It is a privilege to follow my hon. Friend the Member for Harrow East (Bob Blackman). Given the news that has just broken, this may be the last time that I speak in this Chamber—and the last time that anybody from the Brigg and Goole constituency speaks, given that we are being abolished and split four ways. If it is the last time that I speak, I would like to say that it has been an absolutely huge privilege—the privilege of my life—to serve the people of Brigg and Goole and the Isle of Axholme. It is also a privilege to speak on a subject such as this, which is so close to my heart and something that I feel so passionately about.
First, let me pay tribute to Lord Pickles and Ed Balls for the work that they have done on this memorial, which is going to happen. I have absolute confidence that this memorial will be built. I was in the tent pavilion just a couple of weeks ago when representatives from the Government and the Opposition attended an event for Yom HaShoah. Both Front-Bench teams attended to confirm yet again, in front of Holocaust survivors and members of the community, that this memorial will be built and that it will be built next to Parliament. I was very grateful for that confirmation, as were the members of the Jewish community groups and the survivors who were there.
I also want to pay tribute to my hon. Friend the Member for Carlisle (John Stevenson). I did not necessarily agree with what he had to say, but he did chair the hybrid Bill Committee. As a fellow Chair of a hybrid Bill Committee, I wish him every success, because his Bill actually made it back to this place. On the HS2 Bill, which I chaired, we spent a year or more listening to petitioners, as he had done, but that turned out to be in vain. We should not worry, though, because those three afternoons a week that we lost were not without some value.
I also want to apologise to my hon. Friend the Member for Cities of London and Westminster (Nickie Aiken) for speaking on a matter that is in her constituency. I suppose that it is the burden of representing this area. I would be very protective and my hackles would be well and truly up if I had people interfering in my patch, so, although I apologise for that, I am going to be a hypocrite and now interfere in her constituency. But I may not be the first person in here to have engaged in hypocrisy.
Last night, I hosted an event here for Terraforming, a civil society group from Serbia. I refer the House to my entry in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests because I recently visited that organisation in Serbia. We held that event here in Parliament to showcase the story of Serbian Jewry and what happened to them during second world war and the somewhat unique way in which Serbia was divided up. The process of the Holocaust in Serbia was very different depending on where in Serbia the Jewish community lived, but the result was of course the same. The group was so proud to hold that event here in Parliament, the seat of the British Government. It meant so much to them to tell that story here. That is why having the memorial next to this building—intrinsically linked to it, emotionally and physically—is so important.
As we told the story of what happened to the Jews of Serbia, I was reminded of the visit that I made back in April on the 80th anniversary of the deportation of the Jews of Novi Sad, in the part of Serbia that was occupied by the Hungarian fascist regime. Those Jews were herded into a synagogue on, I believe, 26 April, held there for two days without drink and food, and then shipped off, largely to Auschwitz, and murdered. That synagogue still stands, and we stood in it 80 years to the day on which the Jews of Novi Sad were rounded up and forced into it. Again, that reminded me of the value of having a place to memorialise and remember what happened. We are lucky in Britain, with the exception of the Channel Islands, not to have had that experience ourselves, so we do not have venues in which what happened during the Holocaust took place. That is why it is so important to have a memorial close to the seat of Government.
I am probably the only person present who, when I had a proper job, which I now may well have to return to, taught the Holocaust curriculum to our young people as a history teacher. Such education is perhaps more important than ever, as living memory of the Holocaust fades. People of my generation—officially I am 35, but that may or may not be the truth—had grandparents and family who were directly involved in world war two, so the Holocaust and the experience of world war two was living history for us. For anybody who is below my generation, that is not the case. We have increasingly less living testimony, which is why it is more important than ever that we create new resources and facilities
where that testimony can live on for those who are not connected in the same way that people of my generation were, because of our grandparents, or that the generation before was, because of their parents.
As a history teacher, I would have very much valued having a place in the nation’s capital to which we could have brought young people to not only tell them the story of the Holocaust and its horrors but then relate it to how this place, and the decisions that were taken here, played such an important role in ultimately demolishing the machinery of murder that led to the herding of human beings on to cattle trucks in the millions, their transportation to concentration camps, and then ultimately their murder in gas chambers. To have had a place to bring my students, next to this place, which is so important in the story of how the Nazi regime and the Holocaust were ended, would have been so valuable.
Despite the brilliant work of organisations such as the Holocaust Educational Trust, we sadly cannot take all the young people in this country to Europe to see the concentration camps. That is not possible, but the ability to bring young people to somewhere central in this country where we can tell them about not only the experience and the horrors of the Holocaust but the very proud role that our democratic institutions played at that time is so important.
Why is this now more important than ever before? To answer that question, it is important to remember how the Holocaust started. It did not start with Auschwitz. That was the end. It did not start with gas chambers or with cattle trucks; it began with the demonisation of a people purely because of their racial and religious background. Its form, I am afraid to say, is familiar in what we see today. Jewish students were banned from university campuses, and we see Jewish students being questioned and being prevented from gaining access to university campuses across much of the west at the moment.
5.45 pm
The Holocaust began with the demonisation of Jews. We see that now through the demonisation of the state of Israel, which is a cover for the demonisation of Jews. It began with boycotts, with people demanding an end to purchasing from Jewish companies and businesses, shop windows being smashed and synagogues being attacked. A synagogue in Toronto was smashed up this week for the second time. It began with attacks on Jewish community facilities, and we have seen that across the west at this moment in time.
This week I sat down with students from the Union of Jewish Students, who told me of the genuinely horrific experiences Jewish students are having on campuses in this country at this time, which have manifested in Jews being afraid to wear anything that marks them out as Jewish. I am proud to be a Reform Jew and I wear my kippah in synagogue, but since 7 October I have deliberately worn it on public transit in this country, to show my pride and my lack of fear. Of course, I am a 6 feet 2 inches big overweight bloke, so I perhaps have more confidence in doing that, but I have been proud to do that at a time when very many people in the community are not.