Holocaust Memorial Day

Lord Evans of Rainow Excerpts

Thursday 24th January 2013 Commons Chamber

[Graham Evans (Weaver Vale) (Con)]

I beg to move,

That this House has considered the matter of Holocaust Memorial Day.

I thank the Backbench Business Committee for this timely opportunity to debate this important issue on the Floor of the House. I also thank my hon. Friend the Member for Eastbourne (Stephen Lloyd), the right hon. Members for Salford and Eccles (Hazel Blears) and for Wolverhampton South East (Mr McFadden), the hon. Members for Bassetlaw (John Mann) and for Liverpool, Riverside (Mrs Ellman), and my hon. Friends the Members for South Derbyshire (Heather Wheeler) and for Finchley and Golders Green (Mike Freer). All gave their support for this debate, for which I am very grateful. The number of colleagues who put their names to our application for a debate demonstrates the strength of feeling about this issue and a desire to examine proactively what the holocaust means to us as a society today, as well as the strength of personal feeling on this very difficult subject.

There have been Westminster Hall debates every year since 2008 to consider Holocaust memorial day, on 27 January each year. Sunday will mark the 68th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz-Birkenau by the Russian army, which liberated the concentration camp and the death camp. These debates are always well attended, and I look forward to hearing from many Members who will have their personal views on what this means to them. I would like to frame today’s debate in three ways: first, through personal experience and the experiences of my constituents; secondly, by examining why bringing this debate to the Chamber at this time is important; and thirdly, by exploring what we as policy makers do to confine this dark and turbulent collective history to the past.

We all know the story of the holocaust—we know about the working conditions, the gas chambers, murder on an industrial scale and the irony of “Arbeit macht frei”—but to know the facts is to know only the outlines, like reading a blueprint rather than walking around a building. The Prime Minister and my hon. Friend the Member for Stratford-on-Avon (Nadhim Zahawi) both commended the fantastic work of the Holocaust Educational Trust, raising awareness in Prime Minister’s questions, and I would like to do the same. It was through the trust’s “Lessons from Auschwitz” project that I was able to visit the camp with schoolchildren from my constituency in 2011. I went knowing what Auschwitz was, but I left understanding what it means. What struck me most about my visit was that the 11 million who are estimated to have died were like all of us in this room. The lists of names, ages, professions and home towns built a picture of lives and told stories of living, breathing people with hopes and fears, just like our own today. I left feeling harrowed, but uplifted by the thoughtful, emotive responses of the pupils I had visited Auschwitz with. What is so effective about such projects is that the children returned to their schools to share their experiences with so many others.

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

I congratulate my hon. Friend on securing this debate with others and thank him for giving way. Does he agree that the wonderful work of the Holocaust Educational Trust in getting across the educational aspect of this issue will ensure both that future generations understand the tragedy of the holocaust—what went on, the atrocities—and that it does not happen again, to any community whatever?

[Graham Evans]

I am most grateful to my hon. Friend for his intervention. I totally, wholeheartedly agree with him. We cannot thank the Holocaust Educational Trust enough for the work it does on behalf of the whole country.

[Bob Stewart (Beckenham) (Con)]

It must not happen again, but we are not guaranteed that it cannot happen again. If I am called to speak, I will demonstrate that it has happened again—and it will continue to happen—and we have got to try to stop it.

[Graham Evans]

I thank my hon. and gallant Friend for his intervention. Later in my speech I will come to how we all have to remain vigilant.

[Julie Hilling (Bolton West) (Lab)]

I joined the hon. Gentleman on that trip to Auschwitz, and I wonder whether he, too, remembers that final walk back up the railway track, and the profound effect that the visit had on those young people. We hope that it will be a lasting effect, and that they will always remember the graphic details of what happened to those people.

