 The next item of business is members' business debate on motion 15264, in the name of Richard Lyle, on remembering the Holocaust. This debate will be concluded without any questions being put, and I would ask those who wish to speak to press the requested speak buttons. I call on Richard Lyle to open the debate for around seven minutes, please. I say that every party, including the independent member in this Parliament, has supported this Holocaust motion today. I wish to thank the vast amount of members who have signed my motion to enable this debate and every member who will speak in this debate this afternoon for their support. It's appreciated. Today we will be commemorating a tragedy of the past, but I believe that this topic is completely relevant to the issues that we are facing in our world today. On January 30, 1933, is a day that the world should and will never forget. It is a day that Adolf Hitler became Chancellor of Germany. On his very first day in office, he began putting his terrible machinations into work. Eventually, he would have the means to perpetuate the terrible genocide known as the Holocaust. Through various stages of persecution, Jews were oppressed by laws of the countries they lived in, separated from their loved ones, placed in various types of camps and prisons, and millions ultimately killed in the horrific and inhumane methods. I grew up reading of their suffering in a publication called Pernell's History of the Second World War, along with other publications that detailed the tragic history they have endured. Perhaps no other people group has survived more hate and violence than the Jewish people. Last year, as a member of the cross-party group building bridges with Israel, I, along with other members, visited Yad Vashem, the World Holocaust Remembrance Centre, set on the slopes of the Mount of Remembrance on the edge of Jerusalem. Yad Vashem is a solemn place with its nine chilling galleries of interactive historical displays that detail the Holocaust using a range of multimedia, including photographs, films, documents, letters, works of art and personal items found in the camps and ghettos. The museum leads into a neary space containing over 3 million names of Holocaust victims. There is also a hall of remembrance where the ashes of dead are buried. There is an avenue of the righteous among the nations which has over 2,000 trees which were planted in honour of non-Jews who endangered their lives in order to rescue Jews from the Nazis. Yad Vashem is not an emotionally easily museum to visit, but it is worth a visit to understand the two-scale impact of the Holocaust. The photographs, the displays and walking in the gardens, especially when we came to a railway car that had been used to transport people to their death, was very emotional. I will always remember what I saw on that visit. As yet, I have not visited Auschwitz-Birkenau, but intend to remedy that as soon as I can. Colleagues, we all know well the atrocities committee during the Second World War, when Nazi Germany executed a calculated plan to exterminate Jews on a scale one darkest dreams could not imagine. Yet those nightmares became a reality. Six million Jews and countless millions of people died simply because they were deemed inferior or a problem that needed a solution. To Hitler, that indefensible final solution was death. On January 27, 1945, roughly 12 years since Hitler came to power, Auschwitz-Birkenau was fed by the Allied Forces. What the rescues saw when entering the concentration and death camp was a horrible beyond describing. What goes through someone's minds that forces them to desire to exterminate millions of people who are entirely undeserving? As we look back collectively, we must all ask the same burning question in our hearts. How could this happen? How could something so evil take place in a civilised and modern society? Presiding Officer, I certainly want to emphasise the sorrow and grief that we all share at a tremendous loss of life and intense suffering that so many endured. I do not want to get that forgotten in this speech, but I also want to speak on humanity as a whole. The Holocaust, more than anything, represents a tragedy that is an enmity of humanity and its struggles. On a day such as today, when we mourn the atrocities of Nazi Germany, it is easy to point fingers and cast blame, and deserfably so. However, to forget that Hitler was human, and that is where people are a mistake that none of us can forget to make. To do that would be to lower our guard in a time where there cannot be any but be constantly vigilant. World War 2 ended, and to those who were involved in the carrying out of the Holocaust, they all faced justice, be it in this life or the next. Let us not be blinded for while we achieved victory against Nazi Germany, we had not defeated human evil. Thus, dangerous people still seek to spread death and destruction to this day. Only a few months ago, a tragic synagogue shooting in Philadelphia resulted in the deaths of 11 people. Today, there are countless atrocities being committed against the multitude of people, groups, persecution, torture, displacement and murder of oppressed peoples, groups that are still sadly occurring in places around the world. Subsequent genocides have taken place in Cambodia, Rwanda, Bosnia and Daphua. Persecution and discrimination have no place in our communities because they defy everything that a free and democratic society stands for. We have the power to live in a productive and moral life and oppose those who choose to do the opposite. We have the power to charitable give to those in need across the world. We must stand together and say welcome to those who are discriminated against and persecuted. We should learn to live with each other in peace. What a happy day that would be. As members of this Parliament, we cannot stand idly