{"id":61144,"date":"2015-09-07T20:14:06","date_gmt":"2015-09-07T20:14:06","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/mostafa.openonline.co.uk\/?guid=e805899517c0bac3e622f7e210b48f5f"},"modified":"2015-09-07T20:14:06","modified_gmt":"2015-09-07T20:14:06","slug":"speech-it-can-happen-again-the-danger-of-rising-anti-semitism","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mostafa.openonline.co.uk\/?p=61144","title":{"rendered":"Speech: It can happen again: the danger of rising anti-Semitism"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n

\u201cIt happened, therefore it can happen again.\u201d<\/p>\n

Primo Levi\u2019s words capture with an almost beautiful simplicity the central lesson of the Shoah\u2026<\/p>\n

\u2026so much so that they are carved into the subterranean walls of Berlin\u2019s Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe.<\/p>\n

Yet today, more than 70 years since the liberation of the death camps, both the Holocaust and Levi\u2019s warning are slipping to the fringes of living memory.<\/p>\n

Now more than ever we cannot allow that to happen.<\/p>\n

Because in 2015 history is beginning to repeat itself. <\/p>\n

Across Europe, anti-Semitism is on the rise. <\/p>\n

It\u2019s easy to dismiss. <\/p>\n

To see \u2018liars\u2019 painted across an advert for a Holocaust Memorial event, and say it\u2019s just petty vandalism. <\/p>\n

Or to hear Dutch football fans chanting \u201cHamas, Hamas, Jews to the gas\u201d and say it\u2019s just a few bad apples. <\/p>\n

Or to see a Rabbi being chased through Gateshead by a gang and say it\u2019s an isolated incident.<\/p>\n

To do so ignores the grim reality. <\/p>\n

In the past 3 years Jewish schools, shops, museums and places of worship have been attacked by gunmen in Toulouse\u2026<\/p>\n

\u2026 in Paris\u2026
\n\u2026 in Brussels\u2026
\n\u2026 and in Copenhagen. <\/p>\n

In civilised Western Europe, in the 21st century, Jews are once again being murdered simply for being Jews.<\/p>\n

But mass murder is not the beginning of the process. <\/p>\n

It never is.<\/p>\n

The Holocaust did not begin in the gas chambers of Auschwitz and Treblinka.<\/p>\n

Indiscriminate killing is simply where hatred, left unchecked, reaches its tragic conclusion.<\/p>\n

The Holocaust began with nothing more than words. <\/p>\n

Then came the insults, boycotts, discrimination. <\/p>\n

The noxious weed of anti-Semitism crept insidiously into everyday life\u2026<\/p>\n

\u2026 degrading, denouncing and dehumanising its victims\u2026<\/p>\n

\u2026until the stage was set for violence, oppression and finally murder on a scale unprecedented before or since. <\/p>\n

That steady escalation meant that the 6 million individuals who died were not the only victims of the Holocaust. <\/p>\n

Countless more were forced from their homes\u2026<\/p>\n

\u2026abandoning everything they owned\u2026<\/p>\n

often leaving family members behind as they desperately sought a friendly harbour in desperately unfriendly times.<\/p>\n

Many found that harbour in Britain.<\/p>\n

For that we have to thank people like Sir Nicholas Winton. <\/p>\n

In 1939, as darkness descended across Europe, he organised the rescue of 669 Czech children as part of the Kindertransport. <\/p>\n

Today, there are literally thousands of people \u2013 the children and their descendants \u2013 who can say they owe their lives to him.<\/p>\n

Sir Nicholas died earlier this year at the age of 106. <\/p>\n

But his daughter Barbara is here this evening, along with 2 of the children he brought to the UK. <\/p>\n

Barbara, I know your father was a reluctant hero. <\/p>\n

But a hero he truly was. <\/p>\n

He deserves our eternal gratitude. <\/p>\n

Anyone who fled murderous extremism 75 years ago will find the refugee crisis we face today depressingly familiar. <\/p>\n

