‘Education can end denial’
NICK ROBINSON has urged young people not to allow the Holocaust to be used as a “weapon”.
The Today programme presenter told teenagers at the annual conference for Holocaust Educational Trust ambassadors: “It is not a game of Top Trumps where you or your people use your knowledge of the Holocaust to trump everything else.
“If you do that you might think you’ll persuade them — but you’ll put up their barriers.”
He said that as the generation of survivors dies, there will “inevitably be people who didn’t live through it”, opening the way to increasing denial.
The former BBC political editor also suggested questions about the Holocaust might arise because “one in 20 of our population is now Muslim and they will learn something different about Jews and Jewish people”.
The journalist, whose maternal grandparents were Jewish, said it was important to engage the Muslim community in conversations about the Holocaust and not use it as a tool to “beat them round the head with by saying ‘my suffering is worse’.”
Over 300 HET ambassadors — young people who have taken part in the Trust’s Lessons from Auschwitz project and run events and talks in their schools and regions to educate others about the Shoah — attended the conference in central London on Monday.
They raised concerns about “fake news”, Holocaust denial and the future of Holocaust education.
Mr Robinson, who was speaking alongside Chief Rabbi Ephraim Mirvis, told the packed audience that in his own experience he thought humour was sometimes the best way to challenge antisemites.
“When I hear people question the Holocaust, or when I hear people in politics say that ‘the Zionists worked with Hitler’, I want you to respond with the facts you learn today.
“But I want you to respond with other emotions as well, particularly on social media.”
The veteran journalist said he thought the most effective way to challenge politicians such as Ken Livingstone was “to edit together all the times he said ‘Hitler’ and ask if he has Nazi Tourette’s?
“I think to ridicule would be more effective than rage or facts alone,” he said.
Mr Robinson said the large numbers of young people who voted for Labour in the general election proved “no idea survives on its own”.
Survivor Harry Spiro meets Robert Rinder