Holocaust Memorial Day

Jas Athwal Excerpts

Thursday 29th January 2026 Commons Chamber

[Jas Athwal (Ilford South) (Lab)]

I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Bury St Edmunds and Stowmarket (Peter Prinsley) for opening the debate, and everybody else who has spoken so compassionately, with clarity and authenticity. The feeling that has come out is clear for everyone to see.

The Holocaust inflicted pain on a scale that most of us will never truly comprehend—pain that did not end in 1945, and that still echoes through families, memory and generations of the Jewish community. This is not history at a distance; this was cruelty by design. It was mass murder, carried out deliberately on an industrial scale. Its trauma did not disappear; it was inherited.

Today, I will speak about one survivor—one voice that we must listen to while we can. Her name is Susan Pollack. She is a Holocaust survivor who recently turned 95, and whom I had the privilege of meeting and interviewing. Susan was born in Hungary. Long before the camps, hatred crept into her life: graffiti on walls, Jewish students barred from universities, and her brother being beaten at a boy scout meeting. Each sign carried the same message: “You do not belong.”

Then came the order. Susan’s family were forced from their home. They were told that they were being resettled. She clung on to that word, because hope—even false hope—was all she had. A letter followed; all Jewish fathers were ordered to attend a meeting. Susan’s father went, desperate to protect his family. He was beaten, forced into a lorry and taken away. Susan never saw him again. To this day, she does not know how or where her father died.

Then came Susan’s turn. In May 1944, she and her family were transported by cattle trucks to Auschwitz-Birkenau. She was 15. Somebody whispered to her, “Don’t say you’re younger than 15,” so when she was asked, she said, “15 and a half.” She later learned why. Children under 15 were sent with their mothers directly to the gas chambers. Susan lost her mother, and with that loss came horrors beyond language: mothers watching their children die; children searching for protection that could not come; entire families murdered in minutes. That is what hatred looks like when it is given power.

The cruelty did not stop. Susan’s hair was shaved, she was inspected—yes, inspected—starved and silenced. She watched people die, not by accident but by policy. She was later sent to Bergen-Belsen. By then, she said,

“dehumanisation killed any thoughts in our heads.”

For an entire year, she did not speak. She once recognised somebody from her village. The next day, that woman was dead.

When liberation came, Susan told me something that must never be ignored: there was no joy at being liberated. She had lost her parents, 50 members of her family, her entire community. She did not even know whether her brother was still alive. Liberation could not undo what had been destroyed. That was Susan’s experience, and it was the experience of 6 million Jewish people and millions of others, systematically murdered because hatred was allowed to rule. The Holocaust did not begin with the gas chambers; it began with words—with lies repeated until they sounded like the truth, with people labelled as “other”, with hatred normalised, and with silence excused. That is why remembrance alone is not enough, because “never again” is not a slogan; it is a test—a test of whether we challenge antisemitism when we see it and when it is inconvenient to do so, whether we confront fascist rhetoric when it masquerades as opinion, and whether we defend human dignity when it costs us something.

Six million Jews were murdered not because the world did not know, but because too many looked away. Susan Pollack survived Auschwitz. She survived Bergen-Belsen. She survived an attempt to erase her humanity. But survival alone was not justice, and silence was never safety, so the lesson of the Holocaust is clear: when hatred is tolerated, it grows; when lies go unchallenged, they spread; when humanity is divided into us and them, violence is never far away.

That is why this House must be unequivocal: we will not excuse antisemitism. We will not tolerate fascism. We will not stand by while people are dehumanised, in our politics, in our communities or in our public life. Because remembrance demands resolve—resolve to speak when others stay silent, to act when others hesitate and to defend our shared humanity every time it is threatened. We owe that to Susan Pollack; we owe it to the six million; we owe it to the future. If “never again” is to mean anything at all, it must mean now and it must mean us.