Trudy Gold, Howard Jacobson, Susan Pollack, Josef Bar-Pereg, Anita Lasker-Wallfisch, Joanna Millan, and Dame Janet Suzman
Holocaust Memorial Day
Holocaust Memorial Day
- This poem is titled “The Genius,” by Leonard Cohen. “For you, I will be a ghetto Jew and dance and put white stockings on my twisted limbs and poison wells across the town. For you, I will be an apostate Jew until the Spanish priest of the blood vow in the Talmud and where the bones of the child are hid. For you, I will be a banker Jew and bring to ruin a proud old hunting king and end his line. For you, I will be a Broadway Jew and cry in theatres for my mother and sell bargain goods beneath the counter. For you, I will be a Doctor Jew and search in all the garbage cans for foreskins to sew back again. For you, I will be a Dachau Jew and lie down in lime with twisted limbs and bloated pain no mind can understand.”
- Thank you. 27th of January, 2022, 77 years since a Ukrainian regiment, attached to the Soviet army came across one of the largest death camps in Poland and found about 5,000 people sick and dying because the Nazis, in their insane hatred, had frog marched over 58,000 Jews back into the German interior. Towards the end of the war, killing Jews became more important than winning. How was it that the best educated nation in the world, the nation of high culture, sunk into the most extraordinary barbarism? I can do no better than quote the great Stefan Zweig. “I have witnessed the most terrible defeat of reason, the wildest triumph of brutality, in the Chronicles of the ages. Never has any generation experienced such moral regression, from such a spiritual height, as our generation had.” And of course, he escaped first the United Kingdom, and then terrified that the Nazis would cross the channel, He fled to Brazil where he committed suicide. And this was the conclusion of his note. “I think it better to conclude, in good time and in erect bearing, a life in which intellectual labour meant the purest joy and personal freedom, the highest goal on Earth.” How on earth do we equate that kind of incredible humanist intelligence with what happened? How was it, as I said before, the best educated nation in the world could elect into power an insane racist who had, at his core, a death cult. And how was it that the highest membership of the Nazi party came from the medical, legal, and academic professions? What was this rent in civilization? Will we ever really be able to recover from it? In the year 2000, sorry, it wasn’t, it was, yes, in the year 2000, the Swedish government had experienced antisemitism. How was it so soon after the Holocaust it had happened? They called together a meeting in Stockholm. I was present.
Anita Lasker-Wallfisch and her family actually played for the group. It was a very important meeting. It was the first international conference of the third millennium. Presidents, prime ministers, foreign ministers, NGOs. And they pledged that they were going to try to fight racism and antisemitism through education. Holocaust Day was established in many countries. January the 27th was chosen by the British, by the Americans, and by many other countries. Other places used dates that were very up to them. For example, Israel chose the liberation, not the liberation, in many ways it was though, the uprising in the Warsaw Ghetto. Now, we all believed that we could harness education to good. That if the Nazis had harvest it to evil. Never forget that the people who sat around the table at Wannsee, two thirds of them had doctorates in law from the top German universities. We did believe that through education, a humanist education, if the Holocaust, oh, I don’t even like that word. It’s a wrong word, it means burnt offering. Sacrifice. If the Shoah was taught in a human way, in a humanitarian way, then, just perhaps, the world would wake up. It’s incredibly painful in the presence of survivors, and I know online, many of you have families who were so involved and tragedy struck as a result of the Shoah. So we have a very difficult thing to do here, today.
On one level, we must honour our people. On another level, we must try an account for the insane rise in antisemitism. One would’ve thought that, with all the Holocaust teaching, and there are over 300 memorials throughout the world, now, museums and the memorials. It’s on the core curriculum. One should have thought, if one had any notion of humanity, that it would’ve got through to people. And I know the survivors online today, and also so many who go into schools and tell their stories. And let’s not forget they have a huge impact on children. But it isn’t lessening anti-Semitism. As Rabbi Jonathan Sacks famously said: “First they hated our religion. Then they hated our race. Now they hate our nation.” And the tragedy is that the butt of antisemitism, today, in the main, is the state of Israel. And I’m not going to get involved in anything political. I’m talking about Israel’s right to exist. I’m talking about the fact that Israel is seen as the pariah of the nations if one looks at the kind of resolutions passed in the United Nations. So consequently, what on earth has happened? And in order to explore this, I’d like, now, to introduce the extraordinary novelist, the award-winning novelist, Mr. Howard Jacobson. Howard, I want to pose you a question, please. Can Howard unmute please?
I’m unmuted, I think.
[Trudy] Oh, you’re perfect.
