Hansard

In Auschwitz-Birkenau, which was one of six camps built explicitly for the purpose of extermination, 1.1 million people, most of whom were Jewish, lost their lives.

Such massive numbers give us a sense of the scale of the cynical mass murder that was carried out, but they require to be remembered alongside the personal testimonies and stories so that we never remain unconnected to that dark moment of history.

As the years go by, as new anniversaries of the Holocaust are marked and as lived memory of it fades, the work to know, understand and connect to the past becomes all the more vital. In that process, we must ensure that we educate our young people about compassion and respect, so that they can emerge into adulthood as responsible and compassionate individuals who are able to contribute positively to our society.

It is for that reason that the Scottish Government continues to support the work of the Holocaust Educational Trust and its lessons from Auschwitz project, which is an incredibly powerful way for young people to gain an insight into the horrors of the Holocaust and, just as important, to learn about why it happened. The programme has enabled almost 5,000 students and teachers from across Scotland to take part in the project and to visit Auschwitz.

In November last year, I had the privilege of joining the Holocaust Educational Trust on one of its trips. I joined students from around Scotland, including some who attend schools in my constituency. Just last week, I met Carluke high school pupils Nikita Stevenson and Caitlin Woodhead to reflect on the trip, the impact that it has had and the continued relevance of ensuring that the Holocaust is never forgotten.

It is an intense trip that begins with a description of what life was like in Europe and in Poland at that time. Communities were made up of people of different faiths who lived together as neighbours, customers, friends and colleagues. The destruction of that way of life, which was caused by vilifying, othering, stigmatising and blaming social ills on those of Jewish faith or on those who were simply different, was the deliberate build-up to the strategic effort to exterminate a race. Although what went on in the extermination camps should never be forgotten, the context and systematic racism that led to the Holocaust must also be remembered.

When I spoke with Nikita and Caitlin, it was clear that the shared experiences of what we saw at the camp will remain indelibly in our minds for the rest of our lives. The mountains of prisoners’ personal items that were on display—spectacles, combs, shaving tools and hair brushes—reminded us of the normal everyday actions and needs of the people who were sent to the camps. Such items are still so familiar to us today. I saw the piles of suitcases of those who were taken by train to Auschwitz, with names and addresses carefully written on them as though they would at some point get them back. I saw the crutches, callipers and medical devices and aids of those who were vulnerable and deemed to be of no use to the Nazi regime.

I saw the shoes—piles and piles of shoes—that were worn by the prisoners, who would step no more through life’s journey. Some shoes were beautiful—red, and with heels that suggested times of enjoyment, fun and dancing, and a life wanting to be lived. Painfully, I saw the shoes of the children who, with their tiny feet, had made their first tentative steps in life, but whose lives, ultimately, came to a cruel and fatal end. Then we saw the mountains of hair—pigtails, plaits and curls, all shorn from the heads of the prisoners in an attempt to further dehumanise them and then bundled up like sheep’s fleece.

Seeing all that alongside the terrifying scale and efficiency of a camp that was specifically designed to kill more and more people quicker and faster was impactful and overwhelming. For the ambassadors whom I spoke to, it was also life changing. Before the trip, Nikita wanted to study law because it interested her, and Caitlin wanted to be a nurse. Following the trip, Nikita wants to practise human rights law, to defend against human rights abuses and to speak up against intolerance. Caitlin wants to specialise in mental health nursing in order to help people cope with trauma.

Those are just two stories of two young women whose profound experience has led to a determination to never forget the Holocaust and to do all that they can to build a better future for themselves and others. However, there are hundreds of other stories of lives that have been impacted by the trip and of a passion to create a better world.

That is why the trip is so important. It ensures that the story is never forgotten, but it also instructs and ensures that the next generation understand that their actions matter and that their passions, commitment and acts can make a difference. I know that those two inspiring young women from Carluke will go on to have a positive impact on the lives of the most vulnerable, and that they will always be guided by the lessons that they learned at Auschwitz.