[Graham Evans]

I remember that time clearly. I remember being at Manchester airport very early in the morning with those 16 and 17-year-olds. On the way out, those teenagers were full of life, but I remember, too, that harrowing moment right at the end of the visit, and the silence as we were trying to light our candles at No. 4 crematorium. The roof of the crematorium had collapsed, as the Nazis had tried to destroy the evidence of the gas chambers when they were retreating. We were trying to pay our tributes by lighting candles, and I remember the silence as we did so. The students were distinctly quieter on the journey home as they reflected on what we had all witnessed. I will always remember that moment that I shared with the hon. Lady; it was an extremely moving occasion.

[Mr Brooks Newmark (Braintree) (Con)]

I should like to echo the sentiments expressed by my hon. Friend the Member for Ilford North (Mr Scott) in congratulating the Holocaust Educational Trust on the work that it does. I have also been reflecting on the point made by my hon. and gallant Friend the Member for Beckenham (Bob Stewart) that such atrocities could indeed continue, but we can reduce the chances of that happening if we educate future generations. That is why the work of the Holocaust Educational Trust, and of others who do similar work, is so important.

[Graham Evans]

The Holocaust Educational Trust is a fantastic organisation, and I am most grateful to my hon. Friend for reminding us all of that fact. We cannot speak too often about the trust and the fantastic work that it does. I have three young children, and I have tried to make sure that they are aware of these subjects, although it is not easy to talk to young people about them. The trust does that in a very professional and sympathetic way, however.

[Mr Pat McFadden (Wolverhampton South East) (Lab)]

I am pleased to be among the MPs who have co-sponsored today’s debate with the hon. Gentleman. The theme of Holocaust memorial day is “Reaching generations”. Does he agree that an important feature of that is the passage of time? The Holocaust Educational Trust does extremely valuable work in schools, but as time passes—the hon. Gentleman mentioned 68 years—it is important to record testimony. As each year passes, there are fewer and fewer living survivors, and if we are to learn the lessons from the holocaust before they fade into the distance, it will be important to record as much testimony as possible so that we can remain as vigilant as possible. The hon. Member for Beckenham (Bob Stewart) has just issued a warning: as much as we might believe that those atrocities should never happen again, the danger of them happening again has not gone away.

[Graham Evans]

The right hon. Gentleman makes a very valid point, and I agree with him. As people grow old and pass on, it is up to us, our children and our children’s children to ensure that their story is always told and never forgotten. When I was a little lad of 10 in my home town, I remember a Cheshire Regiment soldier who had been part of the liberation of Belsen telling me about the camp. I had had no comprehension of such things as a 10-year-old; I had always thought that we had been the plucky Brits who fought the war and beat the Germans. The idea of the holocaust had never occurred to me. I remember him telling me how he had been affected by coming upon Belsen as a 19-year-old British soldier, and how it had affected him for the rest of his life. Hon. Members might remember Jeremy Isaacs’ award-winning series “The World at War”, which came out in the early 1970s. Programmes such as those stay fresh in the mind because they used survivors from the camps and the genocide. It is important that they are still shown on television and on the internet. I am grateful to the right hon. Member for Wolverhampton South East for making that very good point.

[Mark Durkan (Foyle) (SDLP)]

I should like to add to the tributes being paid to the Holocaust Educational Trust. Its “Lessons from Auschwitz” project was originally funded through a grant from the Treasury, which allowed the programme to be extended to Northern Ireland on one occasion, in which I took part. Is the hon. Gentleman aware, however, that a subsequent decision was made that the money should come from the Department for Education’s budget? That has resulted in the Holocaust Educational Trust having to busk around for money in order to continue to do work in the devolved territories, and the programme has not been available in Northern Ireland. If there is one place in the UK that could benefit in a particularly poignant way from learning the lessons from Auschwitz about prejudice, it is Northern Ireland. Does the hon. Gentleman agree that the Government should look again at this matter, and give a UK-wide envelope of funding to the Holocaust Educational Trust?

[Graham Evans]

I am most grateful to the hon. Gentleman. He raises an important point relating to his constituency. My understanding is that money is available for students from across the United Kingdom, including Northern Ireland, to attend Auschwitz. I believe that the Treasury has allocated funds for that exercise.

