Holocaust Memorial Day 2012

Mike Hancock Excerpts

Thursday 19th January 2012 Westminster Hall

[Mr Mike Hancock (in the Chair)]

We come to the debate to mark Holocaust memorial day. I am delighted—I am sure that the whole House is—that so many Members have decided to take part. The first Member to be called is Gavin Barwell.

[Gavin Barwell (Croydon Central) (Con)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Hancock. On 27 January—the 67th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz-Birkenau—the UK will, for the 12th time, celebrate Holocaust memorial day. I am very grateful to the Backbench Business Committee for granting this debate, which has become something of an annual tradition in Parliament in recent years. I am also grateful to all Members who have attended today.

With your indulgence, Mr Hancock, I shall start with an explanation. When I originally requested this debate, I was a lowly Back Bencher. Subsequently, I was appointed Parliamentary Private Secretary to the Minister of State, Department for Communities and Local Government, my right hon. Friend the Member for Tunbridge Wells (Greg Clark). I checked with the Backbench Business Committee whether that was a problem, and it said no. However, the Government have chosen a Minister from my Department to respond to the debate, so there is a technical issue. I am grateful to the hon. Member for Birmingham, Erdington (Jack Dromey) and to my Secretary of State, who have both agreed that, because the subject is wholly apolitical, there is no issue with me initiating the debate. I wanted to put that on the record from the start.

As all hon. Members will know, the holocaust was the systematic state-sponsored murder on an industrial scale of approximately 6 million of Europe’s pre-war Jewish population of 9 million by the Nazi regime and its collaborators. One million of those murdered were children. Of course, there were many other victims of the Nazi regime. In addition to those killed on the battlefield or by the bombing of civilian areas, millions of prisoners of war and civilians were brought to Germany to act as slave labour, and Romani were also killed.

There has been a great deal of historical debate about whether the holocaust is unique. Genocides have occurred before and, regrettably, they have occurred since. However, it seems that the holocaust is unique in the sense that it involved a modern industrial state turning all the energies of its bureaucracy towards the extermination of a single group of people, and it is entirely right that we commemorate that and learn the appropriate lessons.

In opening the debate, my job is briefly to set out the facts of what happened. Nazi ideology was based on a pseudoscientific racism that saw Jews as a race that was in mortal combat with the Aryan race for world domination. However long their families had lived in Germany, as far as the Nazis were concerned, Jews were aliens who could never be part of the community. The persecution of Jewish people began as soon as Hitler came to power on 30 January 1933. That year, a series of laws were passed that excluded Jews from key areas of public life, the civil service, medicine and agriculture. In 1935, the Nuremberg laws were passed, making it illegal for a Jew to marry or have sex with an Aryan, and stripping Jews of German citizenship. Violence against Jewish people and against Jewish property escalated, with Kristallnacht on 9 and 10 November 1938 being the most infamous example.

At that point, the Nazis’ plan was to deport forcibly all Jews from Germany and to try to convince the Governments of the United Kingdom and France to accept deported Jews to their colonies. However, it was the outbreak of the second world war that led to the holocaust, both because it put a much larger proportion of Europe’s Jewish population at the Nazis’ mercy and because it gave cover to the ultimate fulfilment of their racist ideology.

Western Poland—annexed-occupied by Germany in September 1939—contained about 2 million Jewish people before the war. Initially, they were forcibly relocated to ghettos. Conditions were appalling: for example, 30% of Warsaw’s population was forced to live in just 2.4% of the city. The ghettos were deliberately located in cities that were also railway junctions, so that, in Heydrich’s chilling words, “future measures can be accomplished more easily”.

The invasion of Russia in 1941 escalated the atrocities even further. The invading army was followed by four SS Einsatzgruppen, which were essentially extermination squads. At his trial at Nuremberg, the commander of Einsatzgruppe D, Otto Ohlendorf, described their work:

“The Einsatz unit would enter a village or town and order the prominent Jewish citizens to call together all Jews for the purpose of ‘resettlement.’ They were requested to hand over their valuables and shortly before execution to surrender their outer clothing. They were transported to the place of execution…immediately. In this way it was attempted to keep the span of time from the moment in which the victims knew what was about to happen…until the time of their actual execution as short as possible. Then they were shot, kneeling or standing, by firing squads in a military manner and the corpses thrown into the ditch. I never permitted the shooting by individuals, but ordered that several of the men should shoot at the same time to avoid direct personal responsibility.”

It is estimated that more than 700,000 Jewish people were killed in that way.

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[Susan Elan Jones (Clwyd South) (Lab)]

The hon. Gentleman is making a very powerful and moving case. I was intrigued to see in a television documentary some of the propaganda material from the Hitler era. What shocked me was that it did not spew out hate; the propaganda was all about archetypal families—almost a sketch of happy families. It was quite cleverly done, almost saying, “This is what we are part of and therefore this other group must be part of the other.” I find that very chilling and dangerous—that is how the roots of prejudice can grow. We are in danger of that in this country—although obviously not to the same degree—when there is an insidious type of anti-Semitism, Islamophobia or whatever, and a sense that a particular group is different.

