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.