And I’m waiting for you.
It’s a line that you wrote that has always haunted me. You wrote, and you’ve said it in different ways, in many of your articles, and in your pieces, “They can’t forgive us for the Holocaust.” Can you expand on that, as you see it today?
I think I can. But can I first say, in a way, I’m embarrassed to be here, because I’m not quite sure what my rights are among people who have been through what they’ve been through, or whose families have been through what they’ve been through. And I haven’t and mine hasn’t. I am just somebody out there, trying to put his mind to these questions that you are asking, as a Jew and nothing else. I have no other rights except that I put my mind to this. Night and day, I put my mind to this. I don’t think about much else. I only really think about Jewish questions, and Jewish questions of these kinds. When will Jews ever be forgiven the Holocaust? This comes from a thought by the philosopher Grey, John Grey, who said that, “People find it very, very difficult to meet an obligation. And the minute that people are feel morally obliged, they hate those to whom they are morally obliged.” Jews have been hated when people felt contempt for them, when people felt beyond them, over them. People have hated Jews when people feel the opposite. And to feel an obligation to Jews is something that humanity has a great deal of difficulty with. Not least as the thing that they feel they have to, should feel guilt about and don’t want to feel guilt about, is a thing that removes from them the opportunity to feel superior to Jews.
It’s very hard to go on feeling morally superior to a people to whom you have behaved with no morality or superiority, whatsoever. So there is a strong impetus in people. One can do no better than people, because some don’t feel it, and some people feel it more, to not forgive the Jews the Holocaust. And the way that they don’t forgive the Holocaust, well, there are many ways. The most popular going around at the moment is to say, “Okay, there was this terrible thing called,” whatever we call it, you don’t like calling it the Holocaust, but we’ve got to call it something for the moment, the Shoah. There was this terrible thing. Rather than deny it, as we once did, we will say, “Yes, it was the most terrible thing. But given that it was such a terrible thing, should the Jews, the victims not have learned from it?” This is as though the Shoah was a university which awarded degrees in compassion. Should the Jews not have learned from the Holocaust, from the Shoah. And the fact that they didn’t learn from the Shoah is proved, some people say, these people say, by how they behave. You are quite right to to bring up Israel. There is no escaping Israel, not politically, but morally, ethically, spiritually, there’s no escaping it.
The proof that the Jews did not learn from the Holocaust is the way they behave to the Palestinians. And the worse we can describe their behaviour to the Palestinians, the more exorbitant and extravagant we can describe what they do to the Palestinians, the more we can show, not only that they did not learn from the Holocaust, but in a kind of way, using a kind of backward retributive justice, it almost proves that they deserved the Holocaust. And this is a play of the mind, which is around at the moment. It’s very slippery. It convinces a lot of people. It convinces a lot of Jews. And it is most persuasive, of course, in universities. And here we’ll come back to the problem that you raised, how is it that the most educated seem the most capable of barbarity? How is it, in our time, that the most educated seem the most capable of entertaining the idea of barbarity, if not behaving barbarously? You look around, any Jew looking around at his enemies today, will say most of them, in the UK anyway, are in the universities.
You brought up two issues that I’d like to take further. One is you said a lot of Jews, themselves, begin to believe, and it leads to a lot of embarrassment. Why do you think it is? Is it because they so desperately want to be loved by the gentile world? Or is it that they’re just ignorant of their own history? What’s your view on it?
I think if you are told, I think simple psychology can be our guide here. If a child is told often enough, by its parents or by its guardians, that it is worthless, that it’s less than worthless, many a child in that situation will eventually come to believe it. I think the Jews have been told they’re worthless so often that many have come to believe it. Now, that’s not the only explanation. There is a desire to be loved by other people. There is a desire to be more liberal than anybody else. There is a desire to show, to escape the family. There’s always a fear of, there’s always been a fear among Jews that they are something about belonging to the small family of Jews, the small pack, the small shtetl, the small village, makes you provincial. The Jewish, particularly the intellectuals, the Jewish intellectual’s fear of being thought provincial cannot be overestimated. And one of the ways that you show you are not provincial is to show that you do not have a small closed mind in relation to yourself. And in order to do that, you embrace what, if you were less anxious about how you are seeing, what people who are less anxious about who they were seeing, would call their enemies. So you embrace what your enemies say about you in order to show that you are above the petty fogging, petty mindedness, of the small provincial people. And it’s the fear of being a small provincial people that has dogged Jews for centuries.
