---

Holocaust Memorial Day

It is encouraging to see how Holocaust memorial day—set up 10 years ago following the work of my hon. Friend the Member for Hendon (Mr. Dismore) with all-party support—has become so much a part of the calendar and the life of this country. However, it was never intended that Holocaust memorial day should be the sole way in which the holocaust should be remembered. Indeed, its remit was not only to commemorate the unique evil of the holocaust, but to learn lessons from that for other genocides and the prejudice and hatred in the whole of our society. It is because remembering the holocaust and learning the lessons from it need action all year round that the work of the Holocaust Educational Trust, which was founded by Lord Janner and the late Lord Merlyn-Rees and of which I am a council member, is so important. Last week I was privileged to take part in the Merlyn-Rees memorial lecture, organised by the Holocaust Educational Trust. There were three aspects of that event that underline the importance of holocaust education in its broadest sense throughout the year. Students from the "Lessons from Auschwitz" programme participated in that event, and talked about how their personal experience of visiting Auschwitz-Birkenau had greatly affected them and, even more importantly, led them to bring back the message about what had happened there to younger people, so that they too could learn the lessons. A reminder of the current pervasiveness of anti-Semitism was brought home very clearly by the hon. Member for Surrey Heath (Michael Gove), and I commend his excellent work in this regard, which takes place all year round. We also listened to a presentation by Efraim Zuroff, from the Simon Wiesenthal Centre. He spoke of the importance of bringing Nazi war criminals to trial. It is important to do that to ensure not only that such people are brought to justice, but that young people today can be educated about what happened in the past. It is chilling to discover that, even now, countries such as Austria and Lithuania resist bringing war criminals to trial despite solid evidence of their complicity in mass murder. That should not be allowed to continue. We should also look at what is happening in the United Kingdom today. The excellent work of the Community Security Trust has revealed record levels of attacks on British Jews. More than 609 incidents were recorded in the first six months of 2009, and increasing numbers of such incidents are linked with events in the middle east. There is an uneasiness across the Jewish community in this country that has not been felt for generations, and that should be a matter not only for that community but for the whole of our society. British Jews are loyal citizens of this country. They participate in and contribute to all walks of life, yet they feel increasingly uneasy and threatened in their own country. We should also be concerned about the messages of hate that emanate from various sources, including the internet. We are familiar with the messages of anti-Semitic hate from organisations such as the British National party. We are all aware of those, and we are rightly ready to condemn what those organisations are doing. But are we as ready to condemn the anti-Semitic messages of hate that come from Islamist jihadist sources? They are present in our society, on our university campuses and on the internet. Are we willing to condemn internet sites such as Hamas's al-Fateh website, which are preaching to British children at this moment messages such as the one in a column entitled "Stories of Uncle Izz al-Din"? The column depicts the Jews""as if they are wolves whose eyes blaze with evil, evil fills their hearts…They are indeed the murderers of the prophets"." Should we allow such a website, with its cartoon headed "Criminal Jews" that depicts a person who is half Israeli soldier, brandishing a gun and with teeth bared, and half stereotyped diaspora Jew, with a skull cap and a big nose, grasping for money? Is it right, as we commemorate Holocaust memorial day, that that internet site should be able to broadcast such messages of hate to children in this country and elsewhere in the world? I am told by the Home Office that it is considering whether there are grounds to stop the website on a voluntary basis. It should make its mind up quickly about that. If we are serious about stopping these messages of hate, we must think not only about the BNP but about Islamist jihadist sources of hate as well. That website is one of them. Holocaust memorial day has never been only about what happened in the past, however horrendous and uniquely evil that was. It has always been about the present and the future as well. It is about learning the lessons of the past for present and future generations. When we talk about the Holocaust memorial day and remember that yesterday's commemorations focused on the message "The Legacy of Hope", we should renew our determination to fight hatred, prejudice and bigotry wherever we find them, so that we can create a society that is happy, acceptable and fit for everyone.