by and watch the vulnerable suffer. We all must recognise that it does not matter what religion we follow, what country we live in, where our parents were born or what language we speak. A crime against humanity affects us all. Unity among the human race for common decency and respect is a necessity in all our modern era. I want to again thank all those who will speak today. Their words will mean a lot to many. I want to reiterate that we all must recognise that we have the power to choose how we live and how we respond to other lifestyles and decisions. On a day like today, we can clearly see the mistakes made by so many that have resulted in millions of lives lost. The past can sometimes be a place of regret and sorrow, but it can be a teacher unlike any other. Witnessing the failures and triumphs of those in the past works is a fantastic guidebook to us in how we live our lives. Today it is meant to honour those who suffered and died from the Holocaust and I commend all those who fought to end the Holocaust. We must continue to combat antisemitism and discrimination in all its forms in general on each and every occasion. We move now to the open debate. I say to members that there are a lot of people who wish to speak, so I would ask them not to go beyond the four-minute normal slot. I call Adam Tomkins to be followed by Tom Arthur. I would like to thank Richard Lyle for bringing this debate to the chamber. I also like to thank Kezia Dugdale for hosting the beautiful and moving memorial to the Holocaust that was in the garden lobby earlier this week. Presiding Officer, with the absurd precision to which we later had to custom ourselves, the Germans held the roll call. At the end, the officer asked, Viefield Stuck, the corporal saluted smartly and replied that there were 650 pieces and that all was in order. They then loaded us onto the buses and took us to the station. Here the train was waiting for us. Here we received our first blows and it was so new and senseless that we felt no pain neither in body nor spirit, only a profound amazement. How can one hit a man without anger? There were 12 goods wagons for 650 men. In mine we were only 45 but it was a small wagon. Here then, before our very eyes, under our very feet, was one of those notorious transport trains, those which never return and of which shuddering and always a little incredulous we had so often heard speak exactly like this. Detail for detail. Good wagons, closed from the outside, with men, women and children pressed together without pity, like cheap merchandise, for a journey towards nothing, a journey down there, a journey towards the bottom. This time it is us who are inside. These words are from the opening chapter of Primo Levi's autobiographical account of the Holocaust if this is a man. In the middle of this passage, Primo Levi asks a hauntingly simple question, how can one hit a man without anger? As I said in last year's Holocaust memorial debate, the Holocaust happened because not very long ago, here in the heart of Europe, it was the policy of the government of a leading European country to eliminate the Jewish people from the face of the earth. Yet the Nazis were not angry with the Jews. The brutality, the beatings, the mass murder, the killing on an industrial scale did not happen because anyone had caused to be angry. They happened because of cold calculated hatred. Every year, reflecting on the Holocaust and its legacy, I find myself coming back to the same phrases, even to the same basic thoughts. On the one hand, the Holocaust was unique. Yes, there have been other genocides, but there has been only one Holocaust, only one programme of systematic death so comprehensive in scale, so audacious in its evil ambition that a whole new country had to be found to give a dispersed and fractured people a home. On the other hand, what strikes you about the Holocaust is also what Hannah Arendt infamously called its banality. They were just trains, just ordinary goods wagons, with the goods counted on and counted off taken on a journey. To think of it, one shudders, yet is always a little incredulous. This is what hatred can do. Hatred does not create monsters. Monsters are extraordinary. They instantly stand out from the crowd. You can see them a mile off and they are very rare. What hatred does is not to create monsters but to allow ordinary men and women to commit terrible acts as if they were the most mundane quotidian of tasks, just loading goods onto a train. Arendt coined her notorious phrase, the banality of evil, in her report for the New Yorker of Eichman's trial. The great Canadian singer-songwriter Leonard Cohen captured her meaning in his poem All There Is To Know About Adolf Eichman, and I'm going to read it. It's very short. All There Is To Know About Adolf Eichman. Eyes, medium, hair, medium, weight, medium, height, medium. Distinguishing features, none, number of fingers, 10, number of toes, 10, intelligence, medium. What did you expect? Talons, oversized incisors, green saliva, madness. The Holocaust was not mad, Presiding Officer. It was calculated. It was committed not in a frenzy of anger and emotion, but in a climate of cold-headed hatred. There is plenty of room in politics for emotion, for frenzy, even for anger, but not for hatred. Yes, we here disagree on many matters, and those disagreements may make us angry from time to time, but let there be no room here or anywhere else in political life for hatred, and let that for us be the lesson of the Holocaust. Tom Arthur, followed by Alex Rowley. Thank you very much, Presiding Officer. I would like to begin by thanking my colleague Richard Lyle for securing this debate and thanking him for what was an excellent speech. I also want to put on record my deep appreciation for the remarks that Adam Tompkins made, which I thought was an absolutely superb speech, one of the