UK: After 80 Years, There Is No Excuse To Not Know about the Holocaust. *Memorial Day, 12.17.42
- The Guardian, 11 Dec 2022. - MPs Will Again Show Their Respect by Falling Silent in the House of Commons.- Ed.
It takes a lot to silence the House of Commons. However, 80 years ago, the Islington South MP, William Cluse, did exactly that. On 17 December 1942, MPs responded to the British government’s first public acknowledgement of the Holocaust with a spontaneous moment of silence – a first for the chamber. Anthony Eden, the then foreign secretary, read a declaration based on reports from the Polish government-in-exile, detailing the atrocities taking place in Nazi-occupied Europe. Eden reported that:
“From all the occupied countries Jews are being transported, in conditions of appalling horror & brutality, to Eastern Europe … None of those taken away are ever heard of again. The able-bodied are slowly worked to death in labour camps. The infirm are left to die of exposure & starvation or are deliberately massacred in mass executions.” As he detailed the crimes being committed by the Nazis in occupied Europe, the house listened in stunned silence.
Cluse was so moved by the horrors about which he heard that he asked the speaker if the house could stand for a moment of silence. Speaker FitzRoy suggested this should be a spontaneous act of the house as a whole. Waved up by Sir Waldron Smithers MP, the house stood for what is believed to be the first moment of silence observed by the Commons.
It is immensely fitting that on Thursday, almost 80 years to the day since that original act, MPs will again make that solemn gesture, joined from speaker’s gallery by Holocaust survivors & their families. People who, 80 yrs ago, were suffering such appalling cruelty will now be honoured in the heart of our democracy. Survivors will revisit the trauma & suffering & share their experiences with people across the country. The reason they are willing to do so is a passionate desire to ensure that the Holocaust is never forgotten, & that we learn from genocide for a better future.
- This December, the Holocaust Memorial Day Trust will publicise 8 short answers to big questions. These are key facts that we believe every adult in the UK should know about the Holocaust.
The facts are being highlighted at a time when denial & distortion of the Holocaust remains far too common, & when there is widespread ignorance about this recent history...
- More, https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/dec/11/after-eighty-years-there-is-no-excuse-to-not-know-about-the-holocaust