That’s a very interesting point. And the other point that I’m finding more and more painful, Holocaust Memorial Day, let’s call it that. And yet most of the commemorations, and they’re going to be all over England, it’s been all over the news. But most of them are now also including other genocides. Now let me be very careful here. Any life lost is horrific. But it seems almost that they are now diluting the Shoah and saying, if you like, they’re creating a whole big soup of genocides. Yes, people have behaved appallingly to people and let’s just hope it never happens again. Whereas, not going into the root causes of any of them. And I find this kind of relativism equally dangerous, Howard.
So do I. I think all relativism is dangerous. I think being able to distinguish, and to discriminate, in the best sense of that of that word, is essential to know how one thing is both like and not like another thing. To say this, I agree with you. We have to be careful to say that there is something very particular, but let’s just say particular, and not special, about the thing that we call the Shoah, is not to say that we’ve suffered more than anybody else or that we should care more about ourselves. It is just to say, it is of a particular kind. And it is of a particular kind. And not to be able to understand it at the moment is very, very frightening. Can I just say this? I think we live in perilous times. I think any Jew alive for the last 2000 years would’ve said we live in perilous times. But we live in, it’s not only the Jews who live in perilous times at the moment, it’s all of us. We are forgetting how to remember. We don’t want to remember. The whole business of cancelling, and we won’t get into cancel culture, but cancelling is about removing the memory of something. We don’t wish to remember. And not only do we have cancelling to to deal with, we also have actually not knowing. There is less cancelling necessary in a culture where people don’t know. It was very interesting that a, what appeared to be an elegant minded Pakistani cricketer, who complained about racist treatment at his football club, very eloquently, and with a lot of sympathy, and then was caught out having said a few mildly, only mildly, antisemitic things on Twitter, for which he promptly apologised, and then said he’d like to be educated because he’d never heard of Auschwitz. He’d never heard. How can you not have heard of Auschwitz? An educated man in middle age? How can he not have?
There is an ignorance in our time, that is bred by our reliance on that machinery that we thought was going to make us enlightened, the internet and social media. Turns out to be, wouldn’t you just know it, turns out to be a machinery for obfuscation and ignorance. People have short memories. They forget things. And the things that they do remember, they’re being told, are not what they were. Myself, I think, there’s never been so much danger to the idea of remembering, that there is now. And memory is essential to Jews. We live by our memories. To the degree that we remember, are we. And that’s why all our festivals are festivals of remembering. We know. It’s in our bones that if we don’t remember we are gone. And so, for us to live in an age that doesn’t value memory, doesn’t have memory, and doesn’t know memory, is exceedingly frightening.
Yes, and I think, on that point, I’m going to leave it and come back to you later, Howard. And Howard, can I say, when I discussed it with the survivors online, you should know that they, you were the only person, really, that we wanted to speak. And in fact, I should tell the group, when I realised I would have to put an event together, I actually wrote to Howard, and I said, “I just don’t have anything left to say.” And he said, “I haven’t either. Let’s say it together.” Because I think, unfortunately, both of us feel quite despairing. But let’s see out of this dialogue, and then to bring in people who have been to hell, just to see. And and most of them are so optimistic. That’s something else extraordinary. I’d like, now, to ask Susan Pollock to join us. Susan, if you could? Thank you, Howard. And I’ll come back to you in a minute. Susan, if I could just ask you to introduce yourself. And the question I asked you is how do you want people to remember?
Thank you very much. Well, my experience having had that welcome responsibility to address schools for more than 30 years, has shown me that there is a thirst, there is a real desire, by the students of various degrees, to learn. And that is has been very satisfying for me. The future, I think, as we have so many films, and now we’ve got a play, and various testimonies. So that should always remain the core. Because we’ve shown what has happened and how we managed to survive, against all odds, Auschwitz-
Would you, would you tell us just that, you of course are Hungarian, would you just tell us a little about your experience?
Hungarian. I’m born Hungarian. And my childhood, my early childhood, was a very happy life. But antisemitism grew. Grew. It’s never left the Hungarian. We had a blood libel in the late 1800s, and that was a very serious offence. Had it not been put into international intervention, I think it could have been widely spread. And in Hungary, yes, antisemitism, and that’s what I like to speak about. Antisemitism, it mutates over time. Yes? Against Israel, against many other issues. Now, of the future, there’s lots and lots of evidence to teach, and it’s been ingrained in the academic world and it’s very helpful.
So in many ways, despite everything we are saying, you still believe that in-
Yeah, but I realise that we are only a few. We cannot do it on our own. We have to somehow collaborate with all faiths. And only then, because it, the responsibility of eliminating antisemitism, should not be just our responsibility. It should be a wider.
