{"id":78110,"date":"2017-01-18T17:31:06","date_gmt":"2017-01-18T17:31:06","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/mostafa.openonline.co.uk\/?guid=2904689273db7dd87056c56af1a9a0dc"},"modified":"2017-01-18T17:31:06","modified_gmt":"2017-01-18T17:31:06","slug":"speech-lessons-from-the-long-night-why-we-must-all-stand-up-to-bigotry","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mostafa.openonline.co.uk\/?p=78110","title":{"rendered":"Speech: Lessons from The Long Night: why we must all stand up to bigotry"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n

In Danny\u2019s forward to The Long Night, he makes the point that with every Holocaust story you learn something new.<\/p>\n

Each time a survivor shares their memories you gain another perspective on what happened.<\/p>\n

And whenever you hear from someone who was actually there, you\u2019re reminded once again of the human lives that lie behind the cold, hard statistics of the Shoah.<\/p>\n

As an MP and a minister I\u2019ve been privileged to meet with several men and women who lived through the Holocaust.<\/p>\n

I\u2019ve had the honour of hearing their testimony first-hand.<\/p>\n

Thanks to Karen and everyone at the Holocaust Educational Trust (HET), 100,000 young people a year can say the same.<\/p>\n

And, thanks to the government-backed Lessons From Auschwitz project, thousands of schoolchildren and teachers are able to visit the most notorious of death camps every year.<\/p>\n

I myself accompanied a group from my constituency back in 2011, soon after I first became an MP.<\/p>\n

And it was one of the most emotional, moving experiences I\u2019ve ever had.<\/p>\n

But it\u2019s now more than 70 years since the camps were liberated.<\/p>\n

Time, inevitably, takes its toll on the brave, strong men and women who survived the Third Reich.<\/p>\n

That\u2019s why it\u2019s never been more important to listen to them and to learn from them now.<\/p>\n

And it\u2019s also why I\u2019m so pleased to see this new, English edition of Ernst Bornstein\u2019s incredible story.<\/p>\n

Not just because it\u2019s an amazing piece of writing, which undoubtedly it is.<\/p>\n

But because The Long Night contains a number of lessons that all of us would do well to reflect on, both today and in the future.<\/p>\n

The first is the way the full horror of the Holocaust unfolds only slowly.<\/p>\n

It creeps up on you.<\/p>\n

The first time Bornstein encounters Nazi soldiers they\u2019re chatting to civilians and handing chocolates to children.<\/p>\n

The first labour camp is relatively humane.<\/p>\n

But as the book goes on, the situation grows gradually worse.<\/p>\n

Conditions deteriorate.<\/p>\n

Rations decline.<\/p>\n

Brutality increases.<\/p>\n

Death \u2013 initially a rare occurrence that provokes great shock \u2013 becomes routine.<\/p>\n

And, almost before you know it, you\u2019re reading this horrific, vivid, deeply disturbing account of the death marches.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s a reminder that the Holocaust did not begin in the gas chambers.<\/p>\n

The Holocaust began when anti-Semitism was legitimised.<\/p>\n

It began when hatred and bigotry were allowed to grow without challenge.<\/p>\n

When low-level violence and discrimination against Jews was tolerated and then encouraged.<\/p>\n

And that\u2019s a lesson that\u2019s so important today.<\/p>\n

Last year the Community Security Trust reported an alarming increase in anti-Semitic incidents.<\/p>\n

In the summer there was a worrying spike in levels of hate crime more generally.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s easy to dismiss, and say they are just some isolated cases.<\/p>\n

But the Holocaust shows the danger of letting intolerance take root.<\/p>\n

Of normalising bigotry.<\/p>\n

Left unchecked, hatred quickly snowballs and can lead to truly horrific acts.<\/p>\n

But it\u2019s not enough to simply tell ourselves that we disapprove.
\nWe have to stand up and take action.<\/p>\n

Which brings me to the second lesson I took from the Long Night.<\/p>\n

We often look at the Holocaust through the stories of individual survivors and victims.<\/p>\n

But this book reminds us that it\u2019s not just the victims who were people.<\/p>\n

The perpetrators were too.<\/p>\n

Too often, they\u2019re dismissed as some vast, faceless machine.<\/p>\n

Doing so diminishes their individual guilt.<\/p>\n

And that\u2019s not something Bornstein allows.<\/p>\n

He paints a vivid picture of named kapos and \u201cblock elders\u201d.<\/p>\n

Of specific SS men and camp guards.<\/p>\n

Each with their own character, their own face, and their own story.<\/p>\n

Then there are the bystanders.<\/p>\n

Passengers on comfortable trains who turn their faces away.<\/p>\n

The farmer who refuses to offer sanctuary, or even a scrap of food, to fleeing prisoners.<\/p>\n

