Holocaust Memorial Day

Joan Ryan Excerpts

Thursday 18th January 2018 Commons Chamber

[Joan Ryan (Enfield North) (Lab)]

It is an honour to follow the right hon. Member for Chipping Barnet (Theresa Villiers). We have visited the synagogue in Southgate together. I know how strongly she feels about these matters, as I think everybody does now.

Holocaust Memorial Day marks the darkest hour in human history. We remember and mourn the 6 million Jews murdered, as well as the Roma, disabled and LGBT victims of Nazi atrocities. We have a moral responsibility to listen to the stories of holocaust survivors. They speak not only for themselves but for those who did not survive to tell their story.

Earlier this year, I heard one such testimony from Edgar Guest, who spoke to pupils at Oasis Academy, a school in my constituency. Edgar was born in Budapest. In 1941, when Hungary joined the war, he lost his citizenship and was classified as an “alien Jew”. After Germany invaded, many of Edgar’s relatives were deported to Auschwitz and he was sent to the Budapest ghetto. He was marched halfway towards the railway station before being told to turn around and return to the ghetto. There he was forced to sleep in a room of 30, in a ghetto of 70,000 Jews, where he survived by earning an extra cup of soup a day by clearing away the dead bodies in the streets. His story is one small remembrance of the barbarity of the Nazi regime.

Edgar lives in Britain today, and he is still sharing his story at the age of 87. I would like to pay tribute to his courage and strength. The impact he has on school students is something to behold. We must give serious thought to how we carry forward such a message when we no longer have survivors with us to provide such powerful testimony.

The holocaust reminds us of where racism and anti-Semitism can lead. We must remember that the holocaust was the end of a process of state-sponsored racism that began on the streets of Munich and Berlin. The twisted road to Auschwitz began with a political party whose racist rhetoric won an election in a democratic society. There must be no complacency in the fight against anti-Semitism. We must tackle racism at its roots, weeding it out wherever we find it.

I applaud the Government for their adoption of the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance definition of anti-Semitism. It gives us clarity in this fight, and it is unequivocal in stating that holocaust denial, comparisons of Israel to Nazi Germany and allegations of Jewish conspiracies are modern forms of this ancient hatred. I would also like to voice my support for the proscription of far-right fascist groups.

Despite the horrors of the holocaust, anti-Semitism has not disappeared. We have even seen its rise in British society recently, including, I am ashamed to say, in my own party. We must condemn unequivocally and combat relentlessly this despicable trend. We must remember that the fight against racism is also one of education. We must fight for our anti-racist values and ensure we instil a respect for tolerance, equality and human rights in future generations. I would like to thank Karen Pollock and the Holocaust Educational Trust for their dedication to this task, and in particular for facilitating talks by survivors, such as that of Edgar Guest in Enfield. We must hear the words of survivors; we must remember the holocaust’s victims; and we must commit ourselves to the fight against racism and anti-Semitism wherever it rears its ugly head.