I have also been privileged to meet survivors and listen to first-hand accounts, but they are harder and harder to find as time takes its toll. As time goes on, it is essential that we work harder than ever to ensure that people remember the holocaust; we cannot allow it to become a remote and distant memory for future generations.

So why should this debate be taking place here in the Chamber today? Those who fail to learn the lessons of history risk repeating them. The holocaust was not the first genocide; nor, sadly, was it the last. That murder by the state on an industrial scale occurred in what was one of the most modern and, arguably, civilised nations in the world at the time. Anti-Semitism, homophobia and prejudice still exist all across the world. Wherever there is unrest, economic difficulty or social imbalance, it is human nature to search for a group to blame. As the global economy falters, those conditions exist across the world, in Europe and even in Great Britain today.

[Mr Angus Brendan MacNeil (Na h-Eileanan an Iar) (SNP)]

I have been to Cambodia and Rwanda, and what the hon. Gentleman has been saying is particularly worrying. Having seen those countries, and knowing the history of Europe, I cannot say with certainty that such things will not happen again. Today gives us an important opportunity to express our best hope that they will not, and to alert people to the dangers, but does the hon. Gentleman know of any ways in which we could act in a stronger, more robust, manner to lessen the chances of them happening again?

[Graham Evans]

The hon. Gentleman makes a good point. It is only 15 years since the genocide in Rwanda, in the mid-1990s, when the whole world stood by and allowed it to happen. He is right to say that we need to remain vigilant in relation to Rwanda and other countries.

[John Mann (Bassetlaw) (Lab)]

I am leaving in the next few minutes to go to Hungary, and I shall be speaking in the Hungarian Parliament tomorrow morning with politicians from five other countries about the statements made by the new party, Jobbik, which called in November for there to be lists of Jews rewritten by the Hungarian state, for purposes to be determined. Does the hon. Gentleman agree that even today there are extremists who would perpetuate race hate, even among politicians in western European countries?

[Graham Evans]

I wholeheartedly agree. The hon. Gentleman must have been reading my speech, because I was about to come to that exact subject. I wish him well in Hungary; I am sure that he will be a fine representative for the whole House.

When we stop remembering our collective history, because we no longer have first-hand accounts from people who were there, or simply because it shows the unpalatable truth about how we can turn on a minority, we risk making the same mistakes. It is inevitable that they will be repeated. Evil men know that. Adolf Hitler knew it. He frequently referred to the Armenian genocide, which took place between 1915 and 1923, during the Turkish Ottoman empire. One million people were murdered and another million were displaced, but the memory of it had all but disappeared by the 1930s. The world had moved on, and the vigilance against similar events had all but disappeared. History, it appeared, could simply wash the blood away. Adolf Hitler knew that when he went to war against Poland and Russia: he thought that if he could win, he could commit mass murder and genocide throughout Europe—he thought he could get away with it.

My application for this debate came to the Backbench Business Committee in the wake of a surprisingly under-reported outburst by the deputy leader of the Hungarian party Jobbik. During a debate in the Chamber of the Hungarian Parliament, he demanded that a list be drawn up of every Jewish Member of Parliament, and Government Members claimed that their very presence posed a national security risk to the country. Such words should bring a chill to any rational person’s heart. The response by the Prime Minister, Viktor Orbán, was impassioned. He said:

“as long as I am standing in this place, no one in Hungary can be hurt or discriminated against because of their faith, conviction or ancestry.”

[Mark Tami (Alyn and Deeside) (Lab)]

The hon. Gentleman is making a telling case and raising important points. One critical issue is that we cannot let people believe that, with the ending of the war, all these attitudes suddenly went away. There were pogroms in eastern Europe after the second world war. Education is clearly the key to ensuring that future generations never forget what happened.

[Graham Evans]

The hon. Gentleman makes a valid point. The moment we hear about such statements, it is up to us all—in this House and in similar democracies throughout Europe and indeed the world—to highlight them.

