Bercow’s warning on Holocaust revisionism
HOUSE OF Commons Speaker John Bercow has warned of the resurgence of “bigoted and evil” Holocaust revisionism — specifically referring to David Irving — after a performance of an opera about the story of a Shoah survivor.
Push was performed at Parliament’s Speaker’s House on Monday. It tells the life story of Simon Gronowski, who escaped from a train destined for Auschwitz thanks to his mother’s selfless actions.
Speaking after the performance, Mr Bercow said: “Even in our own country... there are sadly people, not just very old people, but very young people, who still labour under the bigoted and evil misapprehension that there was something to be said for antisemitism and the doctrines of Hitler and the notions of the Aryan superior race.
“We need always to be on our guard recognising that... there is also the pseudo respectable attempt to justify this bigotry and hatred by people who frankly ought to know better but don’t.”
Mr Bercow revealed he had welcomed the idea to stage the opera after the Conservative MP for Chichester Gillian Keegan recommended the production composed by the London Symphony Orchestra’s Howard Moody and performed by Ms Keegan’s local community choirs, schools and the University of Chichester.
The production has toured southern England. Mr Bercow said it was a means of both “remembering and preventing a repetition of the Holocaust”. Mr Bercow then added: “We know that, horrendously, there has been a resurgence of antisemitism and racism around the world in recent times.” Mr Bercow referred to the “utterly discredited revisionist” Mr Irving and praised the work of the “renowned academic and historian” Prof Deborah Lipstadt whose victory in Mr Irving’s libel case against her exposed his ideas as “utterly fraudulent”.
Mr Gronowski told the 150 guests how the Nazis murdered his mother and sister in Auschwitz. The title of the opera, Push, refers to the moment Mr Gronowski’s mother pushed him from the Auschwitz-bound train after Belgian resistance members brought it to a near halt.
Of the 233 people who tried to escape the train, 26 were shot, while another 89 were recaptured. Mr Gronowski was one of 118 who escaped, aged just 11.