Education Minister: I want every pupil to see Auschwitz
EVERY SCHOOL student in Britain should travel to Auschwitz to better understand antisemitism, the Education Secretary said on a visit to the concentration camp.
Nadim Zahawi told the JC: “It’s the only way. We have to make sure young minds actually see this place, experience this place, and understand what took place here, and for them to pledge ‘never again’ for future generations.”
The Secretary of State for Education was speaking on Tuesday at the conclusion of his visit to Auschwitz Birkenau in Poland.
He said that school students travelling from Britain to visit the camp would “understand how important our fight against antisemitism is”.
Mr Zahawi said: “The scale is unimaginable. No film reel, no newsreel can really describe what this place is like, and how systematic and haunting it is that human beings, 7,000 of them, came to work here, to murder innocent souls, day in, day out.”
He joined a delegation of European lawmakers and Jewish communal figures in Poland to commemorate the 83rd anniversary of Kristallnacht, culminating in a wreath laying ceremony at Auschwitz’s “death wall” where the SS shot thousands of prisoners.
Organised by the European Jewish Association (EJA), the tour of Auschwitz was part of a two-day conference on fighting antisemitism.
Participants discussed a variety of legal, educational, and operational strategies to counter rising levels of antisemitism internationally.
The conference took place as the Office for Students (OfS) in the UK announced that more than 200 universities, colleges and other higher education providers have adopted the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA) definition of antisemitism.
The definition provides a widely internationally recognised explanation of how to judge if something is antisemitic, helping institutions to clearly interpret incidents of alleged antisemitism on campus.
The figures show that 80 per cent of registered universities have signed up to the definition, but also reveal that only around half of England’s 418 higher
education providers have adopted it. The education Secretary told the JC that while he welcomed the news that more universities had signed up, he promised the Government “will push for every university to commit to fighting this great evil”.
He said: “It is essential that universities and colleges act swiftly and decisively in response to any acts of antisemitism, so that students are safe, and feel safe, on campus.”
Responding to a newly published survey which shows that most British people do not that know six million Jews died in the Holocaust, Mr Zahawi denied that there had been a failure of education in the UK.
But he spoke of the need to “redouble our efforts” in providing children with Holocaust education. Mr Zahawi said the survey “makes me think I’ve done exactly the right thing to make my trip here to see, and I hope share with the world, what took place not many years ago in Europe.”
He added: “Every child has to learn about the Holocaust. And I think that has to continue.”
Addressing the conference from Jerusalem, Israeli Prime Minister Naftali Bennett said that “Jews should not be fighting antisemitism alone,” commending those attending for taking action.
Morocco’s Minister of Culture and Education, Mehdi Bensaid, spoke from Rabat, warning of the “danger of radicalism” and stressing a “duty to remind and teach our younger generation… about the dark chapter of the Holocaust in human history.”
The Chairman of the EJA, Rabbi Menachem Margolin, said: “Europe is fighting antisemitism, but isn’t winning yet”. He called Holocaust education “a vaccine to the oldest, most virulent virus in Europe”.
We must redouble our efforts in Britain to teach pupils