26 January 2008
Reflecting on the events of the Holocaust, the Prime Minister has said that "Never again" must be made a reality and not just a slogan.
Writing in today’s Telegraph newspaper ahead of Holocaust Memorial Day, the PM said that "systematic efforts", such as compulsory teaching in secondary schools, must be made to ensure that knowledge of the Holcaust is maintained and "lessons learnt for the future".
The PM said:
"Imagine, Remember, Reflect, React: together these words define tomorrow’s Holocaust Memorial Day. Why imagine? Because the sheer scale of the Holocaust numbs us to its individual realities: the captivity, suffering and death of six million people, 1.5 million of them children, each with family, a personal history, and unique emotions.
Mr Brown recounted the efforts of two Britons whose lives were caught up in the events of the Holocaust. Charles Coward, an army sergeant-major, saved more than 400 Jews from the Auschwitz gas chamber by helping them to escape at night. Jane Haining, a Scottish missionary, defied Nazi orders to abandon Jewish children in her care and was charged with "Working with Jews"; she died in Auschwitz in August 1944.
Historians estimate that around six million Jews were killed by the Nazis in an act of genocide known as the Holocaust during World War II. Many thousands of Poles, Roma and disabled people were also killed in gas chambers such as Auschwitz-Birkenau and Treblinka.
Tomorrow people around the UK will mark Holocaust Memorial Day - a National Commemoration ceremony will be held in Liverpool.
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