Holocaust Memorial Day: As survivors die, we must keep their experiences alive

Holocaust Memorial Day has been a National Day of Commemoration for over 20 years and our debates have become a regular feature in the parliamentary calendar. These debates are primarily held to remember the millions of people murdered by the Nazis, but we also remember the genocides in Cambodia, Rwanda, Bosnia and Darfur, and we reflect on the persecution of minorities across the world today.

Year on year, we use this day to ensure the collective memory of the holocaust is rekindled and strengthened. And this year’s theme, ‘One Day’, encourages us to put aside our differences for just one day, to come together to understand more about the past, empathise with others, and resolve to act for a better future.

As time passes, the importance of Holocaust Memorial day grows. In 2020, 147 survivors of the Holocaust passed away. In 2021, 134 died. The youngest survivor of the camps is currently 76. Born a few months after I was, but born in a concentration camp. As the survivors die, the Holocaust is moving from living memory to vital history.

It is why we must keep their experiences alive. The testimony of every single survivor supports our understanding, adds to our history, and helps to educate the next generation. This is why I champion the work of the Holocaust Educational Trust and the Holocaust Memorial Day Trust. Their work is essential and brilliant.

Our debate in parliament also matters. We share our own or our constituents’ experiences of the Holocaust. I have talked about my grandfather’s escape to Britain from Vienna, my grandmother’s murder in Theresienstadt and my uncle’s murder in Auschwitz. 

I know how powerful it is to have heard these stories from my family, feel their impact, and to have a personal relationship with those who were victims of the Holocaust. I will never forget the chilling moment when I visited Auschwitz, saw the suitcases of those murdered in the gas chambers and found one that bore the initials of my uncle.

However, whilst, with each generation the emotional impact may start to fade, it remains vital to pass the testimonies on to our children, and their children so that the Holocaust is remembered and understood. I would like to share with you today the experience of my brother-in-law.

My brother-in-law is at home, gravely ill. He, Herbert, was born in Karlsruhe in Germany in 1930, into a successful middle-class Jewish family. One of his earliest memories is Kristallnacht in November 1938, when his grandfather was assaulted and had all his teeth knocked out. His father had already lost his job as a judge because he was a Jew.

Herbert and his little sister were among the few children who escaped on the Kindertransport. He still has the passport with the Nazi swastika imprinted on it. He remembers little of the journey to Liverpool Street. He was only eight. From London, he went to Wales where the children were joined by their mother who also managed to escape. His father got to Switzerland but the family were never reunited. Although a refugee, Herbert served in the RAF and has enjoyed a full and fulfilling life in Britain, but the childhood trauma is always with him.

The racism and persecution that he experienced over 80 years ago is still with us today. From the Chinese persecution of the Uyghurs to the nightmare being suffered by the Rohingyas in Myanmar, the world has not learned from the tragedies of the past. And it is not just in distant regions that we see prejudice and hate. 

We have the recent allegations of Islamophobia in the Conservative Party that I sincerely hope will be thoroughly investigated and addressed. And It is now 12 years since I fought the BNP in Barking, when my constituents showed by their vote that they unequivocally rejected the racism and hatred of the far right. But the holocaust denial associated with the BNP still flourishes. 

We saw it with the hard left weaponising the Holocaust. And despite the fundamental, necessary and welcome changes achieved in my party, I still recently received a death threat with the words “Sieg Heil Mein Führer” as I was accused of orchestrating the “second Holocaust” in Palestine, simply because I was Jewish.

Antisemitism is on the rise. This year, the Community Security Trust found that anti-Jewish hate incidents rose by 49%. Social media is fuelling more antisemitic hatred, with conspiracy theorists growing their followers daily.

During the pandemic, we have seen the use and abuse of Holocaust language and imagery. Anti-lockdown protesters have carried signs reading ‘vaccine holocaust’ and worn the Star of David. Anti-vax protesters have called for doctors and nurses to be hung at a “Nuremberg trial”, referring to the NHS as the “new Auschwitz”. To suggest that the struggles of those who endured Nazi persecution are comparable to accepting public health measures is at best delusional, at worst deeply hurtful. 

I arrived as an immigrant at the age of four. My brother-in-law at the age of eight. And my grandfather at the age of 66. If Britain had not opened her doors to us, none of us would have lived the lives we have today. But Britain was not perfect. When my grandfather arrived, old and ill, he was interned in Huyton, deemed an ‘enemy alien’. His diaries reveal the trauma, the constant worry about relatives and the challenges faced by refugees. He writes:

“It is desolating and I sit here, being in a different part of the world – apathetic and resigned – wait, wait, wait, for what?… That God grants me some luck to live a few years peacefully and live to see the happiness of my children and those who are close to me.”

Likewise, my memory of migration remains utterly clear in my mind, reflecting the trauma of this experience. My family was turned away from Australia, Canada and the US. It was the British who showed humanity to my stateless Jewish family, and that was how we ended up in South London. However, we still faced something of a hostile environment that today’s migrants also experience. I remember an inspector coming to tea to test me aged ten and my sister aged seven on our ‘Britishness’. My father made sure we ate cucumber sandwiches and fruit cake and told us to pretend this was our typical tea. 

Our testimonies tell of the powerful ordeals faced by migrants, but are also relevant to current debates about immigration. When I listen to my constituents struggling to secure settled status in the UK, I am often reminded of my parents’ struggle. While, yes, the UK could have done more during the war, surely today we have to ask the question: what have we learned? Our own debate on refugees must be guided by this history. We are all diminished if we turn the other way.

I would like to end with a quote from my grandfather. In a diary entry just before Christmas, he wrote:

“Is the present time a blip? Is Hitler only an episode? Are these ideas going to disappear and the better side of humanity re-emerge?”

We owe it to my grandfather, Wilhem, and all survivors of genocide to do all we can to learn from their experience. And on Holocaust Memorial Day, we do just that. Survivors are the ultimate rebuke to evil thoughts. We must continue to tell their stories. And we must use this to continue to fight hatred in all its forms. Then, perhaps one day, we will have a future without genocide.