International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance

Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon Excerpts

Thursday 27th February 2014 Grand Committee

[Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon (Con)]

My Lords, I join other noble Lords in thanking and paying tribute to the noble Baroness, Lady Deech, for her contributions, not just to this debate but to the issue. This is an important debate for everyone, and we have seen and heard many personal and moving interventions from noble Lords today. The Holocaust will always have a universal meaning given its magnitude, the unprecedented and unparalleled suffering involved—as the noble Lord, Lord McKenzie, said—and the scarring of humanity that took place. We are collectively committed to ensuring that all our children and future generations understand the events of the Holocaust and can reflect on its consequences. We also remember the many lives which were so cruelly cut short, and we support and sustain the survivors, who are all too few. We are truly honoured by the presence of some of them here today.

Our determination to remember the Holocaust and to learn the lessons of history domestically is reflected at the highest levels of the Government, as seen by the Prime Minister’s recent creation of the new cross-party, multifaith Holocaust Commission. Internationally, as noble Lords have acknowledged, the Foreign Secretary’s envoy for post-Holocaust issues, Sir Andrew Burns—who I am delighted has joined us in the Public Gallery today—draws together activity across government. Along with the executive secretary of the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance, Dr Kathrin Meyer, and with academic and non-government experts, Sir Andrew provides a clear British profile, presence and influence in this field.

I also pay tribute to all the Government’s partners in the UK delegation to the IHRA, which is drawn from academic and civil society organisations. Their activities in the field of post-Holocaust issues, and the best practice they are able to share with the IHRA’s other members, are the real heartbeat of the organisation. I particularly thank the brave survivors who every day actively visit schools and community groups to share their first-hand testimonies and help us in the ongoing struggle against Holocaust denial and anti-Semitism. We are truly honoured by the presence of two such incredible people, brother and sister Ben Helfgott and Marla Tribich, who have joined us to listen to the debate today.

It is a great privilege for the UK to succeed Canada as chair of the IHRA. It is an honour for us to be at the helm of the foremost international body committed to promoting multinational co-operation in Holocaust education, remembrance and research. As several noble Lords pointed out, the alliance is now at a crossroads. From three initial country members, it has now grown to a sizeable regional alliance, encompassing 31 member states. I assure my noble friends Lord Bourne and Lord Finkelstein that outreach to new countries is central to the IHRA and is a priority in our chairmanship. Yesterday, our special envoy for post-Holocaust issues briefed ambassadors from a number of interested countries, and we will continue those conversations with countries such as Australia, Albania, Morocco, El Salvador, Uruguay and Moldova. Other countries not yet part of the organisation but registering interest in it include Macedonia, Portugal and Turkey. These countries, of course, have their own Holocaust history and their own experiences to bring to the organisation.

A key part of the Holocaust issue is education, remembrance and research. The alliance has recently launched a multiyear work plan which will feature prominently in our chairmanship throughout this year. This includes addressing the deficit of knowledge of what took place outside of the death camps. The name of Auschwitz, for example, is horribly etched in our minds and sends shivers down our collective spines, and I assure my noble friend Lord Shipley that we recognise the importance of ensuring the impact of the Holocaust is not forgotten when the survivors are no longer with us. We pay tribute to the book The Tin Ring and to organisations such as the Holocaust Educational Trust, the Holocaust Memorial Day Trust and the Association of Jewish Refugees, with which we work actively and imaginatively to ensure that survivors’ stories are kept alive and are shared through various innovative ways. We are actively looking to share our best practices with other members of the IHRA.

However, there are other sites across Europe where mass shootings took place which remain relatively unknown, and other people suffered, such as the Roma people mentioned by the noble Baroness, Lady Whitaker, and the noble Lord, Lord McKenzie. We are taking forward the Roma integration strategy within our broader social inclusion and integration policies because we believe that is the best approach in a diverse and decentralised country such as the UK. Our approach is fully in line with that of countries we are working with at all levels.

The recent IHRA conference in Krakow on killing sites demonstrated that work still needs to be done to anchor Holocaust remembrance in our societies, and we are ensuring that Holocaust deniers do not get their way in any sense. We want to ensure that we curb these perverse and dangerous views. I assure my noble friend Lord Gold that I understand the sentiments he expressed. Tackling Holocaust denial or trivialisation is another priority of the organisation. This struggle is so important because it confronts a form of anti-Semitism which risks raising its head again, as we have already seen in parts of Europe. I assure my noble friend Lord Gold that we work actively through IHRA’s committee on anti-Semitism and Holocaust denial to ensure that the international community takes action to combat anti-Semitism wherever it is seen. That means that the IHRA is not just a legacy-based body looking backwards, but, more importantly, is tackling anti-Semitism now.