However, the sad truth is that the Holocaust did not spell the end of suffering caused by prejudice, and the lessons of the past have not been globally heeded. Last year marked the 25th anniversary of the Rwandan genocide and the 40th anniversary of the end of genocide in Cambodia. This year marks the 25th anniversary of the start of the atrocities in northern Bosnia. Just 25 years ago, rebel Bosnian-Serb forces carried out an act of genocide that claimed the lives of more than 8,000 Bosniaks, and tortured and raped many more because of their ethnicity.

It seems unthinkable that such atrocities could happen during our lifetime, let alone on a continent that we share. It is a stark reminder of the fragility of our world that—at any time and in any place—peace, progress and tolerance cannot be taken for granted. They need to be worked for, cherished and promoted.

As we reflect on the devastating and terrifying consequences of those genocides, atrocious human rights violations are happening in the world right now. In 2018, an ordinary day of worship was turned into a day of fear that was felt across the world following the attack at the Tree of Life synagogue in Pittsburgh, and again last year, when hundreds of innocent people were massacred in Christchurch, New Zealand, and in Sri Lanka.

We must reflect on the division that we are increasingly seeing in the world today. We must remember that those perpetrators were not born to hate. They were ordinary people with mothers, fathers, siblings and friends who learned to hate and were drawn into a particular ideology that called for the death and suffering of people who they believed were not like them.

Although Scotland is an open and inclusive nation, we are not, unfortunately, immune to hatred or prejudicial attitudes. We must not permit the creep of complacency and we must remain vigilant in calling out discrimination, racism and hatred when we see it—here and globally. The theme of Holocaust memorial day, “Stand together”, is so important in that regard because it highlights that we need to work together if we are to build safe, resilient and inclusive communities. We cannot tackle hatred and prejudice alone; we must do so together—united.

Tackling hate crime and prejudice remains a priority for this Government. In June 2017, we published an ambitious programme of work to tackle hate crime and build community cohesion. As part of that, we adopted the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance’s definition of antisemitism, which reflects the value that we place on tackling antisemitism and sends a strong message that we believe antisemitism to be entirely unacceptable in Scotland. We also recently consulted on adopting a definition of Islamophobia, and we are considering the responses to that.

There is absolutely no place in Scotland for any form of hatred that makes our communities feel insecure or threatened in their daily lives, and we will continue to work tirelessly to tackle hatred and prejudice in any way that we can.

Although this corner of Scotland might be many hundreds of miles away from Auschwitz, and although the sands of time pass, what must not pass or seem distant is our ability to remember and to never forget. However, we must also remember with a resolve to learn from that past and to act to build a world that is free of hatred and intolerance.

We should be heartened by the stories of courage and bravery of those who chose not to be indifferent but who fought for freedom and liberty, and who chose to save lives and offer hope—people such as Jane Haining, the only Scottish missionary officially recognised as a Holocaust hero and honoured by Yad Vashem as righteous among the nations for saving the lives of Jewish girls. She paid the ultimate price for her bravery in Auschwitz 75 years ago. We must also be inspired by a new generation who are determined to use their learning—found through the work of the Holocaust Educational Trust—to contribute to a better future for everyone, regardless of who they are or where they are from.

I am proud to be in the chamber today. Our collective presence—politicians from all parties—represents a powerful and unified display of the type of country and world that we want to be part of. Respect, compassion, love and kindness should be the hallmarks of our modern world—a world that challenges hate and the practice of othering. We are here to say that we will not forget, that we will always remember—and we do so with a commitment to act relentlessly for a better world.

I move,

That the Parliament recognises that 2020’s Holocaust Memorial Day on 27 January marked the 75th anniversary of the Liberation of Auschwitz-Birkenau; remembers everyone affected by the Holocaust, including the execution of 17 million people, six million of whom were Jewish; acknowledges the importance of learning the lessons from the Holocaust and subsequent genocides, including the value of the Holocaust Education Trust’s Lessons from Auschwitz Project, which gives students from schools in Scotland the opportunity to visit Auschwitz; notes this year’s theme, Stand together, which highlights the importance of building safe, resilient and inclusive communities in order to tackle hatred and prejudice; commends the incredible courage of those who stood up in support of justice, equality and humanity, especially those who made the ultimate sacrifice, and recommits to stand together, united against hate, in order to build a society where hatred and prejudice are not tolerated.