5. Statement by the Deputy Minister and Chief Whip: Holocaust Memorial Day

Part of the debate – in the Senedd at 5:32 pm on 28 January 2020.

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Photo of Suzy Davies Suzy Davies Conservative 5:32, 28 January 2020

Thank you very much, Llywydd, for this opportunity. Deputy Minister, can I say 'thank you' for your earlier answers, and for the contributions today? You were right: I did go and visit Auschwitz-Birkenau this time last week. I don't propose to talk about that in particular, except from one particular angle, which we've touched on a little bit already, and that is the necessity for our younger people to go there. It's 75 years since the liberation, as we know. Time has passed. The generations before the young people we have today—my generation, at least, born less than 20 years after the second world war—weren't told about the horrors of the Holocaust, and, in fact, as we heard from Norma Glass, a member of the Jewish community in Swansea, who was at the Pentrehafod event earlier this week—this is an older lady—she wasn't told about the events either, because people couldn't bring themselves to talk about it. That's why I too am pleased with the work of the Holocaust Educational Trust, and, of course, the willingness of survivors to talk to us.

On the back of my exhortation to get as many young people to go to Auschwitz as soon as possible, I think we have to recognise that, because time has passed, we now have stories coming forward of individuals—and I stress it is individuals—thinking it's entirely appropriate, after having seen some of the awful exhibits, and having seen the ovens where people like them burned people like them, that they can stand in front of the death wall, where people like them were shot by people like them, taking selfies and making—. Ridiculous, fun-filled activities, and I wonder: do they see themselves as antisemitic when they're doing that? Because that's what I wanted to ask you about. Part of this Stand Together exhortation is about action, rather than just words, and as part of the visit I did last week—. Obviously, we had a conference alongside it, hosted by the European Jewish Association, which is the biggest association of Jewish organisations across Europe, within the EU and beyond it, and, at the conference, we heard from Ministers of state from across all the European countries that I can think of, and we were all invited to consider further legislation in our countries—and this where action rather than just words comes into what I'm about to say—to combat antisemitism.

We don't have the competence for all these, and I'll go through them as quickly as possible, but the first one was to ask whether states were prepared to penalise organisations or individuals who engage in antisemitic stereotyping in the public domain. It was suggested to us that the national education bodies of all our countries appoint a special representative mandated to liaise with designated Jewish community representatives with expertise in the field of education to ensure that teaching resources are accurate, that the Holocaust is seen as the bigger picture of the Jewish nation and the Jewish story, and the contribution of Jews to public life can be adequately recognised—particularly important in Wales, where the Jewish population is small, and, as Jenny alluded to, education research on the Holocaust more widely, as far as I can tell, anyway, is not as developed as it is in Scotland and England. I recommend Dr Andy Pearce's paper on the Holocaust and the national curriculum of England after 25 years. Neither of these proposals prevents similar steps being taken to combat other type of racial or religious discrimination, of course.

Then, thirdly, they called for an outright ban on the trade of Nazi memorabilia for personal profit or macabre interest, excluding legitimate historians and institutions, of course. It was a highlight of the event for me to meet Abdallah Chatila, the Lebanese Christian who spent €600,000 of his own money to take a number of Hitler's personal possessions off the market, and they're now on their way to Yad Vashem. We don't have the competence for all of this, but if standing together does mean action rather than words, I wonder if you would be prepared to make representations to the UK Government—I'm sorry the Dubs amendment has come up in this context; I don't think that was appropriate—but also think about what we can do here with the powers that we do have, whether that's through policy or through legislation. Thank you. Diolch, Llywydd.