Despite what some say, ISIL are not the Nazis. <\/p>\n

What we\u2019re seeing in Syria is not genocide or a Holocaust. <\/p>\n

But when we see armed police herd refugees onto a train, telling them they\u2019re heading for a new life when in fact they\u2019re on their way to a detention camp\u2026 <\/p>\n

When we see the shutters come down and the \u2018we\u2019re full\u2019 signs go up\u2026<\/p>\n

It\u2019s a chilling reminder of what happens when we forget the recent past. <\/p>\n

Of the lack of empathy, education and awareness of history that allows such scenes to unfold in modern Europe. <\/p>\n

Of how easily and quickly we forget what went before.<\/p>\n

A migrant leaves their home in search of a better one. <\/p>\n

A refugee has no home to go to. <\/p>\n

And it is incumbent upon those of us who are more fortunate to offer such men, women and children the safe haven they desperately need and they truly deserve.<\/p>\n

If we look the other way, if we say it\u2019s nothing to do with us, if we say a refugee\u2019s not welcome here because of his or her religion\u2026 <\/p>\n

Well, then we are no better than those who tried to bar the door against Jewish refugees two generations ago\u2026<\/p>\n

\u2026 and we have failed to learn the lesson that Levi so clearly set out.<\/p>\n

That it happened, and therefore it can happen again. <\/p>\n

That is why, this afternoon, the Prime Minister set out our immediate steps to tackle the current crisis.<\/p>\n

But we also need to tackle the root of the problem, the often violent extremism that is on the rise around the world. <\/p>\n

And I\u2019m not just talking about the butchers of ISIL or Al Qaeda, thousands of miles away in foreign lands. <\/p>\n

There\u2019s plenty of intolerance much closer to home, intolerance that is disproportionately directed at the Jewish community.<\/p>\n

Some is explicit. <\/p>\n

The hate preachers, the extremist mosques, the far-Right groups.<\/p>\n

Some is more oblique. <\/p>\n

A search on Google produces more than half a million hits for \u2018Holocaust Hoax\u2019. <\/p>\n

Thousands more pages will tell you that a greedy Otto Frank forged his daughter\u2019s diary in a cunning scheme to make money. <\/p>\n

Then there are the \u2018dinner party anti-Semites\u2019. <\/p>\n

Respectable, middle-class people who would recoil in horror if you accused them of racism\u2026<\/p>\n

\u2026but are quite happy to repeat modern takes on age-old myths and slanders about Jews. <\/p>\n

Who can\u2019t condemn the murder of Jewish children in France without a caveat criticising the Israeli government. <\/p>\n

Who demand that a Jewish American artist sign a declaration of support for Palestine if he wants to perform at a festival in Spain.<\/p>\n

I can\u2019t remember the last time I spoke to a Jewish friend or colleague who hasn\u2019t, at some point, found themselves sitting awkwardly at a dinner party\u2026<\/p>\n

\u2026 while a fellow guest railed against the international \u2018Kosher Conspiracy\u2019. <\/p>\n

Together, these attitudes create a climate in which anti-Semitism is seen as \u2018less bad\u2019 than other forms of discrimination. <\/p>\n

And in that climate, the most violent extremism can take root and it can thrive.<\/p>\n

It happened, therefore it can happen again. <\/p>\n

But there is hope in the darkness. <\/p>\n

Those ideas can be challenged. <\/p>\n

Those minds can be changed. <\/p>\n

The climate of intolerance can be turned on its head. <\/p>\n

And for 27 years that is exactly what the Holocaust Educational Trust (HET<\/abbr>) has been doing. <\/p>\n

In schools, in the media, in the streets, HET<\/abbr> helps us not just to remember the past but, just as importantly, to learn from it. <\/p>\n

I\u2019ve long been a supporter of your work\u2026<\/p>\n

\u2026and in 2011 I got a new appreciation for what you do when I accompanied a group of students from Bromsgrove on a Lessons from Auschwitz visit. <\/p>\n

I\u2019d read about the Shoah.<\/p>\n

But nothing could prepare me for what I saw when I visited that bleak, forbidding place in person. <\/p>\n

Nothing will erase from my mind the sight of battered suitcases still bearing nametags.<\/p>\n