And the crowds of worshippers who file out of church on Sunday morning and studiously ignore the column of human misery that\u2019s marching right past them.<\/p>\n

Supposedly good Christian men and women who, in Bornstein\u2019s words: \u201cCalmly surveyed our misery and, with hardened hearts, observed us like statisticians contemplating criminals.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Holocaust would not have happened were it not for a few evil individuals.<\/p>\n

But it could not have happened without millions of ordinary men and women choosing to look the other way.<\/p>\n

Remembering the complicity of the bystander is particularly important right now.<\/p>\n

Because the blunt truth is that hate crime is not committed and permitted by some faceless \u201cother\u201d.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s down to people.<\/p>\n

People just like you and me.<\/p>\n

I\u2019ve talked before about the insidious way anti-Semitism has made a comeback in politics and polite society.<\/p>\n

But if our only reaction is to tell ourselves how awful it is, then we\u2019re not just failing the victims.<\/p>\n

We\u2019re failing in a fundamental moral duty to society.<\/p>\n

We have to call out bigotry and racism whenever we see it and wherever we see it.<\/p>\n

We have to object when a line is crossed from legitimate debate to smears and abuse.<\/p>\n

We have to push back when people lazily reach for glib comparisons that belittle what happened, calling those we disagree with \u201cNazis\u201d or claiming someone\u2019s actions are \u201cjust like the Holocaust\u201d.<\/p>\n

Ultimately, we must be prepared to do that most un-British of things \u2013 we have to make a scene.<\/p>\n

Maybe that\u2019ll be in private.<\/p>\n

Maybe in the media.<\/p>\n

Maybe on Twitter.<\/p>\n

In fact it could be anywhere: the top deck of a bus or right here in Parliament.<\/p>\n

What\u2019s certain is that if we don\u2019t speak out against hatred and anti-Semitism it will become normalised.<\/p>\n

It will become part of everyday life.<\/p>\n

And once that happens, the consequences once again will be tragic.<\/p>\n

But I\u2019m hopeful.<\/p>\n

I look around this room and I see people who are willing and able to take a stand.<\/p>\n

I see organisations like the Holocaust Educational Trust spreading the word.<\/p>\n

I see the HET\u2019s ambassadors, amazing young people who have volunteered to make sure survivors\u2019 stories are shared with their peers.<\/p>\n

It reminds me that most people are fundamentally good at heart, even if they need a little nudge now and then.<\/p>\n

That\u2019s why the third message I took from Bornstein\u2019s testimony is a message of hope.<\/p>\n

First, in the fact that throughout his time in the camps and in years that followed, Bornstein simply refused to be beaten.<\/p>\n

He was determined to fight on.<\/p>\n

To see justice done.<\/p>\n

To ensure that the crimes committed against his family were not forgotten.<\/p>\n

That, in itself, I find very inspiring.<\/p>\n

But I\u2019m also struck by the many acts of kindness he describes.<\/p>\n

The nameless farm girl who offers a starving Bornstein some bread.<\/p>\n

Meister Hermann, the electrician who takes Bornstein under his wing.<\/p>\n

The fellow inmate at Flossenberg who risks his own life to save the author from certain death.<\/p>\n

Together, they show that even in the darkest, longest of nights, light can shine through \u2013 but only if we choose to let it.<\/p>\n

There\u2019s a small Holocaust memorial established by Ernst Bornstein, I think it\u2019s in Dachau.<\/p>\n

The inscription simply reads: \u201cTo honour the dead and to warn the living.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Long Night does exactly that.<\/p>\n

Noemie, I can\u2019t thank you enough for bringing your father\u2019s words to a new audience and to a new generation.<\/p>\n

I know it wasn\u2019t easy.<\/p>\n

But as first-hand memories of the Holocaust begin to fade, his painful testimony becomes more important than ever.<\/p>\n

And it\u2019s more important than ever that we heed his warning and learn from it.<\/p>\n

That\u2019s why I\u2019m so proud to be overseeing work on the new national Holocaust memorial and learning centre<\/a>, to be built just a short walk from where we are right now.<\/p>\n

It will help ensure that the people of this country never forget the horrors of the past, and remind us all of the need to resist bigotry in all its forms.<\/p>\n

Dr Enrst Israel Bornstein was strong enough to survive years of abuse at the hands of racists and anti-Semites.<\/p>\n

Surely, in 2017, we can be strong enough to stand up and speak out in the face of such hatred.<\/p>\n

Thank you.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Sajid Javid reflects on the modern-day relevance of Ernst Bornstein’s memoir of life and death in the Nazi labour camps<\/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\/78110"}],"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=78110"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/mostafa.openonline.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/78110\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mostafa.openonline.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=78110"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mostafa.openonline.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=78110"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mostafa.openonline.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=78110"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}