Holocaust Memorial Day 2012

John Spellar Excerpts

Thursday 19th January 2012 Westminster Hall

[Gavin Barwell]

I agree entirely with my hon. Friend and it is to that matter that I now turn.

To me, Holocaust memorial day is an opportunity to do several things: first, to remember the victims of the holocaust. Like, I imagine, many hon. Members, I had the opportunity, thanks to the Holocaust Educational Trust, to visit Auschwitz-Birkenau with students from my constituency as part of its excellent “Lessons from Auschwitz” project. It is probably the single most memorable thing I have done as a Member of Parliament. To those MPs who have not taken that opportunity, I encourage them strongly to do so. Indeed, the very idea of Holocaust memorial day came from a former Member of this House, who visited Auschwitz-Birkenau thanks to the Holocaust Educational Trust. One thing I learned from that visit was not just to regard people as victims. We started the visit in the Polish town of Oswiecim, looking at the gap on the high street where the famous synagogue used to be and looking at a whole part of Polish and European culture that was very nearly wiped off the face of the map, to remember what was there before and to not just see people as victims.

Holocaust memorial day is an opportunity to pay tribute to the survivors. Before I joined the House, I was a councillor in Croydon and was responsible for community cohesion. We have an event in Croydon on 27 January, when we commemorate Holocaust memorial day. I will never forget listening to a Croydon resident, Janina Fischler-Martinho, who is a holocaust survivor. She spoke to an audience of several hundred young people and they sat in rapt silence listening to what she had to say. One of the challenges we face is that sadly, the number of survivors is diminishing and we need to find a way to make sure that their story continues in the future. I know that the Holocaust Educational Trust is working with the sons and daughters of survivors to consider how they can take forward their parents’ testimony. Holocaust memorial day is also an opportunity to pay tribute to the bravery of those who sheltered Jews at great personal risk and to those who liberated the camps, and to remember the victims of other instances of genocide and racial prejudice—I would like to touch on that at the end of my speech.

Why is it important to remember? In an interview with The Daily Telegraph, the former Secretary of State for Education, Lord Baker of Dorking, whom I admire enormously and think has done a great deal of good for education in this country, said something that, on this occasion, I disagreed with:

“I would ban the study of Nazism from the history curriculum totally. I don’t really think that it does anything to learn more about Hitler and Nazism and the Holocaust. It doesn’t really make us favourably disposed to Germany for a start, present-day Germany...I think you study your own history first...I think children should leave a British school with some idea of the timeline in their minds—how it came from Roman Britain to Elizabeth II.”

I certainly agree with him about the importance of teaching the history of our country, but to me world war two and the holocaust is a vital part of that history. [Hon. Members: “Hear, hear!”] Many still share Churchill’s judgment at the time that Britain’s continued resistance in 1940, when we had no realistic prospect whatever of winning the war, was “our finest hour”.

In response to Lord Baker’s point about attitudes to modern-day Germany, it is important to learn that the holocaust happened not just because of the Nazis, but because people from many countries collaborated with them, and that no country has done more to address its historic crimes than Germany. Those are important points to make when teaching this material. Nor should the United Kingdom be too complacent. A Foreign Office official, Arminius Dew, wrote the following on 1 September 1944, during an impassioned controversy about allied policy in the face of increasing intelligence about the holocaust:

“In my opinion, a disproportionate amount of the time of the Office is wasted on dealing with these wailing Jews”.

That was a British Foreign Office official, and at the time appeals for the bombing of the approaches to Auschwitz were turned down.

What happened is a reminder of what human beings are capable of doing to each other, and not just by a small number of people. As Ian Kershaw wrote:

“The road to Auschwitz was built by hate but paved with indifference.”

Parish churches and the Interior Ministry supplied birth records showing who was Jewish. The post office delivered the deportation and denaturalisation orders. Government transport officers arranged the trains for deportation to the camps. Pharmaceutical companies tested drugs on camp prisoners. Companies bid for the contracts to build the crematoria. Detailed lists of the victims were drawn up on IBM Germany’s punch card machines, producing meticulous records of genocide.

[Mr John Spellar (Warley) (Lab)]

I congratulate the hon. Gentleman, as others have, on securing the debate. I join him and the hon. Member for Ilford North (Mr Scott) in congratulating the Holocaust Educational Trust on its work. Tomorrow I will be at Perryfields high school judging a contest for those who wish to go on its next trip to Auschwitz.

The hon. Member for Croydon Central (Gavin Barwell) describes the background to hate, and I agree with the wider way in which he has drawn that. Is not one of the most shocking facts about the genocide the amount of people deeply involved at senior and officer level who were graduates of universities, and in many cases medical graduates? Does that not indicate that such prejudice is not confined to the unthinking and illiterate, but that it spreads right the way through, and is a virus that has to be fought in every generation?

[Gavin Barwell]

I could not agree more with the right hon. Gentleman. Many of those who would have been judged at the time as educated and cultured people were responsible for the deaths.

It has happened since and it can happen again. Many of the attitudes and much of the ideology that I described at the outset—of people being “alien”—and which underpinned what happened are still prevalent in parts of the population here in the UK. In Croydon, there was a recent incident where a lady was filmed on a tram making the most disgraceful racist remarks about black passengers on the tram. As the local MP, I commented on it and condemned it. For the next two or three weeks, I was subject to a stream of vile e-mails from people who believe that anyone who is not white cannot be British. They accept that they are British citizens, but they do not accept that they are really British. They think that they are alien and do not belong here—that is the kind of language in the numerous e-mails I received. The same attitude applies in some of the ways the Muslim community in this country has been demonised in parts of the media—that there is something alien about that faith and that Muslims cannot be British.

Those attitudes persist in parts of our society. It is important not only that we remember what happened—remember those who lost their lives and the bravery of those who survived—but that we learn that lesson and continue to confront it. We have to face the fact that as human beings, we appear to be predisposed to being hostile to those who appear different. That means that we are bound to behave in that way, but we need to confront that innate prejudice and overcome it. That, to me, is the fundamental underlying lesson of the holocaust.