Holocaust Memorial Day 2012

Bob Stewart Excerpts

Thursday 19th January 2012 Westminster Hall

[Gavin Barwell]

That point is extremely helpful, because the end of that quote states:

“to avoid direct personal responsibility.”

One of the responses to what happened must be to ensure that everyone, wherever possible, is made to take responsibility for what they did.

On 20 January 1942, Heydrich convened a meeting to discuss

“the final solution of the Jewish question”.

At that meeting, figures were given for each country, including the United Kingdom, countries under German occupation, neutral countries and belligerents that Germany had not yet conquered. The Jewish population of Europe was to be deported to the east and either used as slave labour in concentration camps—the Germans had a phrase for that that translates as “destruction through work”—or killed in the gas chambers of new extermination camps. It is estimated that 1 million died at Auschwitz-Birkenau, 870,000 at Treblinka, 600,000 at Belzec, 360,000 at Majdanek, 320,000 at Chelmno and 250,000 at Sobibor.

I want briefly to touch on the emotional reactions of those who liberated the various camps, both the concentration camps and the extermination camps. For time reasons, I shall quote just three people. First, I shall quote America’s legendary broadcaster, Ed Murrow, who was with the US Third Army when it liberated the concentration camp of Buchenwald. He said:

“I have reported what I saw and heard, but only part of it. For most of it I have no words”.

A. R. Horwell was a German Jew serving as a doctor in the British Army who wrote to his wife following the liberation of Bergen-Belsen about how he was deeply moved to be part of a group

“where there is no sign of discrimination, and where the Jewish padres were the most honoured guests. It made me realise it again: it was worthwhile to be in this war, it is an honour and distinction to wear this uniform...I must restrain myself, for fear to become too emotional. I can’t help it, darling; it is a great thing to be back here after all these years—after all these immense sufferings inflicted upon us and our people, to be here with the victorious army...I am very happy tonight and sad at the same time. Happy, because I have survived, one of the few to see this day, and sad, because I am one of the few—so few”.

[Bob Stewart (Beckenham) (Con)]

I hope that my hon. Friend will forgive me for intervening, but I know Belsen relatively well. I want to remind everyone that it was not only people of Jewish origin who were exterminated in these camps; Gypsies and, indeed, officers of the Special Operations Executive, of which my mother was a member, were also exterminated.

[Gavin Barwell]

My hon. Friend makes his point very powerfully. Earlier, I tried to touch on the fact that the victims of Nazi atrocity were clearly many and varied.

Dr David Tibbs was serving with 13 Para, which was also involved in the liberation of Belsen. He had a slightly different reaction:

“At Belsen, I felt a curious elation. Looking at all these terrible things, I thought, ‘Here is the justification for this war, for all the lives we have lost, for everything we’ve been through’”.

A few people in our society today argue that war never achieves anything. I myself am an opponent of one of the conflicts we are engaged in at the moment. However, those words are a reminder that, sometimes, violence does achieve something. In this case, it stopped, far too late, a tremendous atrocity.

--- Later in debate ---

[Bob Stewart (Beckenham) (Con)]

I thank my good and hon. Friend the Member for Croydon Central (Gavin Barwell) for securing this debate. About nine years ago, I received a telephone call from a man called Alex Brummer, who is the financial editor of the Daily Mail. He asked me to go to the Richmond synagogue and to address the ceremony for the first Holocaust memorial day in the UK. I said, “No. Why? I’m not Jewish. I was born in 1949. I know I look quite old, but I’m not quite that old. I know nothing about the holocaust.” He said, “Please, will you think about it, and I’ll come back to you in a few days?”

So I thought about it, and I remembered that in 1971 or 1972, as a young officer in Berlin, I commanded the guard that stood over Rudolf Hess at Spandau, so I have a connection with perhaps one of the last Nazis. Then I remembered that when I was in Germany and my battalion was based near Belsen in 1992, I rang my mother and said, “I’ve been to Belsen. It’s disgusting, mum.” She said quietly, “I know.” I said, “What! How do you know? When I have been in Germany, I have never taken you there.” She said, “No. I was there at the end of the war.” I said, “Why were you there at the end of the war?” She said, “Remember, I was a special operations executive officer. I went there looking for my colleagues. I saw it.” I said, “Why have you never told me this?” She said, “Because, Robert, I was ashamed.” I said, “Why were you ashamed? You were 22. You had learned to parachute out of aeroplanes. You had learned to fight Germans—evil Germans. You did your very best, you fought the war, and you are ashamed?” She said, “I was ashamed because it was my generation when the holocaust happened, and it should not have done. We were collectively responsible for it.” I did not understand what she meant.

A few months later, I was sent into Bosnia by Parliament. At the end of November 1992, I watched 10,000 people in carts come past my base. I had told my sentries to start counting, but they gave up at 10,000. Those people were like us, in suits. They were lawyers, they were teachers, they were farmers—normal people. I could not believe what I was watching. I thought, “This can’t be happening.” A couple of months later I dug a mass grave, and I put 104—I think it was 104—bodies into it. They were Bosnian, Muslims in the main, but who could tell? I wept. I felt impotent. I knew what my mother had meant. I was ashamed because that had happened in our generation, within two hours’ flying time of the United Kingdom. It had happened again.