finest I have heard since being elected to this place. I think that the points that have been touched on by both Richard Lyle and Adam Tompkins get to that central question that we still ask ourselves is how. How could this happen? I think that the diagnosis made by Hannah Arendt in the early 1960s actually covered the Eichman trial. Effectively summarised by Leonard Cohen in his poem remains the most pertinent. The Vanality, the quote from Prima Levy, the word Stook, is not positive but an absence of empathy. I think that one of the most chilling facts of the Holocaust is the decision to use carbon monoxide and the cyclone V gas in the extermination. In the early phase of the killings in the occupied territories of the east, as the Wehrmacht advanced SS Einsatzgruppen would follow up behind special commands, and they would kill shooting massacres such as Baryar in Ukraine. However, it was determined that using gas would be more humane, not for the victims, but for the perpetrators. That, of course, became possible. It was a methodology that was seized upon because preceding the systematic attempt to eliminate the Jewish population of Europe, the German Government, had been using gas, carbon monoxide, to eliminate the disabled and the infirm. A point that Richard Lyle made at the very start of his speeches with regard to when did this start, 30 January? I am currently reading one of the great pieces of literature to emerge from the Holocaust, and that is the diaries of Victor Clemperer, who was a professor of philology and romance languages in the resin. He meticulously noted among observations in his own life and many of the prosaic goings on that characterised any life of any middle-class German professor, the slow stranglehold and asphyxiation of liberty and civil rights and status that took place, the marginalisation, and where we rightly focus our attention on the events towards the end in the extermination camps. That is rightly what is preeminent in our memories. There was a process of psychological torture that preceded that. It is a difficult thing for anyone to try and contemplate what that must have been like to say that I am a German and to be told no you're not. That lesson that we have spoken about so far of hate and of allowing hate to be tolerated or to be acceptable or to be seen as something that can be permitted in moderation is the great folly. As both Richard Lyle and Adam Tomkins have said it, the greatest mistake that we can make is to look upon Nazis in the crimes that they committed as the acts of monsters. They were cool, clinical and rational. Perhaps the most chilling story that I have is very difficult. The most chilling example of how that was captured was during the extermination of the Hungarian Jews. We were carrying out the murders at such a scale that the crematoria at Auschwitz could not cope, so cremation pits were dug. The testimony of a surviving Sander commando, the Jews who were forced to work in the gas chambers in the crematorium, there were two Hungarian sisters and a friend and they knew what was going to happen. They said to an SS guard, I would like it if we could die together so can you shoot us together. The SS guard lined three of them up, laughing and chuckling and saying that he would be happy to oblige. He shot and the bullet went through one, two and three of them collapsed. Their bodies were then thrown into a cremation pit and the screaming began because one of them hadn't been shot. The SS guards laughed and thought that this was hilarious. To know that that happened within living memory in one of the most advanced civilisations in the world is a lesson for us all. That is what human beings are capable of. This was not some aberration, this was a end of a very cold clinical and for them a logical process, so we must remember that and I agree entirely with Adam Tomkins whatever differences we have in this place, whatever differences we have politically, anger, yes, passion, yes, but never ever hate. Alex Rowley, followed by Gillian Martin. Presiding Officer, I would also thank Richard Lyle for bringing this motion forward today. I certainly learned from a very early age about what had happened to the Jews during the Second World War. I did so because my mum regularly talked about the Second World War and what happened, which she was never able to explain to me was how a group of human beings could murder on an industrial scale other human beings and I don't think that's ever been explained, but when I was in Auschwitz last Easter, the guide who was excellent and quite chilling was a chilling visit that I think remains in my memory every day, but I asked her how could this happen and it was something that Tom Arthur said earlier about how hate, antisemitism, racism, false news can start to spread and people start to believe it and that's why it is right and proper that we always call out hate, racism, antisemitism wherever exists and that we call out fake news. The other point that that guide made to me that day, and I think that it is important, was she said to me that when Hitler came to power, he initially wanted to expel many of the Jews from Germany and the problem that they run into was that as refugees other countries would not take them and I'm reminded of that by a story of the MS St Lewis, which was a German ocean liner that set off in 1939, with more than 900 Jews on board. It tried to dock in Cuba, then tried to dock in America, then tried to dock in Canada and none of those nations would allow those refugees to go into their country. Historians estimate that approximately a quarter of those people died in extermination camps once they had gone back into Europe. An important point about this debate in Holy Cross Remembrance Day is surely that we learn from history, not only could house such an awful terrible thing happen for human beings, to