Wales Assembly statement on Holocaust Memorial Day - Jan 28
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Jane Hutt AM 16:52:51 Diolch, Llywydd. Yesterday was Holocaust
Memorial Day 2020, which this year marked the seventy-fifth
anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz-Birkenau. The Holocaust
is still living memory and we remain hugely grateful to the
survivors who travel around the UK sharing their personal
experiences of this dark period of history. Yesterday, survivor Dr
Martin Stern MBE spoke at the Holocaust Memorial Day event at
Cardiff city hall with the First Minister, and at...Request free trial
Jane Hutt AM 16:52:51
Diolch, Llywydd. Yesterday was Holocaust Memorial Day 2020, which this year marked the seventy-fifth anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz-Birkenau. The Holocaust is still living memory and we remain hugely grateful to the survivors who travel around the UK sharing their personal experiences of this dark period of history. Yesterday, survivor Dr Martin Stern MBE spoke at the Holocaust Memorial Day event at Cardiff city hall with the First Minister, and at a Welsh Muslim Cultural Foundation event last night, which I also attended with the First Minister. Many Members attended the Holocaust Educational Trust event in the Senedd on 14 January, where survivor Mala Tribich gave her personal account, and Isaac Blake spoke about the experiences of the Roma and Sinti victims of the Holocaust. The theme for Holocaust Memorial Day 2020 is 'Stand Together' or 'Safwn Gyda'n Gilydd'. The Holocaust Memorial Day Trust has encouraged people to consider what can divide communities. As the trust has stated: 'Now more than ever, we need to stand together with others in our communities in order to stop division and the spread of identity-based hostility in our society.' The First Minister and I were also honoured to take part in the candle lighting on the eighth night of Hanukkah. We were grateful to Cardiff Reform Synagogue for inviting us to Insole Court in Cardiff to join in with the celebrations. Regrettably, during the festival of Hanukkah, anti-Semitic graffiti was spray painted on a synagogue and several shops in north London. In early January, it was reported that a 13-year-old boy was physically assaulted and subjected to anti-Semitic abuse while travelling on a bus in London. These incidents in the UK have followed a series of anti-Semitic attacks in New York throughout December. The Welsh Government stands with Jewish communities and against anti-Semitism in Wales and around the world. Following the horrendous attack on the synagogue in Halle, eastern Germany, on 9 October 2019, which resulted in the death of two people, I wrote to Rabbis in Wales to remind communities that they have our full support. In May 2017, the Welsh Government adopted the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance’s definition of anti-Semitism in full and without qualification. We have also provided £40,500 of EU transition funding to the Holocaust Memorial Day Trust to undertake work in Wales as part of this year’s commemorations. The funding went towards three elements: the 75 Memorial Flames project, where community groups across the UK created their own pieces of artwork to remember all those who lost their lives during the Holocaust. Nine of these memorial flames were developed by groups in Wales, including entries from HM Prison Cardiff art group, Merthyr Tydfil central library and the Association of Voluntary Organisations in Wrexham. The Holocaust Memorial Day Trust is planning to bring an exhibition of all of the 75 memorial flames to Cardiff in February, but you can see examples of these memorial flames here in the Senedd until 29 January. The ‘Stand Together’ website, which generates the name of an individual killed in the Holocaust, and encourages website users to share details of this individual on social media to help raise awareness of the individual stories behind the harrowing genocide; and finally, the employment of a support worker to encourage activity in Wales around Holocaust Memorial Day 2020. It is vital that children and young people understand the reasons behind the Holocaust and the consequences of dehumanising sections of society. The Welsh Government gives £119,000 to the Holocaust Educational Trust to deliver the Lessons from Auschwitz project in Wales. The programme is open to 16 to 18-year-old students in post-16 education, and gives learners the opportunity to hear the testimony of a Holocaust survivor and also take part in a visit to Auschwitz-Birkenau. Students then become Holocaust educational trust ambassadors in their own communities, and use their experiences to spread awareness and challenge racism and prejudice. Further to our work to combat anti-Semitism and commemorate the Holocaust, we have bolstered our existing programmes that prevent hate, promote inclusion of diverse communities, and improve support for victims. We have expanded our support for the national hate crime report and support centre, operated on our behalf by Victim Support Cymru. The centre now has increased capacity to raise awareness of hate crime, develop partnerships with community support organisations, and ensure all victims of hate crime can be offered support. We have recently developed the hate crime minority communities grant, which is funding eight third sector organisations to raise awareness of hate crime and how to report it, seek to promote understanding of diversity in communities and trial innovative approaches to tackling hate crime and support victims. The Hate Crime in Schools project will deliver