3. Statement by the Minister for Social Justice: Holocaust Memorial Day 2023

Part of the debate – in the Senedd at 3:35 pm on 24 January 2023.

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Photo of Delyth Jewell Delyth Jewell Plaid Cymru 3:35, 24 January 2023

On Holocaust Memorial Day, as so often, I'll be thinking about Zigi Shipper, an Auschwitz survivor, who died last week, on his ninety-third birthday. I had the honour of meeting Zigi in Westminster, and I heard him speak, not only about the horrors he faced during that period, when man's hatred of other human beings was allowed to conquer all sense of humanity, but also about the wonderful life he'd lived in the years since, because chance allowed him to survive. His story overwhelmed me, and when I was leaving the room, he grabbed my hand, and he said, 'I saw that you were crying. Why do you cry? I'm so happy'. Minister, I worry that, as more survivors pass away, the immediacy of their testimony could be lost, that that direct link that reminds us of the consequences of unchecked hatred could be loosened. What is the Welsh Government doing, please, to capture that testimony, working with the Holocaust Educational Trust and others, to teach not only schoolchildren but grown adults too about how easy it was for human beings to slip into that ugliness, and how easily it could happen again?