other human beings, but we learn from that. That's why the theme this year's Holy Cross Memorial Day is torn from your home. There are 50 million people, it's estimated, displaced across the world. We see people fleeing violence, horrendous violence and the threat of death from Syria, and yet they find it difficult for countries to take them in. While we condemn the Holocaust, we need to remember that today, as Richard Lell said, Cambodia, Rwanda, Bosnia, Darfur, it's happening today across the world. Let's then not forget the countries that are so poverty stricken, that people that are starving to death are not able to flee such as Yemen. It's important that, yes, we remember the horrors so that they can never happen again, but sadly many of those things continue to happen. It's important, therefore, that we address that. When I was in Krakow and did a tour of Krakow, the guide took me to the Jewish quarter, and Jewish people had been moved out in their tens of thousands into a ghetto. Most of them ended up in the extermination camps and died, but nobody was standing up for them. Why did that happen? I think that those lessons are there, but anyone who thinks that today we don't have those threats needs to think again. Let's remember the lessons. I would conclude by congratulating the Scottish Government and local government, because their schools across Scotland are at the fore of ensuring that young people learn about exactly what did happen in the Second World War, and hopefully education is the way that we will try and address any of that happening in the future. Before I call Gillian Martin, there are still a number of members who wish to speak in the debate, so I'm happy to accept a motion under rule 8, 14 and 3 that the debate be extended by up to 30 minutes. The question is that, under rule 8, 14 and 3, the debate be extended by up to 30 minutes. Are we agreed? That is therefore agreed. I understand that there is so much to say in this debate, and I have been generous so far with timings. I'm starting to get a bit concerned that we will overrun and that I will have to cut someone out. I really don't want to do that, so could I ask the remaining speakers, please, to be mindful of time? In the midst of inconceivable horror, when you could lose your faith in humanity, as you listened to the terrible accounts of human beings behaving in what is often described as inhuman ways, heroes and examples of the best in humanity can emerge. This Tuesday, in the garden lobby, along with many others here, I sat transfixed as I listened to the account of Holocaust survivor, Janine Weber. That's the first time to my knowledge that I have been in the same room with someone who survived the Holocaust. Janine's now in her 80s and is only still with us because of the kind of brave people who risked their own lives to help the young Jewish girl in Poland that she was then. She's here because of the love that trumped hatred. I want to use the rest of my time to talk about the story of another person who exhibited the best of humanity when all around him were contemplating and making atrocities. His name was Dr Janus Korsak. Korsak was a paediatrician, journalist and children's author, but after serving as a military doctor, he decided that the best use of his time was as an educator of children. Along with his fellow educator, Stefa Vilsunska, he founded his own orphanage for Jewish children called Dom Serot in Warsaw. He was an educational pioneer whose type of philosophy of teaching was decades ahead of his own time, focusing on making children independent, confident, learning outdoors, learning through discussion and dialogue, and never by rote. He gave these children a chance to thrive. His orphanage even had its own children's parliament where the children were empowered to make decisions, did their own newspaper where they could express their own views and had their own court where they could exhibit and learn the values of justice and taking responsibility. As we know only too well, the Nazis came to Poland and his work became about the protection and survival of those children. The number of children that he took in at the orphanage increased as children lost their parents at the hands of the Nazis. In 1940, as Warsaw Jews were forced into the ghetto, Korsak's orphanage moved thereto. Korsak went with his children despite repeatedly being offered by the Nazis to stay on what they called the Aryan side. On 5 August 1942, he and Stefa and the 12 remaining orphanage staff boarded the train with their 200 children to Treblinka. We all know that no one ever came back from Treblinka. Korsak was with his children to the end, comforting them and protecting them until he could not. I encourage everyone to seek out the film, Korsak, directed by the incredible Polish director, Andrzej Wajda, because there is so much of the story that I do not have time to tell here. Alongside the accounts of the horrors and hatred that we must always tell forever is a warning from history and particularly want to contribute to what Alex Rowley has just said about it being a warning, and we have a responsibility to never ever turn anyone away who needs our help. There are the Yanish Korsaks and the Stefa Vizinskas whose stories of courage and love we must also never forget. The stories told by Jeanine Weber of her aunt who saved her life and Paul Huth, who harbored 14 Jews in Warsaw, were put into wagons taken to Treblinka. Alongside those horrors, there are stories of love that we must never forget. In the midst of hatred, the stories of love shine through. Ross Greer, followed by Annabelle Ewing. Colleagues, I am grateful for this annual opportunity to mark Call Cost Memorial Day in Parliament and I am grateful to Richard Lyle for having ensured that that happened again this year. In the years since we last held this debate, we have seen