critical thinking skills training for children in approximately 100 schools across Wales, equipping our young people with the skills to identify hate and misinformation, to enable them to avoid becoming perpetrators in future and challenge negative behaviour where it occurs. Our equality and inclusion Programme supports minority communities to have their voices heard and to challenge inequalities. This activity includes groups who have been affected by persecution and genocide, such as Gypsys, Roma and Travellers, refugees and asylum seekers, and LGBT groups. Later this year, we will launch an anti-hate crime campaign to try to turn the corner in the spread of divisive rhetoric. We are involving stakeholders to make the campaign as effective as possible. Tragically, other genocides have followed the Holocaust. The Holocaust Memorial Day Trust encourages remembrance of all people killed in genocides, such as Cambodia, Rwanda, Bosnia and Darfur. This year is also the twenty-fifth anniversary of the Srebrenica massacre, which will be marked in July at an event at the Senedd. We have a duty to carry the memory of those who lost their lives during the Holocaust, and remember victims of all backgrounds: Jewish people, Roma people, disabled people, LGBT people and many other groups who faced unimaginable persecution during this period, and ultimately lost their lives because hate and prejudice had become acceptable. By marking these days of remembrance, we can ensure that these horrendous crimes against humanity are never forgotten and we move the world to a situation where it is never again repeated.
17:00 'By marking these days of remembrance we can ensure that these horrendous crimes against humanity are never forgotten and we move the world to a situation where it is never again repeated.' And I fully, 100 per cent, share your sentiments there. Unfortunately, marking the days of remembrance alone won't ensure that, and we all know when we turn on the television at night and watch the news or documentaries, we see peoples' populations being persecuted across the globe because they're perceived to be different to the Government in power or the dominant belief system or religion in the area they live. So, how do you believe we can more forcefully—at least at a Wales and UK level—lead global understanding and action on this agenda that goes beyond those critical remembrance and commemoration events on specific dates each year and, hopefully, becomes more cultural? Those who lived through the second world war; those who grew up during those years have lived with that memory, but now we have generations, as you know, for whom this appears to be ancient history. Last Friday, I spoke at the Holocaust Memorial Day event in Wrexham. It was great to see so many people there, particularly young people—young people from the local colleges and some from local schools, who did want to understand, to engage and to ensure that these dreadful things never happen again. As you have indicated, we were commemorating 75 years since the liberation of Auschwitz-Birkenau as well as the twenty-fifth anniversary of the genocide in Bosnia. It's also, in April, the seventy-fifth anniversary of the liberation of the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp by British forces. And this year, we've also got the twentieth anniversary of the adoption of the Stockholm declaration, which established what's now known as the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance, and the fifteenth anniversary of the adoption of 27 January as the International Holocaust Remembrance Day by the UN General Assembly. I, like you, attended the event in the Senedd two weeks ago with Mala Tribich and Isaac Blake. How do you feel or respond to the e-mail I've received and I suspect many other Members have today, from the Israel Britain Alliance, which reports a significant rise in the number of antisemitic incidents in the UK, which they say—and I quote—that, sadly, no part of our country, by which they mean the UK, has been immune to the world's oldest hatred? You say—and we add the Welsh Conservatives to this, and I know everybody in this Chamber—we stand with Jewish communities against antisemitism in Wales and around the world. You talk about it being vital that children and young people understand the reasons and you referred to a programme involving 16 to 18-year-old students. In fact, my children attended Castell Alun High School in Flintshire, and most of them benefited from a visit to Auschwitz-Birkenau with their school, and the impression made on them was profound, providing a vital lesson that will remain with them all their lives. They happen to be one of those schools that have recognised how important it is that this is given attention, but there are many others, perhaps, that don't. How can we ensure that this becomes embedded on a more mainstream basis, not just in those schools that are at the forefront of this sort of issue, but those that, perhaps, need to be helped further along the way? I visited, with Assembly colleagues in 2017, the Yad Vashem World Holocaust Remembrance Centre, and in the hall of names, we saw engraved on the mosaic floor the names of the 22 most infamous Nazi murder sites, and buried beneath these, we understood and learned, are the ashes of the victims. And as Chuchill said, the further back you can look, the further forward you are likely to see because the Nazis understood that it's far easier to unite people against rather than for something and they turned against the minorities within. German authorities also targeted, as you know, other groups because