Holocaust Memorial Day

Stephen Williams Excerpts

Tuesday 20th January 2015 Westminster Hall

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government (Stephen Williams)]

I am glad to join other hon. Members in thanking the hon. Member for Hertsmere (Mr Clappison) for initiating our discussion. I also thank all hon. Members for drawing on their understanding of the past and their personal experiences, conversations and visits in order to give such thoughtful speeches.

While listening to all the individual stories told by the shadow Minister, the hon. Member for West Ham (Lyn Brown), I noted that we often think about those times in terms of victims and perpetrators, but it is important to remember that among the group of people who were meant to be victims were those who refused to be victims, those who resisted, those who escaped and those who survived through it all and gave us the individual testimonies, which have been handed down the generations to today, and among the group of people who were the perpetrators were those who dissented and those who protected their fellow citizens, either through diplomatic channels, as the hon. Member for Southend West (Sir David Amess) mentioned, or simply by protecting their neighbours. I have heard a story from one of my Hungarian friends of how her mother protected their piano teacher during the Holocaust. From such stories, we remember the hatred and we can despair of it, but we can also draw hope.

Many hon. Members have reflected on their visits to Auschwitz-Birkenau through the agency of the Holocaust Educational Trust and other bodies. I visited Auschwitz-Birkenau as a young man while I was inter-railing in the autumn of 1992, and there was hardly anyone there. I, too, was shocked by the paraphernalia and the remains of death, which the hon. Member for Hertsmere mentioned—the piles of glasses, the suitcases and the discarded passes—and by the sheer scale of the machinery of death, as the hon. Member for Lancaster and Fleetwood (Eric Ollerenshaw) has said. One can appreciate it only by walking up to the now-familiar brick railway arch at the entrance to the death camp itself at Birkenau, as I did 23 years ago, and standing there, looking at the vast expanse of land and asking, “How could people do this?” People have to see it for themselves, but once they have seen it, it is not something that they want to see again.

The array of commemoration plans proves that the passage of time does nothing to impair our collective memory. It is our duty to recall the horrors and lessons of the Holocaust and to keep the stories of the survivors alive. It should not, and will not, fall to the survivors and their relatives to keep the memory and lessons of the Holocaust alive, especially as the voices that offer such significant witness to the Holocaust’s atrocities are gradually fading. If we do not encourage everyone to remember, it will be no wonder if many start to forget.

Today is also about remembering genocides since 1945, as well as remembering the persecution of the Jews and other minorities by the Nazis and their collaborators. As has been mentioned, Holocaust memorial day, which this year is the 70th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz, is also the 20th anniversary of the genocide at Srebrenica. I recall, as will many hon. Members, the dreadful events of 20 years ago when the full horror of the Bosnian civil war was beamed into our living rooms every night for three years, and the ghastly phrase “ethnic cleansing” became part of the language of war-zone reporting. Such things took place in modern Europe during our lifetime, half a century after the continent had last been convulsed in a war in which civilians were the main casualties.

Following our debate on the subject last year, when I mentioned Bosnia, I went, in April, to Srebrenica with a delegation of British youth leaders. I was shocked by what I saw there, including photographs in various exhibitions and the cemetery at Srebrenica, where more than 8,000 obelisks mark Muslim graves. I met some of the survivors, including the mayor of Srebrenica, a man in his 30s who is the only male survivor of his class. I ask my male colleagues to imagine being the only male survivor among the people with whom they went to school. I met Hassan, whose twin brother was killed. Imagine the horror of that. I met a remarkable group of people, the Mothers of Srebrenica, who are keeping alive the memory of what happened to their husbands, fathers, sons and uncles. Women spoke to me of the other side of genocide, which has not been mentioned today. We have spoken about the death that is caused by genocide, but those women told me of the acts that were perpetrated against the survivors, particularly the women, many of whom were raped, humiliated and robbed of their dignity. We must not forget that aspect of genocide.

We will always remember the innocent lives that have been lost, no matter where that happened, whether it was in the killing fields of Cambodia or the churches of Rwanda. An understanding of history is important to ensure that we learn from the past in education, policy and how we, as individuals, treat others. The Holocaust Educational Trust, which most hon. Members have mentioned, is now in its 27th year of educating children through “Lessons from Auschwitz”, which is surely the most poignant way to help children understand what happened. We revisit painful memories and shocking scenes not merely for the sake of doing so, but to ensure that history is never repeated.

This year, the theme of Holocaust memorial day will be “Keep the memory alive”. Pledging to keep the memory alive is a way in which we can pay tribute to those who have lost their lives and those who have lived a life beyond those terrible experiences. As we utter those immortal words, other words associated with holocaust remembrance come to the fore. “Never again” is a phrase often uttered in such debates, but night after night our television screens are filled with images that show man’s inhumanity to man. The hon. Member for Liverpool, Riverside (Mrs Ellman) mentioned the terrible events that have occurred in Paris during the past month. Just as it was appropriate for people to say, and to hold up signs that read, “Je suis Charlie”, it is appropriate for those of all denominations and none to hold up signs that read, “Je suis Juif”.

We need, more than ever, to ensure that never again means never again. That is why the Holocaust Commission, which was announced by the Prime Minister, will report on its recommendations on Holocaust memorial day a week from now. The importance of the commission cannot be over-emphasised at a time when the link to those who survived the Holocaust is becoming ever weaker. The current generation of young people will be the last to have the opportunity to hear at first hand the testimony of holocaust survivors. That was brought home to me only yesterday when my Department hosted its annual Holocaust memorial day, and our special guest, Auschwitz survivor Susan Pollack, was unable to attend because her husband and fellow survivor Abraham had sadly just died. That is why I ask all who are present to pay tribute to Holocaust survivors who bear testimony in schools and colleges across the country. It is because of people such as Susan that the commission is tasked with ensuring that future generations never forget the Holocaust, and that the stories of survivors are not lost when they can no longer bear testimony.

I join many colleagues in paying tribute to the Holocaust Educational Trust, and in particular its chief executive, Karen Pollock, who has been key in ensuring that Holocaust education has been at the forefront of our efforts to ensure that we reflect on and, we hope, learn the lessons from the past. Holocaust education brings to life the names, the memories and the identities of those who suffered; not only the 6 million Jews and many other minorities who were persecuted between 1933 and 1945, but the more than 1 million Cambodians who were murdered by Pol Pot, the 1 million who died in Rwanda, the hundreds of thousands who died in Darfur and the thousands who were killed in Bosnia.

Holocaust education reminds us that behind the statistics were real people, who lived, loved and laughed, and who might have gone on to be mothers, fathers or even Nobel laureates. That is why we continue to support the Holocaust Memorial Day Trust. I thank its chief executive, Olivia Marks-Woldman, and her team for their work to ensure that we all remember. This year, the trust has commissioned the artist Anish Kapoor to design candles that have been placed in 70 locations around the country. My colleague the Secretary of State will take one of those candles to Auschwitz-Birkenau as part of the 70th anniversary commemorations next week. I pay tribute to the Anne Frank Trust and to Sir Andrew Burns for their work on making sure that people remember the lessons from the past.

As has been said, such events repeat themselves, and the UK is experiencing a reported increase in anti-Semitism. We must say clearly that that is completely unacceptable in modern Britain. It is important never to stand aside when we encounter prejudice and hatred of any kind. Nobel laureate Elie Wiesel said,

“I swore never to be silent whenever wherever human beings endure suffering and humiliation.”

Today, reflecting on our democracy, as the hon. Member for Gainsborough (Sir Edward Leigh) has said, our duty is to remember the past, and never to be silent about prejudice, bigotry and hatred in our own time.