yet more events that really throw into question whether Europe in the wider world has learned from history's worst atrocity. Antisemitism might be a more visible issue today than it was a few years ago, but that is not because it is being rooted out. Whether it is the actions of Governments such as those in Hungary and Poland or individuals in hate groups, including those here in the UK and in Scotland, we cannot underestimate the very real threat that hatred still poses to all of us, but which disproportionately threatens already oppressed communities such as our Jewish friends and family. The Ferret Scotland's investigation collective has in the last week found an extremist, anti-Semitic and fascist organisation plans to infiltrate our community councils. That is a group that has modelled on Oswald Mosley's pro-Nazi fascist organisation from a few decades ago. MI5 has now taken on the role of leading the fight against extremist far-right groups here in the UK because the threat that they pose has grown significantly in a short space of time. Many of those groups might appear ridiculous, but they might appear utterly marginalised, but they are only marginalised until they are not exactly as the Nazis were. From a very short space of time, going from the kind of political party that could barely muster 1 per cent of the vote to having taken absolute control of their country, we should not for a second treat Holocaust Memorial Day as an opportunity only to remember. It is an opportunity to remind ourselves of the horrors that are allowed to happen on our continent within living memory and to recommit ourselves to stopping them from ever happening again. Following on from Gillian Martin's comments, I am sure that a number of members here have had the privilege of meeting and talking to survivors of the Holocaust. I was acutely aware that there will be very few people in the future who will be able to say that. We are some of the last generations who will be able to say that, within living memory, we have been able to connect with those who survived that atrocity. However, I would like to focus on one particular anniversary this afternoon. In the year since our last Holocaust Memorial event, the world marked all too quietly, I believe, the 75th anniversary of the Warsaw ghetto uprising. By the spring of 1943, some 400,000 Jewish Warsaw residents had been forced into a ghetto of three and a half square kilometres. That was 30 per cent of the city's population forced into two and a half per cent of its area, without nearly enough food, with thousands of people dying from starvation, over seven people to every room. From October 1941, the occupying Germans issued a decree that any Jew caught outside the ghetto should be executed. Around that time, stories of the mass execution of Jews by the Nazis and their collaborators had reached the ghetto, and a number of young people began to organise for its defence. From the summer of 1942, the Nazis started the extermination of Warsaw's Jews. Every day, 6,000 people were to be sent to the extermination camps. The first group was sent to die on 22 July 1942, the eve of the Jewish holiday of Tisha Biaf, the saddest day in Jewish history. By mid-September, 300,000 of the ghetto's 400,000 residents had been murdered. In that same month, the Jewish resistance managed to secure a small amount of arms and explosives from the Polish Home Army, supplemented by their own homemade grenades. However, like many Jewish resistance groups across the continent, they were not supported by other anti-Nazis resistance groups. The eternal shame of most of Europe's resistance movements, their own anti-Semitism, cost the lives of many Jews. In January 1943, the Nazis resumed the liquidation of the ghetto and the resistance started. The first action was to attack German troops, moving a group of Jews to the extermination camps. Most of the dozen fighters involved died, but many of those who were set to be murdered in Treblinka were able to escape. The commander of the operation and the overall leader of the uprising was a 24-year-old Mortecai Aniliewicz. Aniliewicz's resistance leadership began preparing for the inevitable all-out assault on the ghetto. The 1,000 fighters of the ghetto, men, women and children, had no expectation that they would win. They were entirely surrounded, they had limited weapons and equipment and there was no prospect of rescue. Their resistance was, in their own words, for the honour of the Jewish people, to inspire Jews across occupied Europe to resist and to protest the world's silence at their extermination. Their uprising began on the 19 April 1943, when 850 Nazi soldiers in a tank entered the ghetto to burn it down, block by block. They were driven back by the Jewish fighters. In a symbolic moment, stories of which spread across Europe, two boys raised Polish and Jewish flags from the roof of a building, causing him where to bellow at his Warsaw commander that he must bring them down. Rather than fight the entrenched and fearless defenders, the Nazis instead used artillery, flamethrowers and poison gas to burn them out. Aniliewicz and his commanders died in their bunker with some 300 others. Resistance lasted for weeks, with fighters disappearing and reappearing from the sewers in their tunnel network. Eventually, the ghetto was levelled. A small number of fighters and civilians made it out to continue the resistance. A handful of them are still alive today. In total, some 400,000 ghetto residents were murdered by May 1943. But those 1,000 fighters, largely young people and led by someone the same age I am today, made the Nazis pay for what they were trying to do. Their story is one many have nothing more than passing knowledge of. Many more have never heard of it at all. It was the story of people in the most desperate circumstances who, facing their certain