Holocaust Memorial Day

Lord Sahota Excerpts

Thursday 13th February 2025 Lords Chamber

[Lord Sahota (Lab)]

My Lords, I have been in your Lordships’ House for just over two years and this is the first time I have taken part in a Holocaust Memorial Day debate. It is a humbling experience to listen to all the moving speeches.

As we all know, the word “Holocaust” is most commonly associated with the Nazi genocide of Jews in Europe during the Second World War. It is one of the darkest and most horrific episodes in human history and highlights man’s inhumanity to man. Six million Jews were murdered—not 1 million or 2 million but 6 million. How could it happen? When I watch the grainy black and white footage of the concentration camps, it feels as though it happened yesterday—not in some distant medieval time, not 100 years ago, but yesterday and as if I could almost touch it. How could anyone conceive of the idea that they could eradicate an entire race of millions of people from the face of this earth and not be held accountable by future generations?

Where were the voices of reason, of right-minded men and women in Germany at that time? How could a nation that gave the world great literature, philosophy and classical music descend into such barbarity? It is said that when the news of what was happening in these concentration camps first reached London and Washington, the political establishment refused to believe it, thinking that it was simply not possible. Yet, due to some complex geopolitics, Germany was taken in by this evil, grotesque ideology, led by unscrupulous men, resulting in this mass murder on an industrial scale.

Learning about such horror should remind us all of the dangers of nationalism, xenophobia and the rhetoric of hate. Regardless of our political differences, it is our responsibility to oppose politicians and leaders who prey on people’s fears and promote hate. It is up to us to defend democracy, freedom, life and liberty. Over the centuries, mankind has committed countless horrendous mass murders, massacres and atrocities. Some have faced justice, others have not. The German playwright and anti-Nazi activist Bertolt Brecht wrote:

“When crimes begin to pile up, they become invisible. When sufferings become unendurable, the cries are no longer heard”.


In 1948, the United Nations established the genocide convention, which remains the main international legal instrument for preventing genocides. Yet, tragically, this has not prevented further atrocities being committed. In July 1995, right in the heart of Europe, 8,000 men and boys were murdered in cold blood by Bosnian Serbs in what is known as the Srebrenica massacre. In July 1994, in Rwanda, over a million people were slaughtered. Back in 1995, the Turkish army systematically murdered well over a million Armenians—an event widely regarded as genocide.

In 1968, American troops slaughtered hundreds of unarmed civilians in a village in Vietnam and gang-raped women and girls in what became known as the My Lai massacre. The only man convicted of this crime, William Calley, was later pardoned by President Nixon, and that speaks volumes about our present-day justice system.

In November 1984, after the assassination of the Prime Minister of India, Indira Gandhi, we witnessed the planned massacre of many thousands of innocent Sikh men, women and children in Delhi. Forty years have passed yet justice remains elusive.

In India, at Jallianwala Bagh in Amritsar on 13 April 1919, during the British Raj, General Reginald Dyer ordered his troops to open fire on an unarmed crowd of over 20,000 people, killing hundreds. The British historian Nigel Collett, in his biography of General Dyer, titled The Butcher of Amritsar, claimed that over 800 men, women and children were mown down in just 10 minutes, with hundreds more dying from their wounds.

I could go on with many more examples, as history is full of such atrocities and massacres. Above all, though, the Holocaust is the worst of them all. It happened.