Holocaust Memorial Day

Bob Blackman Excerpts

Thursday 29th January 2026 Commons Chamber

[Bob Blackman (Harrow East) (Con)]

It is an honour to follow an excellent opening speech from the hon. Member for Bury St Edmunds and Stowmarket (Peter Prinsley). I congratulate him on the way he has introduced this debate. I declare my interests as the chairman of the all-party parliamentary group on the Holocaust memorial and education centre, co-chairman of the APPG on Israel and sponsor of this year’s Holocaust memorial reception in Portcullis House, on behalf of the Holocaust Educational Trust.

We gather today to mark Holocaust Memorial Day, which commemorates the liberation of Auschwitz-Birkenau on 27 January 1945. That moment exposed to the world the full horror of the Nazi regime’s systematic murder of 6 million Jewish men, women and children—for the benefit of the BBC, I say Jewish men, women and children. However, Holocaust Memorial Day is also a moment to remember the millions of others who were persecuted and murdered by the Nazis, such as the Roma, disabled people, political dissidents and others. We remember not only to honour the victims, but to understand how such an atrocity became possible and how we must never allow it to happen again.

The Holocaust did not begin with the gas chambers and the death camps, and too often we forget the context. In the decades before, hatred was allowed to grow in Germany; prejudice became normalised; and language, institutions and social norms were slowly corroded. In the great war, Germany was defeated, and afterwards it was economically shattered. The treaty of Versailles imposed territorial losses, military restrictions and severe reparations, the burden of which fell heavily on ordinary people in Germany. The Weimar republic, although democratic in structure, was fragile, and economic catastrophe soon followed. In fact, hyperinflation in the early 1920s left Germans burning paper money to keep warm, because the currency’s value had fallen away. Widespread poverty took hold, and in times of despair, many people searched for simple explanations—and for scapegoats.

It was in that climate that the Nazi party rose to prominence. Hitler and his supporters offered simplistic answers to complex problems. They promised national revival, strength and unity, while identifying enemies within. Jews were portrayed not as fellow citizens, but as outsiders. They were dehumanised and blamed for Germany’s defeat, its economic hardships and the perceived decline of society. Hatred was not accidental; it was systematic, deliberate and relentlessly reinforced. When the Nazis came to power in 1933, antisemitism became state policy. Just imagine that: it was state policy to outlaw a particular religion. Persecution began not with mass violence, but with exclusion. Jewish civil servants were dismissed, Jewish businesses were boycotted and Jewish professionals were barred from practising law and medicine, and from teaching. Those measures were designed to isolate, humiliate and impoverish an entire community.

It is important to stress that while most people did not actively participate in persecution, most chose to look away while it happened. Silence, passivity and indifference allowed injustice to become embedded and, ultimately, unstoppable. Persecution soon escalated. The Nuremberg laws of 1935 stripped Jews of citizenship and basic rights, reducing them from equal members of society to subjects of the state. Violence became overt. In November 1938, Kristallnacht marked a decisive turning point. Synagogues were destroyed, Jewish homes and businesses were attacked, and thousands were arrested by the state—not by mobs acting alone, but by authority itself.

With the outbreak of the second world war, persecution turned into annihilation. Jews were forced into ghettos, and we will no doubt hear about harrowing testimonies of overcrowding, hunger, disease and despair. From 1941 onwards, death camps such as Auschwitz-Birkenau, Treblinka and Sobibor were constructed for one purpose alone—mass murder. Trains arrived from across Europe, and people were selected, exploited and killed on an industrial scale. There were some who resisted, often at immense personal risk, and they remind us that choices are always possible, but they were the exception, not the norm.

[Sir Alec Shelbrooke]

Again, my hon. Friend is making a fantastic speech. Does he share my horror and disgust that yesterday, a member of the public thought it was entirely appropriate to dress as a prisoner of one of the concentration camps? Surely this is the hatred he is describing.

[Bob Blackman]

Indeed, I condemn that action, and all actions that seek in some way, shape or form to glorify or justify the Holocaust.

The lesson matters profoundly today. Holocaust Memorial Day plays a vital part in educating the public on the dangers of prejudice, discrimination and hatred—dangers that, if left unchecked, can escalate once again into violence and even genocide. It honours survivors and preserves their testimony, particularly now that the number of first-hand witnesses is sadly diminishing—a point to which the hon. Member for Bury St Edmunds and Stowmarket alluded. The theme for this year, “Bridging Generations”, is therefore a powerful call to action. The responsibility for remembrance does not end with the survivors. It must be passed on to their children, grandchildren and all of us, so that memory becomes responsibility. That matters, because antisemitism in the UK remains at alarmingly high levels. Following the Hamas terrorist attack on Israel on 7 October 2023, antisemitic incidents surged dramatically. According to the Community Security Trust, 1,521 antisemitic incidents were recorded in the first half of 2025 alone—the second highest total ever recorded for that period. Although that is lower than the number in the record year of 2024, that still represents a sustained and deeply troubling level of hostility that is far above the pre-October 7 averages.