It’s interesting, Yehuda Bauer, the other day, he said, “Antisemitism is not a Jewish problem.”
That’s right.
But the problem is-
It is a problem.
Anyway, Susan, thank you so much for speaking to us today. And I know the work you and your colleagues do is extraordinary. But if I may say, I think people feel huge sympathy for you. I wonder if they feel sympathy for you as Susan, a wonderful woman who’s been to hell, or do they actually see you as part of the Jewish people? And that’s a question that I think we’ll come back to. But thank you. Thank you so much, Susan.
Okay, thank you.
You’re a treasure. Bless you. I’d now like to ask Joseph Bar-Pereg to join us. Joseph is joining us from Amsterdam. And he was hidden, as a child, in Holland. So Joseph, can you come online please?
Yes. I think I’m online. You can hear me?
Yes you are. Yes you are, Joseph. Welcome.
I heard about remembering. And I remember, from the age of five, everything, probably. I remember standing in front of the window of our house, seeing the Germans marching, the German SS, or SA, whatever they were, marching through the streets. That in ‘43, beginning of '43, my parents decided to let me and my sister go into hiding. I even remember the car that took us from the Hague, where we lived. I remember the colour. I remember everything. And we went into hiding. After a couple of days we were moved to another hiding place. Probably to lose, to lose us for the authorities. Finally, I ended up with my sister in dog’s kennels where people did hide us. And I remember that one day somebody came, Mr. Boss. And Mr. Boss took me to his house, about 110 miles away, near the German border. That was the last time that I saw my sister. He looked after me from the beginning of '43 to the end of war. I could be free. What does that mean? Free? I could play in the street. I got, simply, a new identity. And I was suddenly Johannes VanDerval, according to the story that he invented. My mother was Chinese, Indonesian, my father a Dutch seafarer. And he was lost at the Java Sea, torpedoed by the Japanese. That was the story. And that is how I could go free through the war. During that time, I saw also children would call me a half blood, that were the children of Indonesian mothers with Dutch father or the other way around. That was my luck. But there was discrimination. This they tested me because I was not one of them. So that is the way I got through the war.
Your memory, not just that, but also great goodness from this particular family. That’s right, isn’t it Joseph? This family, and one, if I may ask you just one thing, I know we’ve discussed it, that Mr. Boss’s children, you became part of their family, didn’t you?
I became part of the family. Mr and Mrs. Boss had two children. They were both younger than me. So I suddenly was the oldest in the family. And oldest before that, he didn’t like that.
Can I just ask you?
It was a sort of-
Yeah. We’re losing you again. Can I just ask you one more thing? I mean, how do you want the world to remember?
Well, I like people to know. The story has to be told. I do that from time to time. And you, you get very interesting comments on it. One of the most important comments I got, of what I think was important, that a 12 year old, last year, primary school, a boy asked me, “Could you tell me, do you think that you being in hiding as a child influenced the way you brought up your own children?”
Oh, interesting.
That is from a 12 year old kid. Then I saw that it was worth telling the story of my hiding.
I think the point is all these stories are important. And I think all the work you do is good. But I’m still seeing that dissonance. And I know you’ve read so much, Joseph. We go back so many years. And you’ve studied all of Robert Wistrich. But anyway, get back to that later. Joseph, thank you so much for joining us. And I hope soon we’ll be able to see you, either in Amsterdam or London. So, thank you.
Thank you.
I’d now like to ask Dame Janet Suzan to read the first of our poems, “Shama.”
[Lauren] Very good. Very good.
Hmm. Lauren?
[Lauren] I’ve asked her to unmute.
Am I unmuted now? Can you hear me?
Yes you are.
Perfect. Yes.
Okay, good, good.
Welcome, welcome.
I’m going to read to you, this is the point that Howard made, it’s a piece of writing by Elie Wiesel, called “Never Shall I forget.” “Never shall I forget That night, the first night in camp, that turned my life into one long night, seven times sealed. Never shall I forget that smoke. Never shall I forget the small faces of the children, whose bodies I saw transformed into smoke under a silent sky. Never shall I forget those flames that consumed my faith, forever. Never shall I forget the nocturnal silence that deprived me, for all eternity, of the desire to live. Never shall I forget those moments that murdered my God, and my soul, and turned dreams to ashes. Never shall I forget those things, even were I condemned to live as long as God himself. Never.”
Thank you Janet. Thank you. Can I now ask Joanna Milan to join us, please?
Hi. Hello Trudy. Can you hear?
Hi, Joanna. Yes, perfectly. Would you say a few words about your background and then, perhaps, how you feel about that big question, how we should remember?
