Holocaust Memorial Day

Tasmina Ahmed-Sheikh Excerpts

Thursday 19th January 2017 Commons Chamber

[Ms Tasmina Ahmed-Sheikh (Ochil and South Perthshire) (SNP)]

I pay tribute to the hon. Member for Hove (Peter Kyle), who is not in his seat, for the tone he set at the beginning of this afternoon’s debate with such great sensitivity and, indeed, insight.

This year marks the 72nd anniversary of the liberation of the concentration camps set up by the Nazis to prosecute the holocaust. The tragedy of the holocaust affected so many, directly and indirectly. From the millions of victims, their families and communities to the forces who liberated them in 1944 and 1945, the ripple effect of this tragedy casts its shadow far and wide. The physical and emotional trauma was shared by victims and those who witnessed it. Even today, the scars have not healed.

The holocaust raises deep and profound questions for all of us today, which is why the theme of this year’s commemoration, mentioned by so many Members, “How can life go on?” is so important today and every day. In the face of such fundamental evil, it is human to feel a sense of hopelessness, but the theme challenges that. Even in the face of unspeakable evil, we are not hopeless.

The commemoration, and today’s important debate, give us all an opportunity to reflect, and it helps us to find ways of coming to terms with the unthinkable. If we are to live beyond the tragedy of the holocaust and not just survive, we must resolve today to ensure that reconciliation and rebuilding take place wherever in the world they are needed. We must continue to learn from these experiences and remember them, taking care that our response to contemporary genocide in Srebrenica, Rwanda and Cambodia is guided by the need to ensure that those who make it through the darkness can eventually emerge into the light.

Most of all, if we are to guarantee that life goes on, we should try not to counteract hate with more hate of our own. This week I listened to the words of that great American civil rights campaigner John Lewis, who spoke so movingly on how we must instead meet hate with love:

“The way of love is the better way.”

He went on to invoke Dr Martin Luther King Jr., who said:

“Hate is too great a burden to bear.”

Holocaust Memorial Day takes place at a time when we should seek to learn the lessons of the past. We must understand that genocide is often the evil culmination of a gradual process that begins with unchecked discrimination, racism and hatred. In the wake of Donald Trump’s election victory in November and the Brexit vote in June, we have witnessed deeply worrying increases in intolerance across western democracies. We must be vigilant and continue to provide positive leadership if we are to effectively address the root causes of hate in our communities and beyond.

The Scottish National party Government in Scotland have long supported remembrance and the importance of holocaust education, and the Scottish Parliament will also play its part in remembrance. Next Tuesday, Jessica Reid and Callum Docherty, two students from Braes High School in Falkirk, will deliver the Scottish Parliament’s “Time for Reflection”. These school students recently took part in the Holocaust Educational Trust’s “Lessons from Auschwitz” project, which has been referred to by my right hon. Friend the Member for Gordon (Alex Salmond) and which gives two post-16 students from every school and college in Scotland the opportunity to visit Auschwitz-Birkenau. This project is supported by a grant from the Scottish Government. They also set up the Independent Advisory Group on Hate Crime, Prejudice and Community Cohesion in 2015 to engage with minority ethnic stakeholders and communities in considering what more can be done to tackle these issues. This group gave a report in September 2016, setting out practical suggestions on how to advance this crucially important agenda.

The holocaust did not begin with the murder of millions; it began with what we now know as hate speech, perpetuated by a small minority and tolerated by the vast majority. We cannot make the same mistakes again. But as John Lewis so eloquently stated this week, we must face this reaction with tolerance, respect and understanding. We can and should be very proud of the diversity of modern Scotland, and the diversity we see across the British Isles, but we should never take that diversity or tolerance for granted. We want our Jewish community to feel safe and welcome, and so we condemn the growing anti-Semitism and the hate seen more recently across Europe and the USA. As we commemorate Holocaust Memorial Day, it is only through employing this kind of positive approach that we can ensure that life will go on, and that decent humanity continues to prosper in the face of unspeakable, unspeakable evil.