Good afternoon. The first item of business is time for reflection. Our time for reflection leaders today are Ben Kean and Mia Williams, who are Holocaust Educational Trust ambassadors.
My name is Ben Kean, and this is Mia Williams. We are ambassadors for the Holocaust Educational Trust. We took part in the trust’s “Lessons from Auschwitz” project as pupils from Ross high school in November 2023. As part of the project, we heard from a Holocaust survivor, took part in a one-day trip to Auschwitz-Birkenau and will be sharing what we learned with our school community.
We wanted to take part in the project, because it would give us the opportunity to remember individual stories of the Holocaust. Learning about the Holocaust is vital in understanding how genocide can happen. Walking in the same place that Jewish men, women and children walked to their death allowed us to reflect on what those people were forced to face. That is not an experience that one can get from sitting in a classroom or reading a book.
We also heard the testimony of Holocaust survivor Janine Webber BEM. Janine lost almost all her family in the Holocaust. She explained how, after escaping the ghetto, she and her younger brother were hidden by a farming family but that, after a few months, they were betrayed by the family’s daughter. Janine escaped; her brother did not. Hearing survivor stories such as Janine’s helps young people like us really comprehend the complexity of the Holocaust.
After this experience, we both know that it is incredibly important to share the stories of survivors and the people who tragically lost their lives. In our next steps project, we have chosen to work with younger students and will present a lesson that will make them focus more on stories of Jewish families and who they were before the Holocaust.
This year’s theme for Holocaust memorial day is “The Fragility of Freedom”. That is important as we still see antisemitism and extremism today, including here in the United Kingdom, especially following the massacre that was perpetrated by Hamas on 7 October 2023.
We are proud to continue the voices of the victims and will strive to do so for many years to come. We will ensure that people can still learn and remember the people who were so immensely brave in a time of terror.
We hope that, today, the Parliament will join us in remembering the survivors and victims of the Holocaust. I thank the Scottish Parliament for inviting us to share our reflections today. [Applause.]