of their perceived difference—their racial and biological so-called inferiority, including children—Roma and Sinti Gypsies, disabled Germans, LGBT people, and certain Slavic peoples, particularly Poles and Russians. No wartime document produced by the Nazis spells out how many people were actually killed, but the US Holocaust Memorial Museum estimates 6 million and 11 million others, taking that to 17 million, including—conservatively estimated—0.5 million European Roma and Sinti Gypsies. In fact, the community itself identifies as many as 1.5 million. Again, how would you respond to the e-mail I've received today from Gypsy/Travellers I know living near Conwy, who say, 'We love Jews as God loves them, but we watch the tv, we don't see anything about the Gypsy people exterminated by the Nazis and their allies. Please, people, remember this. Please remember 26 November 1935, when the Nuremburg laws were updated to include the detention of Gypsy people, who were made enemies of the state'? And, of course, they talk about genocide; they call it—let's get this right—the Porajmos, or the genocide. And they said that, 'Just small of bits of persecution, small bits of prejudice left unchallenged can ignite destruction. We pray for our Jewish friends and distant cousins that it never happens again.' And, of course, in 1939, we saw the beginning of the killing of disabled adults and children—Germans experimentally gassed in killing centres in Brandenburg, and thousands of disabled patients killed in gas chambers of shower rooms, creating the model that was then rolled out in the Nazi extermination and concentration camps, such as Auschwitz-Birkenau. Again, conservatively estimated, 0.25 million disabled people, many of those children—Down's syndrome, cerebral palsy and many others—killed in that horrible way. And, actually, there isn't much—. I don't think you really have to answer; I think we're coming from the same place on this. At the core of all that is how we move from this being an annual event or something that we periodically talk about and embed this across our society and lead globally in so doing, so that future generations don't make the same mistakes that generations today are still making and generations of the past did themselves. Thank you.
17:05 Never again to be repeated—that's part of education. That was a very, very strong message from survivor Dr Martin Stern yesterday, that this is about education. And we need to ensure that that is not just through some very excellent projects that we are funding through the Holocaust Educational Trust, but actually taking this further—and we follow on from a very important statement this afternoon by the education Minister—where we look at the curriculum, we look at the purposes. One of the four purposes in our new curriculum in Wales from 2022 is for all children and young people to develop as ethical, informed citizens of Wales and the world, knowledgeable about their culture, communities and society, respecting the needs and rights of others as members of a diverse society. Of course, we see that in our schools, and we see the benefits of that, but this is a very strong tenet of the new curriculum. It is important that we do fund that Holocaust Educational Trust and we encourage more schools to engage. It will be running in February, and we know that young people—and I'm sure that you saw this in the Wrexham event—want to engage, and they become powerful ambassadors and it will change their lives. And we've heard of other programmes that we will look at, I'm sure, later on. But I think that it is about how we then ensure that this is across the curriculum and in all our schools. I think you raise a very important point about Gypsy/Roma/Travellers and I would like to respond to the message you had from your friends in Conwy, from the Gypsies and Travellers, in terms of their experience. Of course, we heard from Issac Blake at the event in the Senedd recently, and if I can then put again on record today that we must remember that the Nazi genocide included a large number of Gypsy and Roma victims and their suffering mustn't be forgotten. It's very clearly part of today's statement and our response across this Chamber, I'm sure. Negative public discourse in relation to these members of our communities—John Griffiths mentioned this earlier on, and I'm glad that they can feed back to us as Assembly Members in terms of these adverse experiences or feelings that they haven't been acknowledged or heard. It's imperative that we do stand together—the message of Holocaust Memorial Day—against such racism and intolerance. But I think the fact that we are awarding considerable sums of finance—£529,500 to the Travelling Ahead project at TGP Cymru—is important because that's about delivering advice and advocacy support to Gypsy, Roma and Traveller communities. That's about making a positive impact on people's lives through supporting community members, but also on the aspects of their lives that are very important in terms of accessing equality of opportunity, training, education and influencing decision making. So, that is a very important part of my response today. But in terms of how we tackle antisemitism, we stand, the Welsh Government, with the Jewish community in Wales and across the world. We consider antisemitic attacks to be an attack on Welsh values of inclusion, freedom and respect. So, that's why working with faith communities is so important to promote those shared values and understanding in Wales. We will work to ensure that Wales continues to be a country where antisemitism and all forms of hate have no place.
