Holocaust Memorial Day

Stephen Twigg Excerpts

Thursday 18th January 2018 Commons Chamber

[Stephen Twigg (Liverpool, West Derby) (Lab/Co-op)]

I join others in congratulating the hon. Member for Brigg and Goole (Andrew Percy) on securing this important debate. As he reminded us, the theme for Holocaust Memorial Day this year is the power of words. Like him, I will speak about what I think are the most powerful words in this context: the testimony of the survivors of the holocaust.

Like others, I have experienced hearing survivors speaking, in particular to children at schools they have come to speak at in my constituency in Liverpool and to those who have gone on the visit to Auschwitz arranged through the Holocaust Educational Trust, and also in the work I did between 2005 and 2010 at the National Holocaust Centre and Museum in Laxton, Nottinghamshire. Nothing can compare to the impact that the words of survivors have in shaping the mind and educating children about the horrors of what happened during the holocaust.

Holocaust Memorial Day has a vital twin importance: remembering the Nazi holocaust—so appallingly denied by some—but also dedicating ourselves to challenging modern-day anti-Semitism, racism, genocide and other mass atrocities. Rudi Oppenheimer was 11 years old and living outside Amsterdam when the Nazis invaded. He and members of his family ended up in Bergen-Belsen, but he survived, as did his brother and sister. His testimony of his experience of the holocaust has educated children around the world. When he was asked in a school why he thinks his testimony is so important, his answer was:

“Because we haven’t learned the lessons yet at all”.

All of us have heard the voices of Tutsi from Rwanda, Muslims from Bosnia and young Yazidi women. These are just three examples; tragically, I could cite many, many others. On Monday, I hosted an event in Speaker’s House organised by War Child focusing on mental health and psychosocial support for children in conflict areas. We heard incredibly powerful first-hand testimony from two fantastic young refugees: Enana, who is originally from Syria, and Oscar, who is originally from the Democratic Republic of the Congo. Their testimony about what their countries have been through, and what they personally have been through as refugees from conflict situations, was very powerful and reminds us why Holocaust Memorial Day has such huge contemporary relevance.

In Liverpool, Holocaust Memorial Day is marked annually. Tonight, the University of Liverpool Jewish Society is hosting an event with holocaust survivor Joanna Millan. Next week, the Lord Mayor of Liverpool will open the Fathers House holocaust exhibition in Liverpool town hall. On memorial day itself, the Mayor of Liverpool will join faith leaders in a special service at the town hall to pay tribute to all those who lost their lives in the holocaust and genocides around the world.

Let me finish with another quotation from Rudi Oppenheimer, because this was the theme for last year’s Holocaust Memorial Day, about which the hon. Member for Brigg and Goole spoke: “Nobody should stand by”. Nobody should stand by when we see anti-Semitism or any form of persecution or bullying. As my hon. Friend the Member for West Ham (Lyn Brown) rightly reminded us, we should not stand by when we see the awful persecution of the Rohingya Muslims from Myanmar/Burma. We should not stand by when we see the appalling humanitarian crisis in Yemen. And we should not stand by when we see rape used as a weapon of war, as it is in so many places, including against the Rohingya and in South Sudan, the Democratic Republic of the Congo and elsewhere. Let us, on a cross-party basis, use the opportunity of today’s debate and Holocaust Memorial Day next week to say once again that we will not stand by. We will listen to the voices of the survivors—be they from the holocaust, be they from Syria, be they Yazidi women, or be they from the situations in Myanmar or Yemen—and that we will work together as colleagues to stop all forms of oppression and challenge all forms of racism and persecution wherever they rear their ugly head.