As we mark Yom Hashoah, my thoughts are with Jewish families here in Britain and all around the world.
I will never forget that chilling moment in January, when I stood with my wife in Block 27 of Auschwitz, searching for members of her family in the Book of Names. We turned page after page after page just to find the first letter of a name. It was utterly harrowing.
Today, Jewish people stand together to mourn the loss of every one of those six million victims, and to honour the breathtaking courage of those who resisted the Nazis, including in the extraordinary Warsaw Ghetto Uprising.
As prime minister, I want you to know that you do not stand alone; you do not remember alone; and you do not carry forward the educational legacy of our inspiring Holocaust survivors alone. The duty to remember the Holocaust, to fight the poison of antisemitism and to educate future generations is a duty for us all.
Together, we will honour the memory of the victims by defending the truth of what happened. The Holocaust was unique. It was the industrialised murder of six million Jewish men, women, and children, simply because they were Jewish. It was a collective endeavour, carried out by thousands of ordinary people, utterly consumed by the hatred of difference. These are the facts of the Holocaust, and this country will never allow them to be diminished, distorted or denied.
Together, we will fight the poison of antisemitism wherever it is found. We renew our demand that the 59 hostages still held by Hamas are freed and we must also see a return to the ceasefire.
And here in Britain, just as I made it my mission to root out the stain of antisemitism from my political party, so I will do the same for the country. We will protect our Jewish community, including Jewish students on our university campuses. We will never accept people being abused, attacked, or threatened because of who they are or what they believe. And we will back the police wherever antisemitic hate crimes are committed – whether in person or online.
But we must also tackle the root causes of that hatred. So together we renew our national commitment to Holocaust education. We will ensure all schools teach it and seek to give every young person the opportunity to hear a recorded survivor testimony. Because by learning from our extraordinary Holocaust survivors, we can develop that empathy for others and that appreciation of our common humanity, which is the ultimate way to defeat the hatred of difference.
And today, as you gather for the Yom Hashoah commemoration on the future site of the national Holocaust Memorial, I say let’s get that memorial and learning centre built.
Let it stand, unapologetically, as a place of education at the heart of our national life. And let it be an eternal sign of our commitment to defend the truth of the Holocaust and to teach every generation to fight hatred and prejudice in all its forms. So that together we do everything possible to ensure that never again means what it says: never again.