Well, I was born in Berlin, from German parents. My father was taken to Auschwitz in March of 1943. Died, well, was killed there, in the gas chambers. And my mother was working for Siemens. And their workers were allowed to stay in Berlin longer. And it wasn’t until June of 1943 that my mother and I were deported to Theresienstadt. And my mother died of TB in the camp. One in four people in Theresienstadt actually died in the camp. And of course the rest were deported. Most of them were deported to Auschwitz. I was in the baby house with five other orphans. We were all of a similar age. And I was three when Theresienstadt was liberated. We must have been hidden away in the camp. The women in the kitchens brought us food, every now and again. The people looking after the babies put their head in every so often. But basically, we looked after each other and we were kept together. When the British government sent the planes to Prague, I was one of those children. I went on the bombers, one of the Windermere Children. And I know that we were described as like wild animals. We had no idea of how humans behaved. Grownups always meant danger. And in the end, after a couple of months, we were taken away, probably a bad influence on the others. And so gradually we moved to a house called Bulldogs Bank and learned to speak English, learned to eat with a knife and fork, introduced to toys. It’s just generally they tried to make us into little English children. And after a year, we joined some of the older children in another house. They also went through Theresienstadt. And eventually I was adopted in London. Less than a hundred children survived from Theresienstadt.
I want to say, Joanna, every one of you who’ve come on today, you’ve all lived, you’ve all given so much to the countries you came to. And I know, like Susan, and Joseph, and Anita, you spend so much time trying to educate. You’re a very thoughtful person. What do you feel about remembrance now? What do you feel? I mean, you and I are close friends. We discuss this often. What are your thoughts?
Well, I think we’re wrapping two ideas together. We have remembrance, which only people who’ve been through it, or the families, can remember.
Yes.
Because, of course, in Jews, it becomes part of the genetic makeup. We’re always remembering our history. But other people, you know, they glaze over. They don’t have no idea what what it was like. I’m guilty of it myself when there’s a news item on the TV and it’s about somebody else. And then I’ll go, “Oh, turn this off, I’m not interested.” I think, if it doesn’t affect you, it’s very hard to engage people. I think remembrance is what Jews do. But to talk about education is a different matter. And I think you can’t join them together. I don’t think it works. And I always fear, as you said, when you are talking to the kids, I mean, I’ve been talking this week, as well, and I’ve been talking for over 30 years. I wonder, you see when the children go back to their families, whether the family’s influence is actually greater in the long term, than us. I remember when I first came, people used to cross the road if there was a black person on the other side. Black people weren’t allowed in restaurants. I mean, we’ve come a long way since then. And I think maybe, in time, when the older generation have gone, and the new generation that we’re talking to now, then have children, maybe things might improve, because they’ve had the talk, they’ve met the survivors. And I think once the grandparents have gone, or the parents have gone, depending on the age, they might think for themselves, and remember. So, but I don’t think memorials will work. Because if you’re not involved, what are you supposed to remember?
I also think one of the problems, and I know we’ve discussed this, in a way, when you go into schools, they feel a great deal of sympathy for you. But do they know that you are part of Jewish history? And I think in a way, Holocaust studies has been ripped out Jewish history, which in itself is rather dangerous. I don’t know if you want to comment on that.
Yes, I certainly feel that. And this morning I was talking, not physically in Coventry, but to a group.
They sent you to Coventry, at last.
And the speaker after me was from, oh, from Eastern Europe. And he was talking about his family’s experience, how bad that was. And then they mentioned all the other genocides, the whole time. And I think it lost, totally lost its way, the presentation, it was, first of all, we had a brass band to start with. Yeah, but in a way, I think, ideas are coming out of this. And maybe, just maybe, on this Holocaust Memorial Day, for this particular group, we might be able to come up with, hopefully, a few ideas that could be taken forward. Thank you so much, Joanna. And see you soon. Don’t go. Okay.
Can I just add.
Yes, please.
There was a big discussion about whether we should call it Holocaust Memorial Day, or Genocide Day.
I remember, yeah.
But it was decided to call Holocaust Day. And I think, politically, the government didn’t agree with it. They wanted it to be Genocide Day, because they wanted the Muslims to come, and the Sikhs to come, all the other groups, which they refused to come to it, initially. They weren’t going to come. And I think politically, they are behind this move to make it universal rather than particular.
Who would’ve thought the politicisation of the Shoah. Anyway. Thank you very much, Joanna. Thank you. Anita, would you speak please? Anita next.
[Lauren] Trudy, Anita’s off mute if you want to ask her a question.
Anita, I haven’t got a picture, though.
