Holocaust Memorial Day

Lord Evans of Rainow Excerpts

Monday 26th January 2026 Lords Chamber

[Lord Evans of Rainow (Con)]

My Lords, it is a pleasure to follow the noble Lord. I wish to welcome the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Coventry. I did take the opportunity to visit Coventry cathedral—both the old, original one and the new one—and I believe she will make a fantastic contribution to your Lordships’ House. Also, I say to the noble Baroness, Lady Taylor of Stevenage, as many noble Lords already have, that that was an excellent introduction to this debate.

The noble Baroness, Lady Ludford, mentioned a couple of films, “Schindler’s List” and “Nuremberg”, and made a very valid point about their certification. “Nuremberg” is worth going to see, not least to see Britain’s Attorney-General, Sir Hartley Shawcross, skewering Goering at the dispatch box. I can recommend one film for your Lordships to see that really gives an indication of what actually happened in the Holocaust. It is called “The Grey Zone”, from 2001, and it tells the story of the 12th Sonderkommando uprising in Auschwitz in October 1944. It is certificated 18 because it is a little bit more graphic.

There is a large Jewish community in Manchester. As noble Lords can probably tell from my accent, my family comes from Manchester. I come from a council estate just south of Manchester. I remember that, growing up in the 1970s, we had a lot of veterans from the Second World War and the First World War. My mother remembered the Manchester blitz and hiding away in the garden in very dark Anderson shelters. She remembered the sound of German Daimler-Benz engines as they went over to bomb Manchester and the docks.

My mother also told me about the propaganda the Germans used to send out: “Germany calling, Germany calling, Lord Haw-Haw”. The Germans knew where the Jewish community in Manchester was. For those of your Lordships who do not know Manchester, just in the suburbs, in south Manchester, in a place called Didsbury, there is a large Jewish community and a synagogue—you could call it the south Manchester synagogue, as opposed to Heaton Park in north Manchester. William Joyce—Lord Haw-Haw—used to say exactly where the Jewish community was, because there was a tram terminus. He said, “We’ve got you marked out. We know where you are”.

As a coincidence, my mother worked for a company called Granada Television. This is where I pay tribute to the noble Baroness, Lady Ramsey of Wall Heath, and the story of her father, the Second World War and the liberation of Belsen. Sidney Bernstein was a Member of your Lordships’ House. He set up Granada Studios in Manchester, but his wartime service was documenting exactly what happened in Belsen. He became a fellow of the British Film Institute. I remember my mother telling me what a good man he was. I never met him, but I have read up on him.

The films Lord Bernstein produced were made specifically so that future generations could say that this happened and could not be denied. Noble Lords can look this up on YouTube, but I remember seeing a member of the Cheshire Regiment, a sergeant. He was being filmed and was asked, “Where are you, who are you and what is happening?” In the background, there was a mass pit. SS prisoners were putting the bodies into a pit, as he described, in an accent not dissimilar from mine, that he was Sergeant Smith from Cheshire, and that he was in Belsen concentration camp. What he witnessed there was unbelievable. Those were his words.

Last year, I had the privilege of meeting Mervyn Kersh, a Jewish soldier who fought in the British Army. Although he was not there on the exact day of the liberation of Belsen, he came in about a week later. He witnessed the clear-up. He saw how the medical services saved as many lives as possible. It was wonderful to meet Mervyn. In the same room was a Holocaust survivor who was liberated by the British Army in Belsen. She subsequently married a British soldier. She thought that the British Army was the best army in the world, and who can argue with that?

I remember speaking to Mervyn last year. His family had escaped from Germany into Holland and then to the safety of Britain. He had volunteered for the British Army and ended up going to liberate Europe. He said to me that his father knew, in the 1930s, what was coming with the Holocaust. He said to Mervyn, as a very young man, “If they land on the south coast of England, we need to head to Wales, we need to head to Anglesey, and we’ll get ourselves to America”. Standing there, in the third decade of the 21st century, and hearing that memory of a very young man reminds us of where we are; I am afraid to say, “Here we are again”.

I turn to the future. Noble Lords have mentioned the fantastic work that the Holocaust Educational Trust has done, with Karen Pollock and her colleagues reaching over 100,000 people each year, ensuring that the lessons of the Holocaust are never forgotten. Each year, tens of thousands of young people hear the powerful testimony of Holocaust survivors and their descendants. Survivors travel across the country to talk to many schools. Through the Lessons from Auschwitz project, tens of thousands of young people have stood on the site where around 1 million Jewish men, women and children were murdered. They return as Holocaust Educational Trust ambassadors, committed to sharing what they have witnessed.

More than a thousand teachers are trained each year in how best to teach this challenging and sensitive subject. Testimony360 is a digital project that is transforming how the Holocaust is taught and understood. Using AI-powered search technology, thousands of students have already come face to face with survivors, engaging in natural language conversations as if they were in the room together. Paired with virtual reality headsets, students can also explore key sites connected to each survivor’s testimony, all without leaving the classroom.

Remembrance is no longer enough, though. Action must be taken to counter antisemitism here today. This year, we mark Holocaust Memorial Day with increasingly heavy hearts, just months after the deadly attack at Heaton Park synagogue and weeks after the barbaric attack on Bondi Beach. Since 7 October 2023, antisemitic hatred has intensified, rhetoric has spilled into violence, and what was once whispered is now said openly and proudly. We have seen it in protests outside a Jewish-owned restaurant, a Jewish Member of Parliament being barred from visiting a local school, and visitors to a London synagogue being forced to walk through a gauntlet of hate. It is no longer enough to remember the past or to say that antisemitism is not acceptable. Action must be taken to tackle antisemitism and to foster social cohesion.

Holocaust education faces significant challenges, but the Holocaust Educational Trust is reaching more young people now than ever before. Today, young people arrive in classrooms with views shaped by social media trends rather than by evidence. Some teachers are anxious about how their communities will respond when a Holocaust survivor shares their testimony, fearing a backlash from parents. Survivors themselves are being asked to navigate questions about contemporary conflict just because they are Jewish.

In response, the Holocaust Educational Trust is expanding its work in classrooms across the country and is now working with hundreds more schools than in 2023, before the barbaric terrorist attack on Israel by Hamas. Its reach will continue to grow and new programmes are being rolled out. The Holocaust Educational Trust knows that the Holocaust cannot and must not be taught in isolation. The antisemitism that culminated in the Holocaust was not invented by the Nazis; it was rooted in 2,000 years of anti-Jewish hatred. Likewise, we know that antisemitism did not end in 1945; it has continued to evolve and to adapt right up to the present day. It is up to us all to make a stand against antisemitism.