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Holocaust Memorial Day

The hon. Gentleman makes a good point. I did not mean to suggest that bigotry and hatred came from only one part of the political spectrum. I thank him for making that point. The fundamental themes of justice, political literacy and identity inspire and motivate young people to recognise their rights and responsibilities as citizens. We hope that that will come out of the ““Anne Frank and You”” exhibition. By making sense of the past, and realising where unchallenged discrimination can lead, young people are empowered to contribute positively to a future society that we hope will be free from discrimination and hatred. I pay tribute to the Holocaust Educational Trust, which seeks to educate not only children but all people, including parliamentarians, about the holocaust, not just for its own sake, but so that we might learn the lessons that it holds for us today. I have the privilege of being a member of a cross-party party group that the Holocaust Educational Trust took to Poland last year. We visited several places to witness the continuing effect of the holocaust and the concentration camps on modern Polish society as well as the effect on Poles when it happened. One visit that will stay with me for ever was to Majdanek concentration camp. We do not hear much about it in this country because almost everybody died; there were few or no survivors to bear witness. I find it difficult to articulate how I felt after that visit. Although we went in July, it was a horrible, drizzly, foggy day, and the area seemed surrounded in gloom—rightly so. As we went into the huts, I was struck by the smell and the visual drabness of the whole area. My imagination still goes into overdrive about what happened at that terrible place. It is right that the Polish nation and the world keep such places available for us to visit. I pay tribute to the work of the Holocaust Educational Trust in taking sixth formers from my constituency and those of other hon. Members to visit Auschwitz each year. I hope to visit it this year, with children from my constituency. I think that they will find it as affecting an experience as I did, and it is through such experiences that we keep alive what happened during the second world war and ensure that it does not happen again. Another feature of our visit was an opportunity to meet some of our counterparts in the Polish Parliament, and representatives from its President's and Prime Minister's offices, to discuss ways of identifying and combating anti-Semitism and racism. We told them about the British Government's support for the Holocaust Educational Trust's student visits to Auschwitz-Birkenau. We need to ensure that dialogue and discussion continue between our parliamentarians and Polish parliamentarians, so that, through the European Union, we can encourage Poland to come more into this century as well as to look back and deal with the issues arising from the holocaust and the second world war that it has found so difficult to deal with.