I can see you, Trudy.
Oh then, I dunno if that’s good or bad. You’ve spent so much time thinking about all these matters. Your story is famous. You said, once, I remember, you survived because you were a criminal and you could play the cello.
Correct.
And I guess you’ve got some very strong opinions. Today, 77 years after Auschwitz, I’m not going to use the word liberation. It was not a liberation. What are your thoughts for us, today?
My thoughts today are that I’m overwhelmed with the sudden interest. I think there’s a first year there’s so much fuss about this day. But I think the biggest danger is to call it Genocide Day. It is sort of watering down of what really happened to the Jews. And what happened to the Jews is very different to what happened to the other people who were murdered. I’m not excusing any of the murders that have been committed. But unless we really understand the difference between the murder of the Jews in the Holocaust, and the Holocaust wasn’t the first, it was just a better and a more sophisticated way of getting rid of Jews. It’s been happening over the centuries. I mean, what happened in Russia? Periodically, Jews were being killed. So, whether we like it or not, there is a difference between the persecution of the Jews and the awful other persecutions, as they have happened. And if we start mixing it together and call a Genocide Day, all we are doing is to water down the Holocaust. And that is, to me is criminal.
Do you still believe that the right kind of education can make a difference?
Education? Well, it depends how it’s done.
Yes, that’s correct.
I mean, what is really missing is education about who we are. We funny people, we, Jews. Why are we everywhere? There must be a reason. So yes, there is, I think, a total lack of education about what Jewish people really are.
Do you think that would make a difference if, because I think one of the problems in British schools is that the Holocaust is very contained. It’s taught within the context of Weimar Germany, the rise of Hitler. There’s not enough background given to Jewish history. So who are these extraordinary aliens that the Nazis hated? And in a very simplistic way, I think, and remember it’s taught to 13 and 14 year olds. And one of the problems is there is no room on the syllabus for Jewish history. And to be perfectly honest and ruthless, it’s not taught very well in Jewish schools, either, Jewish history. Look, I’m not saying that would cure, but at least it would put into some sort of context. I still believe that many people are reasonable, Anita. We’re living in, as Howard said, and Howard, can we bring you in on this, please? Are you, because as Howard said, we live in very dangerous times. Yes, economic, social, and political pressure on everybody plus a pandemic. It’s a tough time out there. I mean, Howard, is there anything you want to add to this? Can we do that, Lauren, technically, bring Howard on?
[Lauren] Of course.
Thank you. Oh, I love it the way you say, “Of course.”
I just want to say, can you hear me now? Yes.
Yes.
I thought what Anita just said was so true and so fantastically and powerfully put. I mean, it is not just, “Well it wouldn’t be quite so good if it was called Genocide.” To take away the idea that we are commemorating a very particular, quite extraordinary event in the life of not only Jews, but the whole world, really, and to miss what was particular about that, and what was so horrific about that, which was not just human cruelty, but the desire to remove a people from the face of the earth, to remove all traces of them. Not just every living person now, but all trace of them. To burn their art. To burn their books. To make it as though, I mean, this is what you call cancel culture. This was uber cancel culture. Get rid of them completely. There’s nothing else, I think, that’s comparable to that, particularly as this has a history. People have wanted to do this for a long time. It is partly embedded, we have to say this, it is embedded in some aspects of Christianity that we do this. So where Anita is quite right, it’s a very, very particular and horrible event that we lose all sight of if we simply put it alongside lots of other not very nice things that were done.
And you also agree with Anita’s point that, if it’s put back into the context of Jewish history, it might make a difference? Or I might talk to-
Well, I dunno about that. I’m not involved in the teaching of anything now. But I can see the importance of that. I also get your point that Jewish history is badly taught. It was certainly, Jewish history was certainly badly taught to me when I was a Jewish boy growing up. It was terrible. The worst part of our education was Jewish education. The Jewish teachers who taught us were hopeless. If they knew something, they didn’t know how to communicate it. It was something that we were un, that we Jewish boys and girls were unable to take seriously. What we learned about being Jewish, we learned ourselves, either through listening to our parents, watching our parents, or reading ourselves. Why this is, I don’t know. It’s partly wrapped up, again, I think to a degree, in Jewish shame, in the absence of confidence, to tell our story with elan, and with assurance, and with joyfulness, as well as tragedy, because ours is an extraordinary story. I mean, look at the people who are here. I feel it’s a kind of sacrilege on my part to talk pessimistically, when one sees such strength, such courage, people who come through all this and talk about it with warmth and hopefulness. That too, is part of the story.