17:10 Deputy Minister, I'd echo your words in praising the Holocaust Educational Trust and the crucially important work they do in teaching young people about these horrors and the outreach work they do with survivors. A number of years ago I met Zigi Shipper, a survivor of Auschwitz-Birkenau. His story and his zest for life were, at one and the same time, life-affirming and heartbreaking. Heartbreaking because of how aware we all were in that room of all the stories that couldn't be told because those children didn't survive to live them. Zigi is now 90 years old—I think he's just had his birthday. As survivors of the Holocaust grow older, the time will soon come when no-one is left living who lived through the horrors of that time. The Holocaust didn't happen overnight. It started slowly with a gradual erosion of rights and a narrative set-up of us versus them—the other. Of course, amongst the horrors there were stories of hope, like Sir Nicholas Winton's kindertransport, a scheme that ensured that children who might otherwise have died in the Holocaust were brought to the UK. The Government of the time could have done more, but thank God that that initiative born out of human kindness and compassion saved the lives that it did. I'm sure the Deputy Minister will share my concern that the current UK Government recently refused to accept an amendment in Westminster that would have obliged the UK to continue to allow lone children within the EU to apply for legal family reunion here. I accept that this is not directly to do with the Holocaust. I would not draw a comparison and say that that is the same as the Holocaust, but we have never regretted moments of kindness in our past, let's continue this proud tradition. That's all I'm saying with that point. So, on that, could I ask what assessment would the Welsh Government make of the impact of the kindertransport scheme in Wales still today? And what conversations is the Welsh Government having with the UK Government to plead with them to ensure that in the future migrant children will be allowed to seek refuge here? Deputy Minister, moreover, the statement mentions a number of projects in schools aimed at tackling prejudice, which I welcome. But would the Welsh Government reflect on calls for teaching about the Holocaust to be made a compulsory element of the new curriculum? It's something that's come up a few times in the Chamber today. There's a Primo Levi poem that expresses why we should do this far more eloquently than I could. He says: far more eloquently than I could. He says: 'Meditate that this came about: / I commend these words to you. / Carve them in your hearts / …Repeat them to your children, / Or may your house fall apart, / … May your children turn their faces from you.' It's relevant, I think, to note that Primo Levi died in 1987 and the coroner ruled his death as a suicide. His biographers attribute the depression that gripped him later in life to the traumatic memories of his experiences. The Nobel laureate and Holocaust survivor Elie Wiesel said at the time: 'Primo Levi died at Auschwitz forty years later.' Events like the Holocaust aren't just frozen in time. Their catastrophic effects linger and ripple down the generations. Deputy Minister, do you agree that we owe it to the children of the Holocaust, the Primo Levis, the Ziggy Schippers of this world, and to future generations, to ensure that these events are never allowed to fade into the mist of time, that they can never be allowed to become remote, a horror story that happened to a different people in another time, when things were different? Hugo Rifkind has a blog he published in 2015 where he points out that it happened here, in Europe, in lands of cellos and neckties and bicycles. It was not remote then, it is not remote from us now. We owe it to them, surely, to avoid that old adage, that terrible prospect, that those who forget history are doomed to repeat it.