The UK has, from the beginning of the alliance, played a leading role in Holocaust education, remembrance and research. Our chairmanship, 15 years on from the initial political impetus that launched the body, and 70 years on from the end of the fighting, brings us back to the centre. We plan to use this year to build the necessary government support to reaffirm the original declaration from the Stockholm International Forum on the Holocaust including to,

“remember the victims who perished, respect the survivors still with us, and reaffirm humanity’s common aspiration for mutual understanding and justice”.

I hope that reassures my noble friends Lord Bourne and Lord Finkelstein in this regard.

I assure the noble Lords, Lord Wills and Lord McKenzie, that we are not complacent about what has happened since the Holocaust in Rwanda, Cambodia, Srebrenica and Darfur. During the Balkans conflict, I visited Bosnia and Croatia. The situation was heart-wrenching. We work actively with international partners to ensure genocide prevention, including the concept of responsibility to protect, but there is always more we can do. That is why we are planning a reaffirmation of the Stockholm declaration, as I have already said. The IHRA will also need to address the future more directly and the “solemn responsibility” accepted at Stockholm to fight the evils of genocide, ethnic cleansing, anti-Semitism and xenophobia.

The noble Baroness, Lady Deech, the noble Lords, Lord Wills and Lord Bourne, and other noble Lords rightly drew attention to the issue of restitution. This is key to the concerns of the UK and the mandate of Sir Andrew Burns. The issue of restitution of property wrongfully seized by the Nazis between 1933 and 1945 is on the agenda. What has been described as the last injustice of the Holocaust has been played out recently in front of our media with the discovery of artworks stolen from victims of the Nazis and hoarded away or even displayed in museums. Sir Andrew continues to respond directly to the families of UK victims of the wrongdoing by actively lobbying other Governments to address Holocaust-era restitution issues. He and my ministerial colleagues have raised the issue of restitution of property with Ministers and officials from Poland, Germany, Austria, the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Hungary, Estonia and Lithuania. We are also having discussions with the US and Israel, interested non-governmental organisations and relevant international organisations such as the European Shoah Legacy Institute in Prague.

I reassure all noble Lords that we will continue to raise our concerns about the lack of implementation of international declarations on restitution. Moreover, we will go on highlighting UK initiatives on restitution, including the Spoliation Advisory Panel, established in 2000 to advise claimants and institutions in the UK on claims for the return of works of art lost during the Nazi era, and will continue to push this through bodies such as the European Shoah Legacy Institute.

The record of other countries in addressing the issue of restitution of property, whether communal or private, is not all negative. For instance, there was the extraordinarily successful Austrian operation to compensate Holocaust survivors. We must also recognise that issues of legislation are matters for sovereign parliaments and that international agreements in this area of restitution are ultimately non-binding. We believe that there is more that countries can do to right this wrong. We will continue to put pressure on them and to play our part, bilaterally or collectively, through the offices and channels of the European Union.

I feel honoured and humbled to be responding to a debate of this magnitude and importance, not least by the presence of Holocaust survivors with us here this afternoon. I came across a prayer for Yom HaShoah which was found on a piece of paper in one of the concentration camps. It reads:

“Lord, remember not only the men of good will but also those of ill will. But do not remember all the suffering they have inflicted upon us. Remember, rather, the fruits we have borne thanks to the suffering: our comradeship, our loyalty, our humility, the courage, the generosity, the greatness of heart that have grown out of this. And when they come to judgment, let all the fruits we have borne be their forgiveness”.

The Prime Minister, on visiting Yad Vashem in Jerusalem in 2006, wrote:

“We owe it to those who died—and those who survived—to build a world in which this can never happen again”.

The pledge of our Prime Minister is the pledge of our Government. That is why Britain will remember. That is why Britain will never stand by. That is why I say to everyone present, both domestically and internationally, the past will never die, and its valuable lessons will not be forgotten as we build our future and our tomorrow for the benefit not just of ourselves but of generations to come.