Holocaust Memorial Day

Marcus Jones Excerpts

Thursday 21st January 2016 Commons Chamber

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government (Mr Marcus Jones)]

I am grateful to hon. Members on both sides of the House for their wise, passionate and insightful contributions to the debate. I also thank my hon. Friend the Member for Stratford-on-Avon (Nadhim Zahawi) and the hon. Member for Ilford North (Wes Streeting) for securing this important debate.

Last year, the Prime Minister marked the 70th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz-Birkenau by pledging to build a new national holocaust memorial and learning centre. What was unique about the announcement was that it had cross-party support. That support has continued with the creation of the United Kingdom Holocaust Memorial Foundation, which is turning the recommendations made to the Prime Minister’s Holocaust Commission into reality.

Today is as much about remembering other genocides as it is about Jewish persecution. This year marks 21 years since the genocide in Srebrenica. It is important to remember the innocent lives lost in the holocaust, in the killing fields of Cambodia, in the churches of Rwanda, in the camps of Bosnia and in the arid desert of Darfur. This year’s Holocaust Memorial Day theme, “Don’t Stand By”, is all the more poignant if we think of all the hatred and prejudice in the world today, some of which has been mentioned in the debate.

Survivors of the holocaust and other genocides would not be here today if it were not for those who did not stand by: people such as Robert Townsend Smallbones, consul-general in Frankfurt, who worked night and day to issue Jewish families with visas as he knew that a visa meant the difference between life and death; or Captain Mbaye Diagne, a Senegalese military officer and a United Nations military observer during the 1994 Rwandan genocide who saved many lives during his time in Rwanda through nearly continuous rescue missions, at great peril to himself.

This year’s theme focuses on the contemporary relevance of the holocaust and subsequent genocides. We are asked to consider our individual responsibilities. We are asked not to be bystanders to hate crime and prejudice. In 2009, I joined a number of Conservative colleagues on a visit to Srebrenica, where more than 8,000 Bosnian Muslim men and boys were massacred during the 1990s. It truly brought home to me the scale of this merciless atrocity, which took place on our continent just a few years ago. While in Srebrenica, we undertook a number of projects, one of which was installing a computer suite at a local school. I mention that project because I think that schools are vital in the context of this debate as education has the power to bring communities together.

Holocaust education matters. It brings to life the names, the memories and the identities of those who suffered, but none of that would be possible without the dedication of survivors and their families, who visit schools and communities up and down the country urging us to take a stand against hatred and prejudice. A number of survivors were honoured in the new years’ honours list and I want to take this opportunity to mention them each in turn. Zigi Shipper works tirelessly in schools and universities up and down the country. He is so popular and inspiring that students set up a fan page on Facebook. Susan Pollack sees herself as part of a dedicated team ensuring that the lessons from the holocaust and more recent genocides are never forgotten. Ivor Perl gave evidence in the trial of Oskar Gröning, a former SS guard known as the “bookkeeper of Auschwitz”. Lily Ebert ensures that our young people are aware of the dangers of hatred and intolerance and is an inspiration to us all. Jack Kagan played an inspirational role on the Prime Minister’s Holocaust Commission in 2014. Renee Salt was recognised for her commitment to holocaust education and awareness. Rudi Oppenheimer visits schools up and down the country and spoke at a Holocaust Memorial Day event in my own Department a couple of years ago. Agnes Grunwald-Spier has served as trustee of the Holocaust Memorial Day Trust and earlier this week published her book entitled “Who Betrayed the Jews? The Realities of Nazi Persecution in the Holocaust.” Freddie Knoller, at 95, still talks to young people about the horrors of the holocaust and encourages them not to stand by. Finally, Chaim Ferster is a survivor of Auschwitz, who uses his experiences to educate others to ensure that we never forget.

I echo the tributes paid today to Karen Pollock, the chief executive officer of the Holocaust Educational Trust who, along with her team, is an inspiration to all of us. I pay tribute to the work of the Holocaust Memorial Day Trust and its CEO, Olivia Marks-Woldman, who with her team delivered the most successful Holocaust Memorial Day to date last year, with over 3,600 local events. I would like to mention some of the other holocaust remembrance, education and survivor organisations that enrich the work we do, such as the Holocaust Survivors Centre in Hendon, the Anne Frank Trust, which uses Anne’s diary to fight hatred and prejudice in schools, the Wiener Library, the Association of Jewish Refugees, and the National Holocaust Centre in Newark, Nottinghamshire.

It would be remiss of me not to mention the work of the Prime Minister’s new envoy for post-holocaust issues, my right hon. Friend the Member for Brentwood and Ongar (Sir Eric Pickles), who made an excellent contribution to the debate. I am glad to hear that he will be focusing on the restitution of property and art, the opening of archives and the role of bystanders as collaborators. My right hon. Friend replaced Sir Andrew Burns, and I hope this House will join me in thanking Sir Andrew, the UK’s first post-holocaust issues envoy, for his wisdom and guidance over the past five years.

I do not have time to mention all the contributions, but I shall reply to questions asked in the debate. First, my right hon. Friend the Member for Brentwood and Ongar referred to the terrible incident at King’s College this week. I concur with his comments. The actions of a few at King’s College were unacceptable and we expect the police and the university authorities to take the incident extremely seriously, fully investigate what happened and hold to account the perpetrators of that awful action. As my right hon. Friend will know, my Department hosts a cross-Government working group on anti-Semitism, which will be taking the issue very seriously in its future work. In response to the hon. Member for Ilford North, I can assure him that we will continue to do all we can to promote, support and fund the teaching of the holocaust.

It is clear from the contributions made today by hon. Members that we can never be complacent, especially when we continue to see the growth of anti-Semitism and anti- Muslim hatred in Europe and on our own shores. I can only echo what Simon Wiesenthal, a holocaust survivor turned Nazi-hunter after the war, said so eloquently:

“For evil to flourish, it only requires good men to do nothing.”