MPs stood in silence today [Thursday, 15 December] to
mark 80 years since the UK first publicly recognised what we now
know as the Holocaust was taking place in Nazi-occupied Europe.
The Government’s shocking announcement on 17 December 1942
prompted a spontaneous moment of silence, which was reported to
be the first in the history of the Chamber.
, Speaker of the House of
Commons, led a one-minute silence to commemorate the grim
anniversary at the start of business earlier today.
To add to the poignancy of the occasion, the MPs was joined in
the Speaker’s Gallery by seven survivors of the Holocaust and
representatives of Britain’s Jewish community.
said: ‘It takes a lot to
quieten the House of Commons, but 80 years ago MPs were
spontaneously stunned into silence after it was confirmed that
the Nazis were responsible for the systematic mass murder of the
Jewish population in Europe.
‘It was a moment like no other and was described by one
parliamentary correspondent as being “like the frown of the
conscience of mankind”.
‘Given the genocides that have occurred since, and the horrific
war crimes that are taking place in Ukraine now, it is important
that we mark this significant anniversary with the people who
survived the Holocaust.’
Olivia Marks-Woldman, CEO of the Holocaust Memorial Day Trust,
said it was ‘a great privilege’ for survivors to be invited to
join in the MPs’ moment of silence.
‘It is immensely fitting that people who 80 years ago were
suffering such appalling cruelty will now be honoured in the
heart of our democracy,’ she said.
Back in 1942, then Foreign Secretary Anthony Eden told a hushed
House that ‘reliable reports’ had confirmed ‘Hitler’s oft
repeated intention to exterminate the Jewish people in Europe...’
His shocking statement led Labour MP William Cluse to suggest
that the House should ‘stand as a protest against this disgusting
barbarism’.
Speaker FitzRoy replied that this was a matter for the House
itself, which prompted Conservative MP Sir Waldron Smithers to
wave the MPs up.
Percy Cater, the Daily Mail’s Parliamentary Correspondent, wrote
at the time: ‘One after another MP stood until all, in their
hundreds, sombre-garbed and sombre-faced ranks, were on their
feet. I can tell you there were many eyes which were not dry and
there was not, I dare swear, a throat without a lump in it.’
Ends
Notes to editors
- During his statement to the House on 17 December, 1942, Mr
Eden told the MPs: ‘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. The
number of victims of these bloody cruelties is reckoned in many
hundreds of thousands of entirely innocent men, women and
children.’
- From the Speaker’s Gallery seven Holocaust survivors watched
MPs stand as Mr Speaker announced a minute’s silence, shortly
after 0930.
- Holocaust Memorial Day will be commemorated on 27 January
2023.