deaths, chose to resist the evil surrounding them until their final moments. I think that it's a story worth remembering. Annabelle Ewing, followed by Oliver Mundell. I am pleased indeed to have been called to speak in this year's debate to mark Holocaust Memorial Day. I also congratulate my colleague Richard Lyon on securing the debate and the importance that MSPs across the chamber place on it is evident from the number of members seeking to make their contribution today. On this, the 74th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz-Birkenhau, it is vital that we continue to bear witness to the six million Jews who were murdered by the Nazis. We must do so not only in the memory of those who were murdered, but we must do so to ensure that we are always vigilant and that such state-sanctioned, clinical, calculated mass extermination never ever happens again. Sadly, the world has seen genocide since the end of the Second World War, but our efforts to promote mutual respect and understanding must not falter, rather our efforts must be redoubled. I, too, have visited Auschwitz. My visit was in the summer of 1982, when I was a young postgraduate student studying international relations at the Johns Hopkins University's Bologna Centre. The centre had, at that time, an exchange programme with the Aigelonian University in Cracov, and as part of our visit to Cracov, we had the opportunity to visit Auschwitz. I remember my visit as if it were yesterday. Like other members have said, the memories are just impinged upon you, including walking up to the gates of what had been a labour camp at Auschwitz, which, of course, beckoned people with the words, arbaith, mach, fry. I remember, too, the smiling faces of the young twins in photographs that covered an entire wall, photographs that broke your heart, and that were taken before the grotesque experiments of the butcher Joseph Mengley. I remember the shoes, and I remember the industrial scale ovens in Birkenau. I also remember the train tracks that came right into the death camp, and I remember asking myself how it was possible that ordinary people like you and me could be in Paris or Amsterdam one day and then be taken like cattle on trains from the centre of those grand civilised European cities to end up in Auschwitz, Birkenau. I also remember asking myself, Presiding Officer, how it could be that Europe had descended into such obscenity. In the midst of such obscenities, as we have heard, there were many heroes, and one such heroine that I would like to pay tribute to today is Irina Sendler. Irina Sendler was a Polish social worker aged only 29 years of age, who had a permit allowing her access to the Warsaw ghetto. What she saw there led her to smuggle into the ghetto food, medicine and supplies, and to smuggle out of the ghetto children. In fact, over some four years, Irina Sendler saved 2,500 children. I repeat, Presiding Officer, 2,500 children were saved by this woman, Irina Sendler. She was finally caught in 1943 by the Gestapo, and though she was brutally tortured, she did not give up the queerbots of one single child. Irina Sendler was sentenced to death but, in fact, miraculously managed to escape. She said later of that time, and I quote, Heroes do extraordinary things. What I did was not an extraordinary thing. It was normal. Presiding Officer, how the world could have done with many more Irina Sendlers, for she was indeed a real heroine and did two exceptionally extraordinary things. I bear witness. Oliver Mundell, followed by Emma Harper. It is a privilege to take part in today's Holocaust memorial debate, and I join other members in thanking Richard Lyle for bringing forward this motion. There has already been some exceptional speeches this afternoon, and I found myself approaching the debate extremely difficult in deciding what to say. Of course, there is a whole lot that can be said, but equally there is also, in some senses, not a lot to say. I am conscious when speaking on the topic of a deafening silence, a silence of millions of voices and souls, millions upon millions of voices and souls who are not here to tell us their story, who are not here and their offspring are not here to contribute to our society, to our global world. It is so hard to understand the hatred in the minds of others in that context, but we never can forget the cost of division, discrimination and, ultimately, the attempted annihilation of a whole people, their culture, their values and, of course, those individual lives. Most of all, it is a reminder that we cannot let our common humanity be challenged or divided because it is indivisible. Despite living in a fractious world that all too often focuses on the narrowness of difference, we are all human beings of equal worth and value, and it is incumbent upon each and every one of us to do what we can to make the world a better place and to make room for others. I remember particularly this year George Brady, the brother of Hannah Brady, himself, a Holocaust survivor, who I still feel exceptionally lucky and privileged to have met here in Edinburgh at the international film festival during a showing of inside Hannah's suitcase, a film that I would thoroughly recommend to other members and anyone who wants to understand both the tragic and at times the very random nature of Nazi death camps. I still remember how remarkable George was speaking with a very philosophical view of life and a great appreciation of the time he'd had with his own family, but I also remember, too, his real anger and his struggle to comprehend what had happened to his sister and his parents and the complete disconnect he felt with his early life. However, in that anger, what was perhaps most surprising was that there was no bitterness, no hatred, instead a real determination to ensure that life was valued, respected and cherished, and above all