Speaker’s
Statement
Mr Speaker
Before we start our business, I wish to invite the House to
commemorate a tragic and sombre event. On 17 December 1942—80
years ago, on Saturday—the then Foreign Secretary, Anthony Eden,
read to the House a declaration issued by the wartime allies
condemning the treatment of Jewish people by the Nazis in
occupied Europe. The declaration followed a diplomatic note sent
to the allied powers a week earlier, by the Polish Foreign
Minister in exile—the first official report that the holocaust
was under way. The evil acts described in the declaration were,
and remain, difficult to comprehend. It said:
“From all the occupied countries Jews are being transported, in
conditions of appalling horror and brutality, to Eastern
Europe…None of those taken away are ever heard of again. The
able-bodied are slowly worked to death in labour camps. The
infirm are left to die of exposure and starvation, or are
deliberately massacred in mass executions.”
After the Foreign Secretary read the declaration and was
questioned on it, the Member for Islington South, William Cluse,
asked:
“Is it possible, in your judgement, Mr. Speaker, for Members of
the House to rise in their places and stand in silence in support
of this protest against disgusting barbarism?”
Speaker FitzRoy replied:
“That should be a spontaneous act by the House as a whole.”
Hansard records that
“Members of the House then stood in silence.”—[Official Report,
17 December 1942; Vol. 385, c. 2083-2087.]
A journalist covering the event said:
“I have never seen anything like this silence which was like the
frown of the conscience of mankind.”
Today, we are honoured to be joined in the Gallery by seven
survivors of the holocaust, representatives of Britain’s Jewish
community and the Holocaust Memorial Day Trust. As an exception,
and because this is such a poignant moment, I have agreed that
the Parliamentary Broadcasting Unit and our House of Commons
photographer can capture images of them here today.
To remember that important moment, and as a tribute to all those
who suffered at the hands of the Nazis, I now invite the House to
join me for a minute of silent reflection.
The House observed a one-minute silence.