[Gareth Thomas (Harrow West) (Lab/Co-op)]

As the hon. Gentleman knows, I do not always agree with him, but I very much agree with the case that he is making today and what he is saying. He mentioned the surge in antisemitism in the UK. Would he agree that Ofcom needs to crack down on online hatred—particularly antisemitism, but also Islamophobic tweets? The Jewish community and those of many other faiths are subject to a terrifying amount of online hatred.

[Bob Blackman]

I thank the hon. Gentleman, my constituency neighbour, for that intervention. The sad reality is that following my question to the Deputy Prime Minister yesterday, my social media accounts were loaded with antisemitic tropes. It is a disgrace, and Ofcom has to take action. It is our duty to ensure that hate speech is never allowed to continue. I believe in free speech, but I do not believe in preaching hatred to one another, regardless of religion, and action has to be taken on that.

Greater London and Greater Manchester remain hotspots of antisemitism; there was an attack on the synagogue in Manchester during Yom Kippur. Online antisemitism, to which the hon. Member for Harrow West (Gareth Thomas) just referred, now accounts for well more than a third of all incidents. Holocaust-related abuse appears with disturbing frequency, and there has been a sharp rise in the glorification of the Holocaust. Behind these statistics lies a chilling reality: many Jewish people in Britain feel unsafe, unwelcome or forced to hide their identity in public. Surveys suggest that around half have considered leaving the UK due to antisemitism. That should trouble every one of us.

We must be honest about the ways in which contemporary antisemitism often disguises itself. Increasingly, anti-Israel activism functions as a Trojan horse for antisemitism, allowing ancient prejudice to re-enter public discourse under the cover of political critique. Legitimate criticism of any Government is entirely valid, but when Israel becomes uniquely demonised, Zionism is used as a slur and Jewish institutions and individuals are targeted, regardless of their views, we are no longer in the realm of political debate. CST data shows that a significant proportion of antisemitic incidents now blend anti-Zionist language with classic antisemitic tropes: claims of secret control, collective guilt or global conspiracy. On campuses and online platforms, and in public demonstrations such as yesterday’s, Jewish students and citizens are increasingly made to feel responsible simply for who they are. That not only undermines free speech; it poisons it.

We must confront the disturbing rise of Holocaust inversion: the grotesque distortion that portrays Jews or Israel as the new Nazis. That is not merely offensive rhetoric; it threatens and trivialises the Shoah, inverts reality, and inflicts profound harm on survivors and their families. Equating the Star of David with the swastika or accusing the Jewish state of genocide is not historical analysis; it is antisemitism. We must be clear and unequivocal in condemning it.

On Holocaust Memorial Day, we should acknowledge the historical link between the Holocaust and the modern state of Israel. Zionism long predates the second world war, but the genocide of European Jewry underscored with devastating clarity the need for a Jewish homeland—a place of refuge and self-determination. Many Holocaust survivors helped build that nation, carrying the scars of the camps with them. Attempts to de-legitimise Israel ignore that history and risk erasing the fundamental lesson of “never again”.

Finally, I want to turn to the future. Last week, the Holocaust Memorial Act 2026 received Royal Assent, paving the way for the national Holocaust memorial and learning centre to be built in Victoria Tower Gardens, beside this very Parliament. Proposed by a cross-party commission more than a decade ago, the memorial will honour the victims and educate generations to come. The proposal was started by Lord Cameron and was supported cross-party. As the hon. Member for Bury St Edmunds and Stowmarket said, we must get that memorial built before the last of the survivors is no longer with us. Its location matters. It will stand as a permanent reminder, at the heart of our democracy, of where hatred can lead when left unchallenged.

As we remember the victims today, we also reaffirm our responsibility to challenge antisemitism wherever it appears, defend democratic values and human dignity, and ensure that history is neither forgotten nor distorted. When we see demonstrations and attempts to blockade Jewish businesses, restaurants and synagogues, we must call it out for what it is: antisemitism, pure and simple. Remembrance is not only about the past; it is a warning for the present, and a duty that we owe to future generations. I and, I believe, the whole House will recommit to carrying out that duty.