During the clean-up, I picked up a ball at the No. 7 house in Ahmici, and then I dropped it. It was not a ball; it was the head of a baby, burnt. I dropped it and then I realised what I had done. That was the last touch of a human being on that baby, who cannot have been more than six weeks old, and was burned with its parents. My wife as she is now—Claire Podbielski of the International Committee of the Red Cross—came to me and said that I had a big house and that she wanted me to put up some children, particularly one child. I said, “You must be joking. I am the commander of the British in central Bosnia, and you want me to look after a child. This is not my job.” She said, “It is, you know. What are you here to do?” I said, “I’m here to save lives.” She said, “Well, save this one. Save this little girl.”

Claire walked into the concentration camp, took the girl by the hand, walked past the commandant, telling him to get the hell out of her way—she was a delegate of the International Committee of the Red Cross, and quite powerful—and brought the child to me when I was having dinner in my house with Martin Bell, the BBC journalist. I could not believe it. She said, “I’ve brought the girl.” I said, “Well, yes, well, what can I do?” Claire turned to the soldiers beside me—they were my bodyguards—and said, “You’ll look after this little girl, won’t you?” They said, “Of course.” They took her, they bathed her, they dressed her, they put a cot between their beds, and they looked after her for three days.

At the end of that time, Claire managed to find an uncle, but the girl did not want to leave. She told us in the meantime what had happened to her. On 16 April 1993, some men came to her house at about 5 o’clock in the morning, told her mother and father to get up and get out, just as happened in Poland, Russia and in occupied Europe during the second world war. They were told to get dressed and get downstairs. When they were downstairs, she and her mother, father and brother were made to lie on the ground face down. As she described it, there was a lot of noise, and her mummy, daddy and brother did not get up.

That is the holocaust. We have representatives here who are trying to keep it alive. It is alive; it is happening all the time. I am delighted to say, hon. Members, that I have given evidence against the people who were mainly responsible for this happening, but only a very small number of the people who did it.

I am delighted to say that I have been back. I went back in October. My graveyard of 104 has grown to 170. People say, “We must remember the holocaust”, but for me it is a living thing. It is evil and a canker in our society. We have already questioned why people do these foul things. One reason we have not given is fear. People act in a brutal way because they are fearful for themselves and for their families. We must be very careful about that. To me, the holocaust continues.

Hon. Members will understand that, if I reel off examples of the holocaust since the second world war, I am sure I would miss a few. But Cambodia is certainly one, and we knew about the killing fields. We knew it was happening, but what did we do? We did nothing. Hon. Members, if we remember what has happened, perhaps we will stop it happening again. I doubt it, but let us keep up the effort.

--- Later in debate ---

[Neil Parish (Tiverton and Honiton) (Con)]

I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Croydon Central (Gavin Barwell) for securing this debate. We have heard emotional speeches, and I feel that the holocaust is one of those subjects I must speak about—it is a feeling inside. Seventy years on, it is perhaps difficult for us to understand the scale of the holocaust, and having been to Israel and the holocaust museum, and having seen the shoes and the clothes and possessions of the millions of Jewish people who were killed, it is almost impossible to comprehend.

As other hon. Members have pointed out, it is also difficult to understand the industrial scale of the holocaust. It was carried out by educated people who came together to create a genocide that had never been seen before, and that is the callousness of it all. However terrible it is to shoot people, or whatever, the actual creation of gas chambers and railways to transport people, together with all the bureaucracy to exterminate a people, is almost unbelievable.

We must also remember that out of a population of some 18 million, the Jewish people lost a third of their population; again, that is almost impossible to comprehend. There cannot be a Jewish family in the world who have not been touched by what happened during that period. The Holocaust Educational Trust is so right to remind people not just that terrible atrocities took place, but of what actually happened. We need to be reminded that these things can and did happen, and we must ensure, as far as possible, that they do not happen again.

We talk about the holocaust and the number of Jewish people who were murdered. One can sometimes understand very much the attitude of Israel when it is surrounded by neighbours who say that they do not want Israel to exist—that it should be wiped off the face of the map. The Jewish people have suffered historically. One third of their population was wiped out, so one can understand how strongly they feel. My constituency does not have a huge Jewish population, and I am not of a Jewish family myself, but as many other hon. Members have said, one great thing that we British have is a sense of fair play. What happened was absolutely not fair play, and we need to stand up and be counted.

My hon. Friend the Member for Beckenham (Bob Stewart) made a great speech about Bosnia and Srebrenica. I, too, have been to Srebrenica: I have been to the factory where many of the killings took place. We cannot afford to be complacent, because atrocities continue to be committed. As my hon. Friend said, that place is only two hours by plane from where we sit, but it happened, and in the 1990s. One would think that it is not possible. I met mothers and wives who had lost their sons and husbands. They believe that many of the people who carried out those atrocities are still out there, free, not having been brought to book.

[Bob Stewart]

They are.

[Neil Parish]

Yes, exactly. Again, the situation is hugely emotional. Today is one of those times when we remember what happened and we support very much the Jewish state and Jews throughout the world, who have suffered so badly. Although we congratulate ourselves on the huge improvements that have taken place, we must never take our eye off the ball, because these things could happen again. I endorse so much of what other hon. Members have said. It would be absolutely right to have a debate such as this every year to ensure that we lay down clearly on the record what Parliament feels and what Britain feels about what happened, and what we will try to do to make sure it does not happen again.