[Mr Mike Hancock (in the Chair)]

Order. A lot of people want to speak and if hon. Members make interventions, could they please make them short or wait until they have a chance to speak? Otherwise, it is very unfair to other hon. Members who have indicated that they want to speak. To make an intervention and just leave, for example, is not fair to those hon. Members who might not get the opportunity to speak, so can Members please bear that in mind? I will try to be as fair as possible to everyone, but if you make interventions please ensure they are short.

[Gavin Barwell]

The hon. Lady’s points speak for themselves. Taking on board what you said, Mr Hancock, I shall conclude.

It is important that we commemorate the holocaust, in memory of those who lost their lives and in order to learn the appropriate lessons for the future. If hon. Members wish personally to mark their commitment, they can sign a book of commitment on the Members’ staircase from Monday to Thursday next week between 2.30 pm and 4.30 pm. An event is being held on 23 January at 6.30 pm in the Atlee Suite.

I thank you, Mr Hancock. I also thank the Backbench Business Committee for granting this important debate, and all hon. Members present for attending to show their support for this important cause.

[Several hon. Members]

rose—

[Mr Mike Hancock (in the Chair)]

I thank the hon. Gentleman on behalf of the House for the way he presented his comments. A lot of hon. Members want to speak, so please bear with the Chair.

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On resuming—

[Mr Mike Hancock (in the Chair)]

Order. There will be 11 minutes’ injury time at the end of the debate to give hon. Members who desperately want to speak that opportunity.

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[Mike Gapes (Ilford South) (Lab/Co-op)]

I once introduced a ten-minute rule Bill whose Second Reading was 15 years ago last week. It was the Holocaust Denial Bill, and it ended up going to Committee, but it ran out of time just before the 1997 general election. In the subsequent Parliament, my friend Andrew Dismore, the former Member for Hendon, introduced a Bill to mark Holocaust memorial day. I pay tribute to the fact that he was successful where I was not. Perhaps it is a little easier to have a memorial day than to legislate against holocaust denial.

The reason why I introduced that Bill 15 years ago was that Germany, France, Austria and other countries that were occupied by the Nazis have strong laws—although it is a civil offence in France—against denying the holocaust, wearing Nazi uniforms, portraying Nazi regalia or flags or singing Nazi drinking songs at universities, kinds of behaviour that seem to be acceptable to at least a minority of British people.

We should not think that this debate is simply about what happens in other countries or what happened in the past, whether the crimes of the Nazis against Jews, Roma, communists, socialists, trade unionists, homosexuals and anyone else who was different; the crimes carried out, as the hon. Member for Beckenham (Bob Stewart) eloquently described, in the civil war in the former Yugoslavia; what happened in Rwanda or Cambodia; or what might happen elsewhere in Africa, as difficult internal conflicts are occurring in several African countries. We must also think about the ideology behind such events and how that ideology is expressed in the age of the internet and perpetrated and communicated globally.

We as a society must revisit the issue. We have strict laws against incitement to racial hatred, and we changed our legislation during the last Parliament to make it, as well as incitement to religious hatred, an offence. It is therefore important that we recognise that this debate has a domestic context. I add that we must learn from history, and should remember it. Anyone who, as I have, has walked the streets of Krakow—the place depicted in the film “Schindler’s List”—will have seen the factory and the streets, visited the small synagogue, which is no longer in use as such but is now a museum with photographs of Jewish families, some of whom escaped to the United States of America, and thought, “Where were those people taken?” We know where they were taken; it has been mentioned. They were exterminated, or, if they were lucky, they managed to escape.

Similarly, I went to Vilnius, now the capital of the independent state of Lithuania, in 1978. I led a cross-party British Youth Council delegation that included representatives of the Scouts, the National Association of Youth Clubs, Labour students and young Conservatives. There were six of us. We went by train from Moscow to Vilnius, through the night, and stayed in Vilnius for two days. During that entire time, not one person in the Soviet Lithuanian Communist organisation that greeted us and took us round referred to the fact that it was Vilna, the heart of the Jewish community in central eastern Europe during the first 35, 40 or 50 years of the last century. That is interesting. Under the Soviet Union, they wanted to talk about the Nazis and what the Nazis did, but they did not want to talk about what happened to the millions of Jewish people who lived in that area and were exterminated.

[Mr Mike Hancock (Portsmouth South) (LD)]

Part of the reason is that many of them served in the Waffen SS. That was the problem in places such as Lithuania and Latvia. Their memories are short. Sadly, when I went to both places, I saw commemorative marches by members of the Waffen SS, who were greeted with cheers in the streets. That was not 20 years ago; it was 10 years ago.

[Mike Gapes]

I agree. That is why, as I said in an earlier intervention, we must continue to search for those, whoever and wherever they are and whatever names or aliases they are using, who played a role in those terrible crimes. We must also confront directly those who deny and minimise the holocaust.

I am delighted that the holocaust denier and Nazi apologist David Irving was imprisoned in Austria for his crimes. He launched a legal challenge against the historian Deborah Lipstadt and lost. I am delighted that he lost, and I congratulate her on her victory. It was an important victory for truth and for the memory of those who died.

