Shockat Adam

Thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker. “Hate is the worst 4 letter word that exists”, said Holocaust survivor Mathilde Middleberg. I am deeply honoured to be called in the debate. As movingly articulated by the hon. Member for Hendon (David Pinto-Duschinsky), 80 years has passed since the liberation of Auschwitz, but it is heartbreaking to see acts of genocide, hate and evil still happening across the world and increasing threats from a new wind of far-right. The horrors of the camps must never be forgotten, and the testimonies of the survivors are still ringing in our ears and are as relevant today as they were 80 years ago, because what is 80 years in the history of the world but a blink of an eye? Yet, sadly, current events suggest that some people today need a reminder of the lessons of that horror. For the 75th anniversary of the liberation of Bergen-Belsen, the University of Leicester in my constituency published extracts from the east midlands oral history archive of an interview with Leicester nurse Erti Wilford. Erti treated the survivors of Belsen for two years after its liberation by the British Army. She spoke of approaching Bergen-Belsen and smelling the dreadful smells from as far away as five miles, saying that she had: “Never seen so much suffering and lice and filth. At Belsen they were just bag of bones and it was just dreadful, but some of them lived, it was quite incredible”. Erti recalls the excitement of a camp doctor finally being allowed to deliver a baby and return it back to its mother rather than hand it to a guard for execution. We must remember the names of Anne and Margot Frank, whose final resting place is Bergen-Belsen. They unfortunately died of typhus approximately a month before the liberation. One would hope that such experiences mean that hate and genocidal and Nazi actions are a thing of the past, but sadly that is not the case. As articulated by the hon. Member for Brigg and Immingham (Martin Vickers), in Bosnia, the trucks arrived and they said, “Men, young and old, tall and short—get on and we will transport you to safety.” Within two weeks, 8,000 Muslim men, women and children were executed.