17:15 I think it's very important to see, in terms of the opportunities with the flames that you'll see around the country, and I hope you will see them in the Senedd today, that, actually, there's also a Lessons from Auschwitz course being run by the Holocaust Educational Trust, and we're enabling schools and teachers to benefit from that. And one of the schools that actually did benefit from our funding this year was Woodlands High School in Cardiff, which also was able to be recognised for the sharing of the flame. It was interesting last night hearing from Dr Martin Stern about the gradual build-up of the Nazi movement and the influence of Adolf Hitler in Germany—Germany, his country that he loved and had to leave. He actually survived the Holocaust as a very young boy, and we've all heard of the stories over the last two days, but he's determined that his story should be shared with the youngest of children in our society. I think importantly yesterday, also, the First Minister said: 'Today is a painful day and I thank Dr Stern for using his touching story to remind us all about the power of tolerance…We must stand together. We must celebrate our differences. And we must believe there is more that unites us than drives us apart. It's the only way to make sure these sorry events stay exactly where they belong—in the history books.' Julie Morgan, the Deputy Minister for Health and Social Services, and I did write to the Home Secretary about the importance of ensuring that we have got an opportunity to support family reunification for child refugees. And, in fact, I acknowledged Lord Alf Dubs, when we had our event on the fourteenth, when we were painting messages on stones, and I think many people had a message to thank him for what he's done for child refugees since he was a child refugee. And I know that we will be writing to find out how the UK Government is proposing UK Government is proposing to support family reunification for child refugees, which is what they have said. So, we will be taking that up following our statement last week. Finally, I would have to say that this is an opportunity for us in this Assembly to unite across the Chamber to stand, making sure that we respond to the standing together message of the national Holocaust movement, and the importance of Holocaust Memorial Day.
17:20 I would therefore like to simply say that, having attended the Holocaust Educational Trust event in the Senedd on the fourteenth of this month, I was completely and utterly moved by the courage of Mala Tribich in giving her testimony, especially when she described the moment she and her young cousin entered the infamous camp of Belsen. To feel I was in the presence of someone whose eyes had actually gazed on the horrors of that camp brought home to me as nothing had previously the sheer brutality of those times. We must never forget that these appalling crimes were carried out by a supposedly civilised nation. The events that occurred in Cambodia, Rwanda and Darfur, and much closer to home in Bosnia especially, in Srebrenica, remind us of the constant potential for man's inhumanity to man. Just one point I wish to raise with regard to this report, Deputy Minister, and that is many were murdered by the Nazis simply because they were disabled. I know Mark has raised this point as well. It should be noted here that most hate crime is aimed at those who are disabled in some way. If we are to teach people about intolerance to their fellow beings, this aspect of being victimised because you are different should also be emphasised in any project aimed at eliminating prejudice.
Member
Member So, I think that we have to remember that there was huge resistance by the UK Government both to bringing in people in Kindertransport, before the war, and so many of those children died in the concentration camps, but also to bringing in any of these children at all. It was only down to the persistence of this visionary man that he managed to negotiate with both the UK Government and with the Red Cross to persuade them to allow these people to come to the Lake District to have some sort of rehabilitation before they had to reintegrate with normal life. with normal life. It was great to see Mala Tribich, who was undoubtedly the star of the show at our event here in the Senedd on 14 January, but she was also the central character in Westminster central hall, because it was her story that was mentioned by the Prime Minister; it was her who briefed him on what he had to say. I think one of the things that was most heartening about the event yesterday in City Hall was to hear Dr Martin Stern being so clear that it isn't about just this one historic event, but all the 50 other Holocausts that have happened since then; all the genocides that have happened since then. I just wanted to also say that I think the Stand Together initiative of this year's Holocaust memorial is really important, because it has started to tell the story of all the other people who were murdered by the Nazis so that—. On my chair was the name of somebody called Ewald Förster who was murdered by the Nazis for being a gay person, and also Sophie—[Inaudible.] murdered by the Nazis for being a disabled person. But equally, I wanted to come back to what was mentioned by Mark Isherwood, which was also the destruction and murder of the Roma and Sinti, which was spoken about by Isaac Blake. He embraced the memorial stone project that was also brought to the Senedd two weeks ago, and organised for schools to take part in that creative project so that they could be part of the permanent memorial in Westminster. He told me yesterday that several schools had turned down the opportunity to allow their pupils to make a memorial stone on the grounds that they didn't have any Gypsies or Travellers amongst their pupils, as if this was something that only affected certain types of people, which is quite extraordinary. But I just wanted to come back to the way in which we have neglected, up until now, the horror that was suffered by Roma and Sinti by the Nazis. Because it's worth noting that the Jewish people were given reparations by Germany for their Holocaust crimes, but at Nuremberg, nobody ever discussed any reparations for the Roma and Sinti community or anybody else, as far as I'm aware. And I think one of the most important things I learnt from the event here at the Senedd was that, whilst we know—and I think everybody in this Chamber knows that 6 million Jews were murdered by the Nazis—we do not know how many Roma and Sinti were murdered by the Nazis, even though they were absolutely religious note takers of everything they did. We know that there was a large number, but we have no idea how many. Most estimates put it between 220,000 and 500,000, but some scholars put it as high as 1.5 million. And I just wondered whether there was anything that the Welsh Government could do to support the research required to tie down exactly how many Roma and Sinti were murdered by the Nazis because I think it's an important part of recording the pain and suffering that was suffered by people who mainly had no literacy, and therefore didn't record things in the way that most Jewish people did. So, I just wondered whether there was anything that could be done to rectify that; to help support some further research into trying to have a much more granular idea of just how many other people, other than Jews, were murdered by the Nazis.
