Holocaust Memorial Day

Nicola Richards Excerpts

Thursday 25th January 2024 Commons Chamber

[Nicola Richards (West Bromwich East) (Con)]

It is an honour to follow the hon. Member for Birmingham, Selly Oak (Steve McCabe), and I thank him for his commitment to the Jewish community in Birmingham and to Israel. It is deeply appreciated.

I have sometimes thought that I struggled to grasp the scale of the holocaust, because every time we hear someone’s testimony, we think we understand what the holocaust was, yet it is always only a tiny fraction of it. Every story in the holocaust is completely unique. Differing factors and testimonies include the country someone was born in, where they were made to move when tensions started to rise in Europe, where or how they managed to hide, how they were rounded up, and what happened to their friends and family. Then stories differ in how people watched their parents being murdered, how they cared for younger loved ones, how they got by, and how snap decisions they made saved their lives or those of others.

The holocaust was the murder of 6 million Jewish men, women and children, but it was so much more than that. The number 6 million is huge, but on its own it does not encompass the true scale of suffering. It is millions of people who did not get the opportunity to wake up in the morning in their homes and feel safe; millions of people who did not have the privilege of making normal, everyday decisions to get married, start a family, go to school, or have a career. It tore humanity apart, and stole the future from 6 million Jews and their future families.

The seventh of October was not on the same scale. It was not over the same long period of time, and it was not carried out by the same perpetrators. It was not even on the same continent. But 7 October was the biggest loss of Jewish life in a single day since the holocaust. On Tuesday I met a delegation of family members of hostages with the Leader of the House. A brave 23-year-old told us that she lost 60 friends on 7 October. Can anyone imagine losing 60 friends in one day? Sadly, many Jewish families know what that feels like.

I have really struggled with this, Mr Deputy Speaker. Accusations of genocide are thrown around too frequently, and I am the last person who would ever wish to draw comparisons with the holocaust. As Lord Pickles said earlier this week, there can be no comparison with the holocaust. We now have the Jewish state, and that was designed to ensure that history does not repeat itself. It was born out of the need to do just that. However, it is true that 7 October was the largest murder of Jewish people since the holocaust, and sadly the comparisons do not end there.

I visited Israel at the beginning of the year. I had the chance to visit the exhibition that survivors of the Nova festival have created. It was heartbreaking. On tables lay shoes, clothing and other items of ordinary festival goers who just went to dance. I could not help but see the table of shoes and be reminded of the pile of shoes in Auschwitz. Lying next to this table of clothes and shoes was make-up—the kind of make-up I use. In Auschwitz you see personal items that make you wonder what that person might have looked like or how they might have lived. When I saw brands such as L’Oréal, I did not have to think about that. I know exactly how they looked and how they might have lived. I know exactly what they were doing on that fateful day when their life ended. I know that they were not any different from me: young women in their 20s or 30s. They were doing what normal young people around the world should do—they were dancing.

I had hoped my visit would help me to understand how the attack happened, and perhaps the true motives. I think it is probably part of the natural human mind and reaction to try to make something so huge and terrifying make more sense. I heard stories about families murdered in a kibbutz. We visited Kfar Aza. We heard about a mayor who will never stand for re-election, because he bravely tried to defend his community, and about the young couple who were going to get engaged and how they texted their parents in the last moments of their lives before being slaughtered. I heard about a teacher set on fire in her house

I watched 47 minutes of this footage. Until then, some of the most disturbing images I had ever seen were of the holocaust and images of bodies strewn across Bergen-Belsen upon the liberation, but I had never known what a body looks like after being tortured, shot in the head, or burned until the only thing left is their teeth. I have seen footage of two young boys witnessing the brutal death of their father. I wondered how they survived. Why did the terrorists so calmly help themselves to a drink from their fridge while they screamed? Why were they not taken as hostages? Why were other children taken hostage? Why were other children and babies murdered without a chance?

The events on 7 October started with rockets, followed by a massacre at a music festival. They slaughtered people one by one, setting cars alight, raping women and girls and throwing grenades into bomb shelters. It did not end there. They went hunting for soldiers in military bases, raped more women, murdered more people and took more hostages. They went house to house, having already identified who lived where. Hamas enjoyed every second of it, even boasting in calls to parents that they had killed at least 10 Jews.

No two stories from 7 October are the same. I felt completely overwhelmed trying to grasp the scale of it, and the scale of the fear. If I am confused now, how must they have felt on that day and every day since? I never believed I would use today as an opportunity to talk about something other than the holocaust. I firmly believe that is what today is for; there are 364 other days in the year to talk about everything else, but I also know what holocaust survivors today are thinking, and I can only begin to imagine how they are feeling. They have dedicated their lives to telling their stories, much like the survivors of 7 October are now doing. They are furious that 7 October happened. It was never meant to happen again. Every year we stand here and say “Never again.”

We rightly label those who seek to distort or deny the holocaust ever happened as antisemites. They have the evidence, and plenty of it, but to them facts do not matter, because they believe they have a deeper understanding, borne of their hatred for Jews. Holocaust denial is antisemitic, so what about those thousands who do not believe that 7 October happened? They do not believe women were raped. They argue about how many babies’ heads were cut off, or if they were at all. Some, who have kindly written to me, tell me that 7 October, if it happened at all, was actually carried out by Israel. Recounting how I have witnessing 47 minutes of death and destruction makes no difference to their view.

One theory within holocaust denial is that the holocaust was carried out by European Jews. Some believe that Nazis and Zionists worked together in partnership and that, as a result of having scammed the world, the state of Israel was born. That theory features in a book called “The Other Side: The Secret Relationship Between Nazism and Zionism”, written by President Mahmoud Abbas in 1984. The same theory, but set in 2023, is now gaining traction on social media, particularly among young people. They believe that 7 October was carried out by Israel to legitimise military action against Hamas, or that Israel has been funding Hamas, or that Israel is exaggerating claims of the death and destruction at the hands of Hamas. What is this theory at its core? You tell me.

I will not even ask that we say “never again” one final time in this place before we make it a reality. Instead, people should understand what has happened to the Jewish people in October last year and since. We have the largest increase in antisemitic incidents on record, in response to the largest murder of Jewish people since the holocaust. The Chief Rabbi, Sir Ephraim Mirvis, last week made an important intervention. He said that claiming Israel is carrying out a genocide

“is a moral inversion, which undermines the memory of the worst crimes in human history.”

He said:

“It is a term deployed not only to eradicate any notion that Israel has a responsibility to protect its citizens, but also to tear open the still gaping wound of the Holocaust, knowing that it will inflict more pain than any other accusation”.

I will finish by quoting holocaust survivor Manfred Goldberg, who selflessly has spent so many years educating young people here in the UK with his testimony. He said:

“The majority of people in this country are not Jew haters, but they are often our silent supporters. And all that it takes for evil to flourish is for good men to stay silent.”

On this Holocaust Memorial Day—the day we remember the 6 million Jewish men, women and children murdered by Nazis—let us also think carefully about the current rise in antisemitism and what we, as individuals, are going to do about it. If 7 October was a fresh warning to the world about where antisemitism can lead, let us remember that it is against that backdrop that we are seeing record increases in antisemitism. None of us can afford to stay silent.