Prime Minister Theresa May pledged to tackle “growing hatred” in her Holocaust Memorial Day message this year. In a handwritten message, the Prime Minister joined numerous Conservative MPs and MPs from across the political divide in signing the Holocaust Educational Trust’s (HET) Book of Commitment.
She wrote: “No words can ever do justice to the six million who were so cruelly murdered in the Holocaust but we can pay a fitting tribute through our deeds today”.
The Prime Minister added: “As the Shoah begins to drift to the edge of living memory, we can once again commit ourselves to remembering those who were murdered, and to ensure that such a human catastrophe is never permitted to happen again”.
Foreign Secretary Jeremy Hunt gave the keynote speech at an event to mark International Holocaust Remembrance Day, where a statue of ‘British Schindler’ Frank Foley was unveiled. Mr Foley and his staff at the British Embassy in Berlin helped 10,000 Jews escape Nazi Germany. Read Foreign Secretary Hunt’s full speech here.
On Tuesday, Home Secretary Sajid Javid addressed HET’s packed Lord Merlyn-Rees Memorial event. Mr Javid stated: “Antisemitism is still alive very sadly in this country today…I am determined to do everything I can to confront hate and tackle antisemitism, and never forget the horrors of the past, nor ever let it happen again”.
In Prime Minister’s Questions on Wednesday, Gillian Keegan MP raised the story of Holocaust survivor Simon Gronowski, whose life is portrayed in the opera ‘Push’, which will be performed in Parliament on Monday by a Chichester choir. She emphasised it is “vital that we learn the lessons of history to eradicate antisemitism”.