else to ensure that that message was passed on to the next generation and to ensure that the memories of those lost live on in our hearts and minds. George died on the 11th of this month, and it is a sad loss to the survivor community and again another reminder to all of us of the passage of time. However, as other speakers have said, rather than making those debates and the commemorations less important, the loss of those who bore first-hand witness to the horrors of the Holocaust makes it all the more important. It is our solemn duty to remember, and I am pleased that, as a Parliament and as a country, we continue to do so. I just want to close by highlighting a point that a Jewish friend of mine who teaches in London often makes to the five-year-olds in her class, and I think that it is important because to me it gets right to the heart of those issues. She always says that discrimination, intolerance, bullying and antisemitism always start with one. If we remember that fact and ensure that we are not the one who starts such behaviour and targets another, and, importantly, we ensure that we are not the one who stands by and allows such behaviour to go unchallenged, then we can each play our part in making sure that those terrible acts do not happen on our watch. Together, we have a huge responsibility and, together, we must ensure the world that we want to see. I thank Richard Lyle for bringing this important debate to the chamber and for commanding all the powerful contributions that we have heard so far. January 27 is the Holocaust Memorial Day, and, as the motion states, that provides us an important opportunity to reflect on the tragedy of the Holocaust and the atrocities committed. It is extremely important that young people have the opportunity to visit the sites of the concentration camps and to experience for themselves what, for me, was reflected only in history books at school. I recognise the work of the Holocaust Educational Trust for the continued commitment to support the education of our young people. Last year, I heard directly from two students attending Maxwellton High School, located in Lockside in Dumfries, and their profound memory invoking experience when they visited Auschwitz-Burkenau. My own nephew is preparing for his school trip as well, and him and I will be having a wee discussion about what he thinks he will expect to see. Having those conversations with those young folks made me remember when I lived and worked in Los Angeles, I visited the Museum of Tolerance. It is a multimedia museum that is designed to examine racism and prejudice around the world with a specific focus on the history of the Holocaust. It is a thought-provoking place, visited by residents, students and tourists alike, and when I checked the visitor numbers to the Museum of Tolerance ahead of this debate, the numbers attending are in the millions. The message that has been taught is against hate, as Adam Tomkins and Tom Arthur powerfully highlighted. I would like to share with members an experience, which directly brought home to me the physical connection of the Holocaust. As a recent arrival as an economic migrant in Los Angeles, I was in the operating room one day, about to assist the surgeon to take the gallbladder out of a 76-year-old patient. That woman was of German origin and she had been a resident of LA for 50 years. She was very frightened about her surgery and was being put under anesthesia, so I reassured her that we would look after her and keep her safe. I held on to her hand, and when I held on to her hand, I looked down at her. Her outstretched forearm was on the surgical arm board and I noticed a pale grey set of numbers screaved written on her forearm. One, six, two, seven, five, three. I do not know if I am remembering the exact numbers, but I definitely remember how those numbers made me feel. Shock, anger, compassion is still today and all at once a quick flood of emotions. So what turned and burned in my memory is pale grey tattoo, the significance of those numbers and the rush of emotions that overwhelmed me. I was 26 years old looking after this lady and she was 26 when she was a survivor and she was there. The forced numbers on her pale skin made a permanent life-long mark on her forearm and, more importantly, she was a survivor and she survived the horrors and nightmares of outshoots. That insensitive and human imprint on this woman has been part of my memory for 25 years. The visits taken place by the Waynes and my memories of this particular survivor has contributed to my continued caring for others across the planet who are victims of oppression. Tolerance is needed. Tolerance and respect are that. As we recite and remember the words of Robert Burns tomorrow, two days ahead of Holocaust Remembrance Day, we need to remember that man to man, the world over, should brothers and sisters be for all that. I thank Richard Lyle for his striking speech and my colleagues Adam Tomkins, Tom Arthur and Emma Harper. I do not have anything particularly new to say that perhaps it has not been covered, but I would like to say that it is to my shame that it has taken me to the stage of my life before I visited Auschwitz, Birkenau and Poland. I did that on the very last day of 2018. I have read what most people have read about the Holocaust and the death camps, but it does not, as we have heard from others, Annabelle Ewing and Alec Rowley. It does not prepare you for how you feel when you see the sheer scale of what you see Auschwitz. When you arrive, the guide will ask you not to take photographs in certain areas. Those areas are the personal effects of those who perished when you see their heaps of shoes, cases and their personal belongings, because it is a very sharp and pointed message that women, children and men, each are individuals with an individual story of how they got to this dreadful