It is also important to remember in other ways those who died. The great film maker Steven Spielberg has produced an incredible archive of the Shoah that includes the personal testimonies of survivors, taken before they were no longer with us. I have had the pleasure—“pleasure” is probably not the right word; it was a privilege and a great honour—of listening to a survivor speak in a school in my constituency. At least future generations will have those testimonies on film, and we can have that dialogue and relationship with our young people. It is crucial, as hon. Members have mentioned, that all young people in this country take part and learn about these events.

I have a mixed constituency, and I am pleased that in Valentines park in Ilford next Friday we will have our annual Holocaust memorial day service in the holocaust memorial garden, which was established by Redbridge council several years ago. Young people from local schools will be there. There will be Sikhs. There will be Muslims. There will be Hindus. There will be Buddhists. There will be Christians. There will be Jews. There will be people from minority communities, including Roma children, who have taken part in the service in the past. That reflects the diversity of modern Britain, and it is an important part of learning about the past, so that the errors of the past are not repeated in the future.

I am pleased that the hon. Member for Croydon Central (Gavin Barwell) secured this debate today, and I congratulate him and the Holocaust Educational Trust on what they have done and will continue to do in future.

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[Mr Mike Hancock (Portsmouth South) (LD)]

It has been a privilege today not only to chair this sitting of Westminster Hall, but to have a chance to take part in the debate. I have listened carefully to what hon. Members have said, and anyone who was in the room when the hon. Member for Dudley North (Ian Austin) spoke could not fail to have been moved by his personal explanation of what his adopted father had been through and the way that it had harnessed his life and his philosophy. Today is a good example of when Parliament comes together—all parties, both sides and many different backgrounds.

I was privileged enough to go to Auschwitz 20 years ago when I was the leader of Hampshire county council. I went to the region of Krakow as the guest of the wojewoda—the governor. When we went to Auschwitz, there were just five of us; otherwise, the place was completely deserted. I will never forget the experience of standing inside the remaining gas chamber at Auschwitz and trying to come to terms with what people went through as the door to the gas chamber closed. I then went to the other part of the camp—the old camp—and stood where the firing squad had operated. There was a wall, where literally thousands of people had been executed by gunfire.

Those sorts of things stay in the memory, but for me the most moving thing was to see the pigtail that had been scalped from a child and left on the pile of hair. It was still plaited but was now as grey as my hair. We cannot imagine what that child went through in having her hair cut off and thrown on a pile and then going to her death. Of all the memories that come from visiting a place such as Auschwitz, for me that was the most telling moment.

The other place that I went to, some years later, was Dachau. Dachau is a different camp to Auschwitz. Nevertheless, it is extremely moving to walk around it. The thing that struck me, first of all, was how close people lived to that camp. Dachau is close to the outskirts of Munich, which was the cornerstone of Nazi philosophy; Nazism was born and bred in that city. As I say, the Dachau camp was built very close to the outskirts of Munich and there were houses right up against the camp. Those houses were not built after the war; they were undoubtedly built in the style of pre-war German construction. One wonders what people who lived around the camp must have thought about what was being done inside, in their name.

A few years ago, I visited Babi Yar in Ukraine, which is just outside Kiev, where 100,000 people were shot in three weeks. I stood on the edge of that pit—and remember that it was not Germans who were shooting those people but Ukrainians who were shooting Ukrainian Jews on behalf of the Germans.

We must remember, and we must continue the struggle of trying to get people not to forget, because if we forget, the stories and tales of Bosnia and elsewhere will unfortunately again become a reality. Bosnia was 20 years ago. It already starts to fade—does it not?—in the memory of people, and we have to keep it alive. We must ensure that people remember the enormous price that other human beings have paid because somebody had it in their head that they were not fit to live; we must remember the evilness and the wickedness of that. Such evil should never go unpunished and it should never go unremembered.

The lesson that we have to learn is clear, is it not? It is that those of us who believe that good should prevail over evil must continue to educate people. The hon. Member for Romsey and Southampton North (Caroline Nokes) was right that this issue is about education and, as she said, about people being prepared to walk the streets of Southampton together—from church to synagogue to mosque to Sikh temple—to show that there is a common bond of goodness that prevails over evil.

I met a young man from Hampshire who was 19 when he joined the Army, and he was present at the liberation of the Belsen concentration camp. He was a constituent of mine, and when I first met him he told me how horrendous that experience was for him. He had fought through the war and had never seen anyone who had been killed, until he walked through the gates of Belsen. That experience ruined his whole life; he never recovered from it. His wife told me that hardly a day went by when he did not have some memory of the nightmare of walking through Belsen concentration camp.

That young man’s story taught me a lot about the way that other people can act with such violence and such evilness, and with such scant excuse as believing that they were better than everyone else. If this Parliament stands for anything, it stands for equality—the belief that all of us have the right to live in any way we like, following any religion we like—and I hope that that is long the case.

I have never had the privilege of going to Auschwitz with the Holocaust Educational Trust—I am delighted that so many of my colleagues have—but I felt that I had to visit it and the memory of that visit has stayed with me ever since. I am delighted to be part of this debate today.