Of thousands upon thousands of shoes stolen from the feet of murdered men, women and tiny children.<\/p>\n

Everyone who joined me on that visit took something different from it, but none of us will ever forget what we learned there. <\/p>\n

And nor will we stop sharing it with the world.<\/p>\n

Lessons from Auschwitz is a powerful and necessary programme. <\/p>\n

It was rightly supported by the Labour government, and by the Coalition government. <\/p>\n

And I\u2019m proud to say that it will continue to be supported by the Conservative government. <\/p>\n

There are too many good people involved with the Holocaust Educational Trust to pay tribute to you all. <\/p>\n

But I do want to thank Poju Zabludowicz for hosting this dinner. <\/p>\n

Because of Poju\u2019s generosity, every penny raised tonight will go direct to the trust\u2019s vital educational work.<\/p>\n

So there are no excuses, give generously!<\/p>\n

But most of all, let me salute the trust\u2019s team of Holocaust survivors, more than 40 of whom are with us today. <\/p>\n

You witnessed humanity at its very worst. <\/p>\n

But you represent it at its very best. <\/p>\n

By standing up and sharing your experiences, you honour the memory of generations past and make the world safer for generations to come. <\/p>\n

By showing us where hatred leads, you can stop it in its tracks.<\/p>\n

So on behalf of everyone here tonight and everyone who has benefited from your selfless work, thank you.<\/p>\n

That applause was richly deserved. <\/p>\n

But it doesn\u2019t quite seem adequate. <\/p>\n

After everything you\u2019ve been through, a politician standing here once a year and saying \u2018good work, keep it up\u2019; it really isn\u2019t enough.<\/p>\n

That\u2019s why the Prime Minister set up the Holocaust Commission 18 months ago. <\/p>\n

And let me just thank the Chief Rabbi, who I know is here tonight, for his work on that Commission. <\/p>\n

And another member was Sir Peter Bazalgette who is now the man tasked with chairing the UK Holocaust Memorial Foundation.<\/p>\n

The work of the Foundation to establish a National Memorial and Learning Centre will be vital\u2026<\/p>\n

\u2026 in ensuring we always remember the people and communities that were lost to us. <\/p>\n

So huge thanks to Baz for all his work on the project so far.<\/p>\n

But what really excites me about this work is the way it will support us to do even more to educate people across the country. <\/p>\n

Because buildings and memorials are not enough \u2013 we also need to change the way people think and act.<\/p>\n

Ella Lingens-Rainer was an Austrian doctor, a Gentile, who courageously worked to save Jews while she herself was detained in Auschwitz. <\/p>\n

And, after the war, when Ella was asked why she had risked so much to protect complete strangers, her explanation was very simple. <\/p>\n

\u201cThe people who ordered and implemented these horrible deeds were not so many,\u201d she said. <\/p>\n

\u201cBut infinitely many others let it happen, because they lacked the courage to prevent them.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey withdrew with a sigh claiming that \u2018there is nothing we can do\u2019, even in those cases when something could be done.\u201d<\/p>\n

Seventy years later, we cannot afford to withdraw with a sigh.<\/p>\n

We cannot lack the courage to stand up, together, and say that we will not tolerate intolerance.<\/p>\n

So tonight I call on every decent Briton, whether you\u2019re of any faith or none, to join us all in the fight against extremism and anti-Semitism. <\/p>\n

And I call on everyone here today to support the Holocaust Educational Trust, and to give the memory of the Holocaust a place within your walls. <\/p>\n

Because it happened. <\/p>\n

And it falls to us to see that it never happens again. <\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Business Secretary Sajid Javid talks to the Holocaust Educational Trust annual dinner about the dangers of letting intolerance go unchecked.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":8,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[13],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mostafa.openonline.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/61144"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mostafa.openonline.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mostafa.openonline.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mostafa.openonline.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/8"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mostafa.openonline.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=61144"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/mostafa.openonline.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/61144\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mostafa.openonline.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=61144"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mostafa.openonline.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=61144"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mostafa.openonline.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=61144"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}