That’s part of the Jewish story. Anita, a question for you, as well, because you come from such a cultured background. You really did believe in building. Have you managed to reconcile the level of education of the perpetrators, with that horror?
No, I have not reconciled anything. And I think it’s absolutely ludicrous for anybody to decide that a certain people, Jewish people, should be eliminated. I mean, who gives you such chutzpah to even think that? Since we believe that God has invented us all.
But I must say.
I, you know, I’m looking for words to describe the ludicrousness of this idea, to think if you remove everybody that’s Jewish, the world will be a better world. I mean, they’ve tried very hard to remove us. But it is impossible.
I think one of the problems, and this is a very tough one to talk about, and I know Howard seems to share this view, much of the blame has to be put at the feet of the Christian Church. And that is, and even when, and look, Nazism in itself was paganism. We all know that. But the point is, there is this negative stereotype that is so deep that even in an irreligious world, it’s so deep in western culture, that it seems impossible to eradicate. I rather liked Howard’s thought, though. Let’s be tough Jews again. Let’s be tough Jews. I mean, and Howard’s totally right. You and your colleagues, you’re such extraordinary people. You have such strong strength and will. And also the glimpse of what the world lost, not just what the Jews lost, but the world lost.
Can I just say this as well. Sorry, Trudy.
Please, please.
While we’re talking about-
There was a story in one of the newspapers, today or yesterday, about educationalists despairing of the fact that that Holocaust history is coming to them through kitch novels about striped pyjamas and things. And these are books that’ve sold millions and millions of copies. And it’s the way many school kids are getting their history. And teachers are pleased about this. 'cause they go, “The kids can relate.” It’s a kind of a Harry Potter-ishness of the Holocaust. Kids are liking it and they can get on with it. And it turns out that some of the German guards were quite sweet and they got on with some of the Jewish kids. It’s kitch, it’s sentimental. And what it’s about is the fear, now, of teaching kids. We know we have all the, this trigger stuff. We mustn’t upset young readers. The truth is, if we are going to tell the story of the Holocaust, it is a horrific story. And it has to be told with, with our eyes wide open. A softened version of it for school kids so that they don’t know what actually was, is a terrifying thing. And it’s a form of denial. It is actually Holocaust denial to say, “Well, you know, there was a bit of sweetness there.” That’s, so I think, yes, tough. Tell the story toughly and don’t be frightened. And no-
I think it began-
This is a hard part. There’s no trigger warning. This is a horrible story. Read it. Because this is the story of what it is to be a human being in our time.
And I think what is extraordinary is that tonight we’ve met four incredible people who still believe. Anita, have you anything final to say before we conclude with our ceremony?
No, I can only praise what our maybe future king has done, with his paintings. I’ve just been to Buckingham Palace. And I mean he’s really, with these paintings, he’s created something that will last. Because of the-
He is a ray of light. He’s a ray of light.
Yes, And I think his attitude is remarkable. And I’m very pleased that I’m included in this.
Yeah, it’s wonderful. Is it also though, I think there’s an awful lot of decent people out there just as there were in Germany, and I think they tend to be the silent ones and perhaps the only way we’re going to fight, not just antisemitism, but wokeism in its worst forms, is actually to be a little bit more militant, ourselves. I can say that to you because you would always be militant. But let me just, I just want to, before we hand over to Dame Janet to read one more poem. I just want to read from Simon Dubnow. I was looking for something appropriate. And he, of course, was one of the great Jewish historians. And he wrote this: “We, the people of Israel living today, continue the long thread that stretches from the days of Hammurabi and Abraham to the modern period. We see further than during the course of thousands of years. The nations of the world have borrowed from our spiritual storehouse and added to their own without depleting the source. The Jewish people goes its own way, attracting and repelling, beating up for itself a unique path amongst the nations of the world. I myself have lost faith in personal immortality. Yet history teaches me there is a collective immortality and that the Jewish people can be considered eternal for its history, coincides with the span of the world.” And I just think that that is a rather beautiful statement. That wonderful historian, he was shot, though, in Riga when he was 81 years old. The minds and the souls that were lost, which we must honour. So, thank you. Thank you, so much. Can I now ask Dame Janet to read another poem? Thank you, Anita.