17:25 Today he's speaking to 280 pupils from year 9 at Fitzalan High School; he's going to Eastern High School, he's speaking to students, he's going to meet the school council; he's speaking to 130 sixth-formers and staff from Cardiff and central south Wales; he's going to Swansea; he's going all over Wales in south Wales—all of your constituencies, you will find that he's going to be there. He's been to north Wales, he tells me, several times. But it is quite remarkable, the influence of survivors. He's a retired doctor, and he just says, 'This is what I do', and he spoke last night about the fact that he could not speak about it, he could not do this, until he had retired. And many other survivors have been in this place, and I thank you for mentioning Mala Tribich and what she did. Now, I just want to finally say, in response to your two points, yes, it's important that Stand Together actually reflects what we're trying to do in terms of strengthening equality and inclusion and human rights in Wales, and we must recongise that in terms of LGBT people and what we're doing to tackle hate crime, exclusion and discrimination. And I will follow up with Issac Blake. We fund, support, as I've said, organisations that support Gypsies and Travellers, but also the Romani arts community that Issac supports. Because he influences schools across Wales, from Newport, from Pill, to Carmarthen, to Pembrokeshire, and the children, who aren't—obviously, these are not all diverse schools, but they are schools that are learning about this, and we will look at how we can extend our knowledge, as that will be important for the students and the children, who will benefit.
17:30
Member On the back of my exhortation to get as many young people to go to Auschwitz as soon as possible, I think we have to recognise that, because time has passed, we now have stories coming forward of individuals—and I stress it is individuals—thinking it's entirely appropriate, after having seen some of the awful exhibits, and having seen the ovens where people like them burned people like them, that they can stand in front of the death wall, where people like them were shot by people like them, taking selfies and making—. Ridiculous, fun-filled activities, and I wonder do they see themselves as anti-Semitic when they're doing that. Because that's what I wanted to ask you about. Part of this Stand Together exhortation is about action, rather than just words, and as part of the visit I did last week—. Obviously, we had a conference alongside it, hosted by the European Jewish Association, which is the biggest association of Jewish organisations across Europe, within the EU and beyond it, and, at the conference, we heard from Ministers of state from across all the European countries that I can think of, and we were all invited to consider further legislation in our countries—and this where action rather than just words comes into what I'm about to say—to combat anti-Semitism.
We don't have the competence for all these, and I'll go through
them as quickly as possible, but the first one was to ask whether
states were prepared to penalise organisations or individuals who
engage in anti-Semitic stereotyping in the public domain. It was
suggested to us that the national education bodies of all our
countries appoint a special representative mandated to liaise
with designated Jewish community representatives with expertise
in the field of education help keep their memory
alive. Their tragic destiny must remain visible
and guide us towards a more just and inclusive society, free from
hate. Does the Deputy Minister agree with this statement released
this week to mark the Holocaust commemorations by the Council of
Europe, and does she agree that this is a timely reminder of how
we are, regardless of formal ties or not, ultimately stronger
together as partners and friends in Europe, united by values of
tolerance and understanding, and in our remembering the painful
lessons of the recent past, to prevent our repeating of them in
the future? |