Holocaust Memorial Day

Liz McInnes Excerpts

Thursday 21st January 2016 Commons Chamber

[Liz McInnes (Heywood and Middleton) (Lab)]

It is an honour to be able to contribute to this debate. I thank all hon. Members for their contributions today and I thank the Backbench Business Committee for bringing the debate to the House. I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Ilford North (Wes Streeting) for his eloquent and moving opening speech. Like many Members, he pointed out that the holocaust was perpetrated by ordinary men and women carrying out acts of extraordinary evil.

I thank the right hon. Member for Brentwood and Ongar (Sir Eric Pickles) for highlighting, among many issues, the disgraceful recent attack on Jewish students in King’s College. I thank the hon. Member for Beckenham (Bob Stewart) for bringing his experience and knowledge of conflict to the debate. I thank my right hon. Friend the Member for Enfield North (Joan Ryan) for emphasising the need to preserve the memories of survivors. I thank the hon. Member for Enfield, Southgate (Mr Burrowes) for speaking of the courage of those who did not stand by. I thank the hon. Member for North Ayrshire and Arran (Patricia Gibson) for bringing us her experience as a teacher and highlighting the importance of holocaust education. I thank the hon. Member for Harrow East (Bob Blackman) for his passionate speech and for highlighting the work of Yad Vashem. I thank the hon. Member for Glenrothes (Peter Grant) for, again, emphasising that ordinary people are capable, in the wrong circumstances, of diabolical acts, and I thank the hon. Member for Bracknell (Dr Lee) for giving us his personal experience as a doctor with holocaust survivors. I thank the hon. Member for Newark (Robert Jenrick) for his very personal speech and his support for the National Holocaust Centre. Finally, I thank the hon. Member for East Renfrewshire (Kirsten Oswald) for her comments on the importance of learning lessons from the past.

The UK played a leading role in establishing Holocaust Memorial Day as an international day of commemoration in 2000, when 46 Governments signed the Stockholm declaration. Our first Holocaust Memorial Day was held on 27 January 2001. In the weeks leading up to and after Holocaust Memorial Day, thousands of commemorative events are arranged by schools, faith groups and community organisations across the country, remembering all the victims of the holocaust and of subsequent genocides. It is vital that we continue to remember and to learn from the appalling events of the holocaust, as well as ensuring that we continue to challenge anti-Semitism and all forms of bigotry. This year’s theme is “Don’t Stand By”. Bystanders are encouraged to speak out against persecution to prevent the horrors of the holocaust and other genocides from ever happening again.

The Holocaust Memorial Day Trust is the charity that promotes and supports Holocaust Memorial Day. The UK Government, through the Home Office, had the responsibility of running the Holocaust Memorial Day from 2001 to 2005. In May 2005, the Holocaust Memorial Day Trust was registered as a charity, and the then Home Secretary, David Blunkett, appointed trustees for the first time.

The Department for Communities and Local Government has funded the Holocaust Memorial Day Trust’s work since 2007, and, to date, HMDT has overseen massive growth of Holocaust Memorial Day activities. More than 3,600 activities took place across the UK on Holocaust Memorial Day last year. Independent opinion polling in February 2015 showed that 83% of UK adults are aware of Holocaust Memorial Day, and 31% say that they know it well. Some 1.3 million people watched the 2015 UK commemorative event on BBC 2.

Many Members have paid tribute to the work of the Holocaust Educational Trust, which aims to educate young people from every background about the holocaust and the important lessons to be learned for today. The trust works in schools, universities and the community to raise awareness and understanding of the holocaust, providing teacher training, an outreach programme for schools, teaching aids and resource material. It continues to play a leading role in training teachers on how best to teach the holocaust.

I was very proud to sign the Holocaust Educational Trust’s book of commitment, thereby honouring those who were murdered during the holocaust and paying tribute to the extraordinary holocaust survivors who work tirelessly to educate young people.

I wish to say a few words about the connection between the European convention on human rights and the holocaust. The ECHR was the first international instrument designed to bring into effect, through a dedicated court, the rights contained in the 1948 universal declaration of human rights. The convention came into force in 1953 and now applies to all 47 countries of its parent organisation, the Council of Europe.

The convention aimed to prevent a recurrence of the horrors and atrocities of the second world war. It followed on from the UDHR, which was proclaimed by the UN General Assembly in Paris on 10 December 1948. It is easy to forget that, until then, there was almost no system that enabled criticism of, let alone action against, Governments who mistreated people within their borders if their own law allowed such abuses.

Professor Francesca Klug, commissioner of the Equality and Human Rights Commission, notes that

“however morally repugnant, Nazi Germany’s racial purity policies were all in accordance with the law.”

It is from the universal declaration of human rights that the international system of human rights protections was born.

As the UDHR was being drafted, European leaders drew up the European convention on human rights. During that time, Winston Churchill spoke about the strength derived from our “sense of common values” and of such a convention being

“guarded by freedom and sustained by law”,

which ensured that people owned the Government, and not the Government the people.

When the UK Parliament passed the Human Rights Act in 1998, it made our human rights more accessible for people here in the UK. There is now a duty on all our public bodies—not just central Government, but the police, NHS, social services, housing and education—to respect, protect and fulfil our human rights. The legal protection of human rights for all is a direct and lasting legacy to emerge from the horrors of the holocaust.