Holocaust Memorial Day

Matthew Offord Excerpts

Thursday 25th January 2024 Commons Chamber

[Dr Matthew Offord (Hendon) (Con)]

It is 22 years since I attended my first Holocaust Memorial Day event in Hendon. I would have thought that after all these years there was nothing left to say, but today’s contributions show that there is ever more to say, which in many ways is a great disappointment.

The first event was held in a marquee in Hendon park. I welcomed the idea of Holocaust Memorial Day, but I did question the sustainability of such an event and whether it would continue in the longer term. In 2002, antisemitism was not the issue that it is today, and certainly not as it was leading up to and including the holocaust perpetrated by the Nazis. The first event was well attended by many people. Many were Jewish, which is not surprising, because many of my constituents are of the Jewish faith. Holocaust survivors also attended, such as my good friend Renee Salt, and I was as pleased to see her then as I am each year.

As my right hon. Friend the Member for Chipping Barnet (Theresa Villiers) said, over the years I have welcomed attending the event—I never say that I am pleased to attend, because that is not appropriate. I value attending it. Over the years, Barnet Council has acknowledged more than the shoah—the name that Jewish people use to describe the holocaust perpetrated by the Nazis. Past speakers have included not just survivors of the Nazis and their relatives—some of them even elected councillors in Barnet—but people who survived the Bosnian massacres, the Rwandan genocide and the purge in Cambodia.

For many years, I have been interested in the holocaust. I was interested in how it happened, how it came about, why no one spoke out against it, why ordinary decent middle class Germans either did not know about it or refused to accept that it happened, and what consequences remain today. I remember reading Art Spiegelman’s “Maus” books when I was a teenager. He brought the horrors of the holocaust to me, from the third generation since the war, in the late 1980s. It should be remembered, as the right hon. Member for Orkney and Shetland (Mr Carmichael) reminded us, that it was just 40 years since the end of the second world war at that time. For people who had experienced the 1939-1945 war, such perceptions of events would be the same as the ones I have of the Falklands conflict in 1982.

Spiegelman’s book ends with his father’s emigration to America, so it has been left to other authors, such as Leon Uris in his book “Exodus”, to describe what really happened to most displaced Jewish people after the war. It has been acknowledged and is not disputed that the UK refused to take refugees from Jewish communities after the second world war. Many other countries in Europe also refused. Some populations took part in the murder of Jews alongside the Nazis. Others had simply misappropriated Jewish lands and property, and were not giving it back. Jewish people had nowhere to go and it was vital that a homeland was provided for the survivors. Israel is the historic homeland of the Jewish people and it was the right course of action to re-establish the country on 14 May 1948. Almost half of all Jewish survivors of the holocaust, 49%, today live in Israel. About 18% live in north America and about 18% in western Europe. Approximately 1,200 survivors live in Britain, many of them in the Hendon constituency.

As Lord Blencathra told the Holocaust Memorial Bill Committee this week, the way different generations discover our history has changed. Many now read information from the internet. We all know that not everything that appears online is entirely accurate. But this has an impact on what people learn and their perceptions of past and current conflicts. For many people around the country, the holocaust is something they know happened but it does not impact them. But that is not the experience of many people in my constituency.

Yesterday, I spoke to a neighbour of mine, who told me about her daughter’s university experience at University College London. As she said, they are a liberal Jewish family who have a Jewish faith but are not orthodox. You would not know by looking at them that they are Jewish. Unless my constituent’s daughter told you she was Jewish, it would not be apparent. But what her daughter has heard in lectures and in the university itself are things she refuses to leave unchallenged. I have known her for many years and she is not a belligerent person, but students have told her that there are no Arabs in Israel, all Jews are wealthy and Jews control the world—all the usual tropes that we are now hearing more and more. She has pushed back but has been shunned by the other pupils, who refuse to sit next to her in lectures. Another student complained that there is an antisemitism tsar at UCL. My constituent’s daughter said that it was not a competition or even a privilege to have such a tsar, but that explanation was rejected and a demand was subsequently made for an anti-Islamophobia tsar, for no other reason than there is an antisemitism tsar. Young people in my constituency are now fearful of attending university and it is obvious why. Jewish students are held responsible for the actions of the Israeli Government, and the same is now steadily creeping into our schools.

There is a clear link between these attitudes and the terrorist attacks in Israel on 7 October. Those attacks were no different from what the Nazis were doing. Their intention was to kill as many Jews as possible and it remains a real concern to many of my constituents. Just like the holocaust deniers, there are deniers of what happened in Israel on 7 October. I will struggle a bit at this point, Mr Deputy Speaker. I cannot turn around and look at my hon. Friend the Member for Brigg and Goole (Andrew Percy). We did visit Israel a few weeks after the attacks and we did see things that I certainly never expected to see. And I did warn my right hon. Friend the Member for Chipping Barnet not to watch the 47-minute video. We saw not only that video, but another video.

When we were at the Shura base, the colonel, I believe it was, in charge opened the mortuary. Just like my right hon. Friend the Member for Beckenham (Bob Stewart), what I remember is the smell. It was the smell not only of blood and death, which I have smelt before, but formaldehyde, some kind of chemical used to preserve the bodies. Many of the bodies, approximately 200, were left there because they could not be identified. The reason they could not be identified is that some were headless, some were just a head, some were limbs and some were bodies fused together by fire. What really upset me and my hon. Friend the Member for Brigg and Goole was when the colonel whipped his phone from his pocket and showed us a video. I will not even mention what was on it. I do not talk to my staff or my family about what was there, but it was something that is not in the 47-minute video and it is not something that can be forgotten.

The events of 7 October are also quite personal due to the fact that Nathanel Young was one of the first to be killed. He was a student in my area at Beit Shvidler School. I recently visited the school and was upset when I saw his photo on the wall. The photo showed him with me and Lord Cameron at the 2013 Chanukah event at No. 10—he was part of the choir. I remember him distinctly because of his exuberance and vitality.

In the weeks since 7 October, I have received several emails from constituents. This has been touched on by hon. Members today and it is important to outline some of what people have said to me. One email said:

“I am writing to you today as a concerned member of your constituency and, more importantly, as a British Jew who is increasingly fearful for the safety of my family, friends, and community. Recent events have compelled me to express my deep concerns about the rise of antisemitic incidents and the apparent inadequacy of the response from law enforcement. Following the advice from the police on October 7th, instructing our sons to conceal their Jewish symbols while traveling to school, my family and I were already grappling with a heightened sense of vulnerability. As a community, we have observed instances where the police seemed to turn a blind eye to chants and unpleasant behaviour during weekly marches, fostering an environment where antisemitic sentiments are allowed to flourish unchecked. Recent events have left me questioning the assurances we once held that if these protests were to turn violent, the police would intervene decisively.”

She goes on to mention the alleged assault on a group of Israelis in Leicester Square on 20 January. She concludes by saying that she feels that she cannot allow her son

“to use any Hebrew or Jewish-sounding words when traveling, out of fear that he may become a target for senseless violence. It is deeply disheartening to realize that, in London 2024, Jewish people feel compelled to hide their identity and censor their innocent language for their own safety.”

Antisemitism is not restricted to my constituents. I have been subjected to two incidents in recent weeks, the second of which remains under consideration for prosecution, so I cannot say any more.

In conclusion, I will be attending Holocaust Memorial Day this year in Hendon. I will value it as much as ever. There will be a day when the Shoah will be an ancient historical tragedy, but unfortunately that will not be for many more years yet.