This aggravated anti-Semitic sentiment was not an outburst from a political outsider. This nationalist party received 17% of the vote in the 2010 election and holds 47 seats in a 386-seat Parliament. Some polls suggest that as much as 21% of the population would describe themselves as Jobbik sympathisers. It is estimated that some 600,000 Hungarian Jews died during Nazi occupation. We know—we learned when we visited Auschwitz—that 400,000 Jewish men, women and children were murdered there in 1944. Golden Dawn is Europe’s most recently successful far-right party, winning 18 seats.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government (Mr Don Foster)]

The hon. Member for Bassetlaw (John Mann) is about to leave. As the Minister with some responsibility for this issue, I say formally that I was delighted to hear about his visit and that he has my full support.

[Hon. Members]

Hear, hear.

[Graham Evans]

As I was saying, Golden Dawn is Europe’s most recently successful far-right party, winning 18 seats in the Greek elections last year. It feeds prejudice, using overtly racist, anti-Semitic and homophobic rhetoric, taking advantage of the crippling economic situation and civil unrest. It is worth taking a moment to consider that conditions there—having to repay a huge economic burden imposed by other European countries—are not dissimilar to those of the Weimar Republic in the 1920s.

What about here in our own backyards? We still live in a world of prejudice and violence, where one in five British Jewish students is a victim of anti-Semitism. A recent survey by the Union of Jewish Students highlighted that 20% of Jewish students have experienced—and a further 32% witnessed—anti-Semitism in the past academic year. Some academic institutions still allow groups with aggressive stances towards Judaism to take part in debates on campus, providing a platform from which to spread hateful sentiments inciting prejudice and even violence. We have come to expect liberal and considered views from our academic institutions. Students should not just learn but grow, and if these kinds of attitudes are not tackled head on at schools, colleges and universities, we will forfeit the moral compass for the future.

Just a few weeks ago, in my own constituency no less, a teenager was convicted of sending racially aggravated Twitter messages to a Jewish schoolboy. The individual referred to members of the Jewish faith as “creatures” and expressed his support for eugenics. This is a depressing state of affairs and it shows us that a great deal more must be done right here in Britain to look at how our culture finds a breeding ground for these sorts of beliefs.

[Mike Gapes (Ilford South) (Lab/Co-op)]

Does the hon. Gentleman agree that one problem is an ideology of holocaust denial that, sadly, exists in many countries in the world and that feeds back through the internet and modern communications, distorting the debate and affecting some young people in this country? In that context, will he join me in condemning remarks made by the President of Egypt who denied the holocaust and said that it was a myth created by the Jews and the Americans? Those remarks were made before he became President of Egypt, but it is important for us in this country not to have double standards or pull our punches, but to criticise vehemently and strongly all those who foster holocaust denial internationally—in whatever position in whatever country, whether it be Hungary or in other parts of the world.

[Graham Evans]

The hon. Gentleman makes a powerful point; I agree with him wholeheartedly. I would distinguish between two camps: there is the more sinister type of denial, as exemplified by the comments of the Egyptian Prime Minister, and there is ignorance. I believe we can do something about ignorance, but we also have to take head on those more sinister politicians who want to deny that the holocaust ever happened.

The holocaust was not created by some faceless state machine, but by people from a society not so far away from our own who committed terrible acts against members of their own communities. It is for us to examine our society, both global and national, to address these vicious twists of human nature before we reach a breaking point like that again. When I visited Auschwitz, what struck me was that its architects were doctors, scientists and engineers. Global industries all have their fingerprints on the creation of Auschwitz and murder on an the industrial scale.

So what do we do now? It would be all too easy to hold a one-sided debate, pat ourselves on the backs for vociferously condemning the actions of the Germans in the 1930s and 1940s. We can all agree that the spectre of anti-Semitism, prejudice and bigotry is morally reprehensible, but that carries the risk of creating an apathetic view of the social mechanics that do not just lead to the holocaust but are set in motion before any genocide.

[Adam Afriyie (Windsor) (Con)]

Having spent several months in Israel in my youth and about eight years here in the British Parliament, I abhor anti-Semitism, racism and “groupism” in all its forms. It seems to me that as democratically elected politicians in a liberal democracy, we have a responsibility to be careful with our own words in identifying groups of people—whether it be on a party political basis or a basis of heritage or some other characteristic. We must be careful with our words so that we do not forge groupism within our society, as it can very quickly turn into something far more insidious.

