexplicably, rests in human beings.

After the war, a German officer, who had had a normal war and done nothing very remarkable, was being interrogated. He was in the pen with thousands of other people. He had not been the commandant of a camp or anything like that—he had fought in Germany and Russia and all the rest of it; there was nothing remarkable about him. However, when he was being interviewed, there was a gap in his war, so the American officer interviewing him asked, “What were you doing in that gap?” The German officer could have given any answer; he was being interviewed with thousands of other people. He said, “I was just working for the Einsatzgruppen.” The interviewing officer knew what they were doing. He said, “What were you doing for those nine months working for the Einsatzgruppen in Poland?”, and he replied, “I was killing Jews.” The officer said, “Well, how many did you kill?” He said, “Oh, about 90,000.”

This was just a normal person, a German officer, and somehow he had been infected with this appalling evil. It is there. Germany was the most advanced nation in Europe, with an extraordinarily successful economy, and we still do not understand why Jewish people—who were largely integrated, were a tiny proportion of the population, were making a wonderful contribution to Germany and had fought patriotically in exactly the same proportion as everybody else in Germany for their nation in the first world war—were treated like that. It is something in human nature, and it is here now.

Only last year, we had a debate on Srebrenica, which happened not 70 years ago, but in our time. Boys and men—hundreds of them—were carried out of a village and shot simply because they were Muslim. It is here now, and we have to recognise it in all of us and root it out; that is why this debate is so important. It is also important for us to proclaim that because this great and appalling act of murder was committed against the Jewish people, they have the absolute right to live in peace, freedom and security wherever they are in the world. Because they, almost uniquely, were subjected to this appalling act of genocide and torture, they deserve our special protection.

My hon. Friend the Member for Ilford North spoke most movingly about the Jewish people who have settled in this country. We should proclaim loudly in this Parliament, on the day of our 750th anniversary, how much we value the contribution of Jewish people to our nation. This is a people who came here and sought shelter, often from pogroms at the end of the 19th century —although, as my hon. Friend said, some have been here for centuries—and they have given so much to our country. They have integrated so well, and they are an object lesson to all immigrant communities.

Although my hon. Friend has talked about a particularly horrible incident, I do not personally believe there is much anti-Semitism in this country; there certainly should not be. We are a tolerant nation and we welcome our Jewish brothers and sisters; we welcome them for the contribution that they make. However, this debate is an opportunity to say that we shall never forget what happened to them in the past, and in never forgetting, we hope that we can stop it from happening again.