Inroductory comments given at the Yad Vashem International Education Conference, July 2008 on The Holocaust:Fighting Racism and Prejudice:
Talia, 15, Jewish day school pupil:
"The Fact that no one stood up to was happening to friends and neighbours is horrific. I will now do my best when I see those in trouble and try to help on my street and around the World."
Fact: 30% of all Asian and Black people are targets of crime in the UK in a typical 12 month period. If you are mixed race that goes up to 46%
Fact: In 2006 there were 1700 antisemitic incidents in the UK ? four times the number of incidents against Muslims.
Fahmia, 15, Muslim day school pupil:
"I did know about the Holocaust, but I was not aware about other genocides. I guess it is up to us to make people more aware, or history will certainly repeat itself."
Fact: 192,000 people voted for the British National Party at the last elections ? almost 1% of all eligible voters.
Fact: The British National Party is antisemitic, but it primarily targets Asian communities and immigrants
Fact: The BNP has secured over one hundred council seats across the UK.
Karin, 15, Permanently excluded from school:
"During our visit to the Holocaust Centre I experienced many emotions. Sadness, anger, hatred, hope. I thought I was well prepared for the place, until I met a Holocaust survivor that is. Then just when I thought it was all over I saw the film on Rwanda. I just wanted to get up and do something."
Fact: Omar Saddiq Khan is serving for life for the 7 July bombings in London.
Omar Khan Sharif and his accomplice Asif Hanif killed three and injured 60 at Mike?s Place bombing in Tel Aviv. All three of these killers lived within the catchment area of our Holocaust Centre.
Carlton, 16, he already has a gun and knife crime record:
'Learning about what happened to others in the past and what it can teach about our lives today is more relevant than school trying to tell me I need a new language or something. This changes people?s lives and stuff. To come here and to learn this that's a big opportunity. At school they seem to miss the real important things about life.'
Fact: 18 teenagers have been murdered in violent knife crime this year in London alone.
Fact: The Singh family of Newstead, Nottinghamshire were driven from their village by racist hate crime.
All of this at the place I call home.
And so I invite you to our peaceful memorial in the County of Nottinghamshire. Perhaps you will sit for a while in the rose garden and remember the 6million wasted lives. But please do not come to hide. I invite you instead to struggle. To grapple with that dark unknown we call humanity.
You see, I worry that we do not really fear the Holocaust anymore. We revere it. We articulate it. We read it, discuss it, teach it. Sometimes it seems we almost play with its memory, shuffling its victims like dolls in a pram, re-arranging it like dark Legoland.
I know that it is not intentionally like that. But please, do not hide behind the camps and the corpses. Do not take authority from their suffering. Do not wear their shame with your pride.
Sometimes I wonder if what we really fear is ourselves. Perhaps we are the real unknown here. In our search for meaning we confront the Holocaust. We look into its abyss and understand something we cannot articulate. We feel the pain, the loss, the sorrow. And we know deep in our soul it will never end. We know that.
Then of all things that should really change us, instead, The Holocaust shields us, absolves us, engulfs us. We disappear into the comfort of its power.
Friends do not embrace it. It is not your friend. Fear it, because its nemesis is closer than you think.
David Bankier was right when he said that the current generation think we live in a different society. We do. But they also need to know it is not a better one.
I have done hiding; the reality at home is far too stark. Please, please look in your backyard too, on your own doorstep, in your own home. Come out, wherever you are. What are we afraid of, if not ourselves?