[Graham Evans]

I totally agree with my hon. Friend who, as always, makes a hugely valued point. The holocaust deniers sometimes try to detract from British bomber command and the terror raids it carried out to bring the war to a close in 1945. I remember speaking to a bomber pilot who said that if there had been a peace treaty in 1945 and if the Germans had come to negotiate for peace, the bombing would have stopped overnight. They did not want to kill women and children; they wanted to bring the second world war to a close. The moment it did close, the bombing was stopped. I do not think for one moment that if there had been a peace treaty, the gassing of Jews in Auschwitz would have stopped; it would have carried on while so-called peace negotiations were going on.

[Dr Julian Lewis (New Forest East) (Con)]

In his illustration, I think my hon. Friend was primarily referring to the bombing of Dresden. It is no coincidence at all that the person most responsible for massively exaggerating the admittedly terrible civilian casualties in Dresden was none other than the same David Irving, who was a principal holocaust denier.

[Graham Evans]

My hon. Friend raises a very good point. The Dresden bombing raid, right at the end of the second world war, was dreadful but the Tokyo fire raid in 1945 was far, far worse. More people were killed in that raid than were killed in Hiroshima or Nagasaki. All bombing of civilians is a terrible thing, but the point I am making is that the Nazis’ “final solution” was hell-bent on ring-fencing a group of people and annihilating them from the face of the earth. The “final solution” was not a decision made on high by a few, but a calculated move riding on a wave of ill will which swept across Europe—a wave which, lest we forget, also encompassed the United Kingdom.

I should like to recognise the good work that is done. The Treasury has allocated £1.8 million for holocaust education funding for the trips to Auschwitz, £250,000 of which is for an education development programme to equip teachers with the skills and resources to address this issue. The Holocaust Memorial Day Trust has been mentioned several times, and I should also like to mention the Conservative Friends of Israel. I was privileged enough to go on a trip to Yad Vashem, the remarkable tribute to the holocaust.

Beyond first-hand accounts, we need to look at how to communicate and share information effectively. The internet provides a vast sea of information designed to educate and inform. It is a proactive source of opinions, but it also provides an instant platform for uneducated views and malicious misinformation, which my hon. Friend the Member for Ilford South (Mike Gapes) alluded to earlier. We must seek to combat holocaust denial and racism wherever we find it.

As Members of Parliament, we have a duty to remain vigilant, to protect the right to live free from prejudice, no matter what creed, colour, faith or ancestry. I urge us all to take the time to look around us, to see where the spectre of prejudice rises. That may be at home, talking to schools, communities and the police. It may be abroad, working with the many all-party parliamentary groups providing us with links across the world and with our counterparts in the EU or in individual states. What we must not do is be passive. This is our future and we must fight for it. All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing. This House is full of good men, and women; we have to remain vigilant.

[Several hon. Members]

rose—

--- Later in debate ---

[Graham Evans]

The debate has shown the House at its best, and on behalf of the hon. Members who supported the motion, I thank each and every Member who has contributed so thoughtfully and compassionately. Some of the speeches drew on personal experience, some on the first-hand accounts that Members have heard and some on recognition of the darkest parts of the human condition.

I have been pleased to listen to the unifying voice of sombre memorial, the celebration of human spirit and the will to survive. I expected no less from hon. Members. I would particularly like to remark on the speech of my hon. and gallant Friend the Member for Beckenham (Bob Stewart). His experience reminded me of the old Jewish saying, “If you save one life, it’s as if you’ve saved the entire world”.

Vigilance is the only way in which we can protect future generations, both here in the United Kingdom and across the world. It is our duty to keep this specific event in our not-so-distant past in our memories. Unless we do so, we create a vacuum in which prejudice and bigotry can flourish, which is not a future to which I wish to condemn my children.

Question put and agreed to.

Resolved,

That this House has considered the matter of Holocaust Memorial Day.