Meeting of the Parliament 28 January 2020
I am grateful and humbled to participate in the debate, particularly after the outstanding contributions from members across the chamber.
One theme that has emerged is the incomprehensibility of the scale of the crime that was committed against 6 million Jewish human beings. The population of Scotland is 5.4 million. The scale is beyond what any individual can possibly compute into any meaningful experience; it is too much.
However, a sense of empathy and understanding can emerge in considering individual accounts. I will take one of those, which is very small but, for me, is profound. Viktor Frankl, in his memoir of the Holocaust, “Man’s Search for Meaning”, describes the experience of being admitted to a camp, of being forced to undress and, prior to having his hair shaved, along with other prisoners, of being ordered to hand over any medals or jewellery that he had in his possession. When a new inmate asked another inmate, who was supervising, whether he might keep his medal, the supervising inmate laughed, because clearly the new inmate had not realised where he had arrived.
Mr Frankl had to give over his wedding ring. I thought about that. Imagine being rounded up, taken, transported, separated from your partner—your loved one—and forced to hand over your wedding ring, never to see it again. That complete dehumanisation is amplified because, having taken your clothes, having taken your jewellery, they then take your hair, and then they take your name and replace it with a number.
Those kinds of small stories bring to life the horror of what occurred in Europe between 1939 and 1945. Another very simple example is the task that was given to the Sonderkommando—the Jewish prisoners charged with working in the crematoria—and the elaborate ruse and deception that they had to participate in. Before entering the gas chamber, the prisoners were instructed to tie their shoelaces together, so that their shoes could be retrieved easily once the prisoners had had their shower. Imagine what it must have been like to participate in that behaviour, and give that false reassurance—the sheer inhumanity of it. I find that those very small accounts and stories can often be far more profound and more powerful than attempting the seemingly impossible task of trying to contemplate the sheer scale of the crime that was perpetrated against the Jewish people, Gypsies, Roma, the LGBT community, political dissidents, and many others.
The theme of Holocaust memorial day 2020 is “stand together”. However, another theme is emerging—that of a renewed urgency among survivors of the Holocaust to communicate its lessons. It is not enough to acknowledge, to reflect, and to remember. We must learn, in the deepest and most profound sense of the word.
That learning cannot be limited to understanding the Holocaust as an historical event. It has to be more than demonstrating an understanding of the causes of the Holocaust. The learning required needs to be like an inoculation, or of the visceral or reflexive kind that we develop as children in response to danger. We also need an awareness, an alertness, and a sensitivity to the trends and behaviours that are analogous to those that preceded the Holocaust.
That has to start with each of us as individuals: in our own thoughts, in our own hearts and in how we treat each other.
In this Parliament we have our disagreements and disputes, but we stand together. We stand united. We must always reaffirm those values and our fundamental shared humanity. We must cultivate a passion to understand and to learn from each other, to cherish each relationship that we have, to understand and respect our differences and to celebrate what unites us in our common humanity: our ability to reason and our capacity to love each other.
15:51