With pleasure. I say with pleasure. Of course it’s not, really. But here, Primo Levi pares all this talk about Judaism back to the essential poor forked animal, the man and the woman, not what they believe or anything, just who they are in the world. He writes, “You who live secure in your warm houses, who return at evening to find hot food and friendly faces, consider whether this is a man, who labours in the mud, who knows no peace, who fights for a crust of bread, who dies at a yes or a no. Consider whether this is a woman, without hair, or name, with no more strength to remember, eyes empty and womb cold as a frog in winter. Consider that this has been. I commend these words to you. Engrave them to your hearts. When you are in your house, when you walk on your way, when you go to bed, when you rise. Repeat them to your children. Or may your house crumble, disease render you powerless. Your offspring avert their faces from you.” There’s some anger.
Such power. Thank you, Janet. And can we, now Lauren, please turn to Mrs. Wendy Fisher, the President of Lockdown University, who has done so much to keep so many of us sane through the last couple of years. It’s been nearly two years, Wendy.
It has been. Thank you, Trudy. Thank you Janet, for the very, very, moving hour. I’m now going to light six Memorial candles. Can you see?
Yes, we can see. Thank you. Thank you, Wendy. Oh, one more, yeah. Yes.
There we go.
Thank you, Wendy. We’re going to go to Dennis and come back to you to conclude, if you don’t mind. So, thank you for that. And can we now please turn to Judge Dennis Davis?
I’m going to, well, I hope Lauren can do this, to play the , which was interned by Cantor Moshe Koussevitzky, in 1947, in Poland. Cantor Koussevitzky had been the cantor of the Tlomackie Shul in Warsaw before the war. And he was brought back, he had gone to Russia and finally got to America. He came back in 1947, at a memorial service of the kind that we’re having now, in Poland in '47, which is quite remarkable in itself. Let me just make two final remarks. One is the , which is the prayer we say when we bury people because we Jews believe that, although the soul goes to heaven, the fact is that it’s not perfectly there. And we pray that it’ll be totally settled and have total peace within heaven. Hence the prayer. And we also say, in the prayer, that God is compassion. We also say that we, in the memory of those who’ve departed, we pledge ourselves to do charity of any kind and all kinds. Let me also say one final thing in the light of so much that’s been said, and I want to endorse what Howard has said. I feel terribly conflicted here, because I, unlike the remarkable people who have shared this platform, have no personal experience of the horrors thereof. But it is interesting that many people who in fact did go through the Holocaust wonder about whether we should say 'cause where was God’s compassion in Treblinka and Auschwitz. My only answer to that is the fact that we can say this prayer now, that we continue the tradition, is itself an extraordinary triumph for us who survived the horrors of which we’ve been commemorating. So, without further ado, Cantor Moshe Koussevitzky, 1947, a Polish Holocaust memorial, intoning the
Thank you, Dennis.
[Lauren] Dennis, do you mind playing the recording?
I don’t have the recording. You have it. I gave it to Trudy.
Oh. Trudy, do you have the recording?
No. Oh no.
[Lauren] Oh, sorry. Just tell me which cantor it is, and I can play it right away.
It’s Cantor Moshe Koussevitzky in '47, oh dear. I thought I’d sent it to Trudy a long time back.
No.
Oh no. I’m so sorry. Hang on. Just give me one minute.
I think I found it.
Don’t worry, we have time. No, Dennis don’t worry. It’s been a been wonderful, very, very special. Thank you.
Have you found it, Lauren.
Thank you, Dennis. Thank you for finding that incredible rendition. And Lauren, can we now turn to Wendy for completion? Thank you.
Thank you very, very much. Am I blocking the view here?
No, it’s perfect.
No, that’s great. Well, Trudy, thank you for organising this incredibly moving session. We are so grateful to you, and all the survivors, who spoke to us today. Your courage, and your strength of spirit, is humbling and inspiring. It was truly an honour to have you on Lockdown University on this important day so we could bear witness our greatest moral responsibility, to hear your stories, to reflect, and to internalise their magnitude. January the 27th, we commemorate the liberation of Auschwitz, which took place only 77 years ago. Yet antisemitism and racism continue to persist strongly today. Unfortunately, this is the world the Jewish people have always known. But it is also one we know how to endure. As a community, we are resilient. We have survived for over 3000 years, no matter what the world has thrown to us. And we will continue to, not only survive, but we will thrive. I am proud to be Jewish. And I cannot wait to see what incredibly new heights we will achieve together as a community, and as a people. Thank you to Trudy, and Lauren, Howard, Susan, Joseph, Janet, Joanna, Anita and Dennis. Thank you to all of you for joining us here, today. Look after yourselves and your communities. Thank you very, very much to all of you.
Thank you. Thank you so much, Wendy. And I know there are a lot of questions, but I think today is not really the day for questions. So perhaps, Lauren, if you could send them to me, we can go through them, if that’s all right. So, let me just wish you all shalom. Thank you.
Go in peace.