Holocaust Memorial Day

Lord Harrington of Watford Excerpts

Thursday 23rd January 2014 Commons Chamber

[Richard Harrington (Watford) (Con)]

I should disclose that I am trustee and director of the Holocaust Educational Trust. I thank all the contributors to today’s debate for the compliments and thanks they have given to the trust. On behalf of the trust, I thank this Government and their predecessors for the support that they have given to the trust, particularly for the programme that takes children to Auschwitz. That has affected many Members’ constituents and it is good that this is a matter with cross-party support.

It would not be right for me to pick out everybody who has spoken today, on both sides of the House. Every contribution has been outstanding. The hon. Member for Dudley North (Ian Austin) made a point that was particularly interesting and relevant to me when he spoke about how this country stood up against Nazism. My late father, who was brought up in London in the 1930s, remembered very well that on Sunday mornings the blackshirts marched in their hundreds up and down the streets of this country shouting, “The Yids, the Yids, we’ve got to get rid of the Yids.” That is hard for us to believe in our society, despite the mention today of the Community Security Trust and some unforgiveable anti-Semitic incidents. When I compare that with people watching hundreds of people marching in jackboots in our own country shouting such things about Jewish people, I believe that we have progressed tremendously.

My father, on being conscripted into the Army in this country as a normal 18-year-old boy, was beaten up by the non-Jewish members of his platoon, who said, “You Jews are to blame for this war.” That was a feeling then and the little remnants of that feeling come out in what those people from Hungary say and what people—very few people, but some—say elsewhere, albeit quietly now because of the protection of the law. That feeling is still there.

I feel that today, as the Member of Parliament for Watford, I should particularly talk about holocaust education in one school that is, I believe, a model for schools around the country. It is Watford grammar school for girls, under the inspired leadership of Dame Helen Hyde, the daughter of holocaust survivors. It is a very successful school. It is called a grammar school, but it is actually a state comprehensive school with some selection. In many ways, it is ordinary—it could be any school.

The girls begin their holocaust education in year 9, when they are taught about stereotyping, prejudice and discrimination and where they can lead. They are asked to look at their own prejudices again because, as hon. Members have said, it is in the nature of human beings to have some prejudices. They talk about Anne Frank and her experiences in detail, even at a very young age.

In years 10 and 11, the girls do a detailed study of what took place under the Nazis, the outcome for Jewish people and others. They consider the moral and ethical issues that affect people in general. Further on in the school, they can do GCSEs and A-levels in relevant subjects.

Dame Helen runs the largest student holocaust conference every November, attended by 400 students and members of the public. I have had the privilege of opening the conference and up to 16 survivors have spoken. This school in this small part of Hertfordshire is a model. The girls do very well academically, so it does not in any way prejudice their education. Holocaust education is used as a way of teaching them about so much in life that is relevant to people.

Through my involvement with holocaust education and with the HET, I have spoken to girls and boys in a school two or three miles away from here, in east London, where one of the survivors sent by the HET to speak to them gave, as one can imagine, a very moving story of their experiences in the holocaust. A young lady—a Muslim—told me that the speaker, a 90-year-old lady, was the only Jewish person she had ever met in her life. In certain hon. Members’ constituencies two miles to the north and east of here, that probably would not be the experience. It shows the prejudice that can build up about Jewish people because people do not meet anyone of Jewish faith.

If the theme of my short speech is one thing, it is that holocaust education is not just about the most important thing—teaching about the holocaust—but about the lessons that the holocaust can have for everybody’s life in getting rid of the prejudice that is seen in all our lives. To some people—we heard football used as an example—these things might be harmless fun, but they fuel prejudice and ignorance.

I am pleased to be part of this debate that takes place in this House every year. I hope it will focus some people’s minds on the holocaust and remembering the 6 million-plus people who died tragically. If their deaths meant anything—if there is one thing they could have hoped for—it is that they helped to eradicate this form of prejudice for generations to come.