place. Accounts from brave survivors who escaped to tell the world and their stories are everything to us, as without them we could not begin to get our heads around the horror of it all, how it could happen, at all is the imperative question for any person interested in truly ensuring that it could never happen again. That is why the Holocaust Memorial Trust is such a vital organisation, because it is not simply to remind us of the 6 million Jews who were murdered so brutally about how it could be allowed to happen in the first place. The world will mark the day of the anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz Nazi death camp where over 1 million were murdered. The Holocaust undoubtedly, the world's darkest moment began in 1941 and lasted until 1945. A mass genocide motivated by antisemitism, the demonisation of a race, pure and unadulterated evil, the Holocaust is a human story perpetrated by human beings. Human beings tolerated this, it is the worst of mankind. There were around 6 million Jews murdered in the Holocaust, about a third of the Jewish population in the world, but there are also other victims of the Holocaust, such as Roma, ethnic Serbs, Poles and other people who were among those who were murdered. However, it is clear that even democracy itself is not enough to prevent those kinds of evils if it is not resisted and people do not question what they hear, allowing their minds to be swayed by demonisation, prejudice and hatred of others. Sometimes the sin of doing nothing is the deadliest of all. John Stuart Mill, a British philosopher and political theorist, said, Let not anyone pacify his conscience by the delusion that he can do no harm if he takes no part and forms no opinions. Bad men need nothing more to compass their ends than good men should look on and do nothing. However, the theme of the Holocaust Memorial Trust is torn from home, and I think that it is so appropriate in 2019. Conflict in the world in some areas is man-made. Rwanda, in a period of just over three months from April 1994, recorded that 800,000 people were brutally slaughtered by fellow citizens. It was former US president Bill Clinton who was called Rwanda, one of the greatest regrets during his presidency. He believes that, had the US had intervened earlier, around 300,000 people might have been saved. It is particularly alarming to see the new political trends that are weeping through Europe, the rise of the far-right and the populist right parties. We must consider the impact on people who are torn from their homes, their way of life because of conflict. It is unimaginable to us who have not been through it, but we should consider it for one minute. I think that this Parliament would all agree that refugees are welcome here. We must, as politicians, remember the Holocaust. We must do our duty to speak up against injustice, evil racism and anti-Semitism wherever terrorises, and to hope that, never again, while mankind allows the conditions to reveal for any people to endure this feat, may the memories of the Jews survivors bless us to remember and do all that we can to ensure that this will never ever happen in the world again. The last of the open debate contributions is from Stuart McMillan. Thank you very much. First of all, I congratulate my colleague Richard Lyle for securing this important and annual debate. I also thank the Holocaust Memorial Day Trust for their extremely powerful and thought-provoking event in Parliament on Tuesday evening. I know colleagues have already referred to the event. Listening to Jeanine Webber was a privilege, but also a stark reminder of man's inhumanity to man, women and also children. This annual debate is one that is absolutely necessary. I have spoken in a few of them in the past, but I did not do it last year, but I wanted to add my voice to it again this year. My colleagues from across the chamber have already spoken so eloquently and powerfully about how important this debate is and their various experiences. I visited Auschwitz in 1999, when I was doing an interrail trip around Europe. Walking in under the Arbight Mach fry gates was daunting, but the thing that struck me was that as I walked in, I was only in about a second or two seconds, and the first language that I heard was German. It was German school children visiting. I was slightly unnerved for an instant, but then I realised that that was the right thing to see and also to hear. The issue of education is so important to really learn those lessons from the past. At the event on Tuesday evening, the HMD event, when you look at the website, the HMD's website, you have the phraseology of learning from genocide for a better future. It is such a simple message, but also so important. I mentioned about the Janine Weber a few moments ago, and genuinely Janine Weber was such an inspiration in terms of her love for life, but also her thanks to the people who helped her in the past. It was also very telling that any time she spoke about her seven-year-old brother when the Nazi guard had come in to wish of staying at the time, and he shot her seven-year-old brother, but left her to live. You could tell any time to speak about her brother, but she will never ever go over that. Also on Tuesday evening, we heard from the reverend Dr Lorna Hood from the Remembring Shroud and Eats of Scotland. Dr Hood reminded everyone of the quote from the American philosopher George Santayana. That was, those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it. We have already heard today from colleagues about what they have heard and about the people that they have spoken to. The aspect of what is going on in society today in terms of the people who are seeking asylum, people who are refugees, who are fleeing persecution, who are trying to get a better life. We have to stand up to help as a society, as a country. We have to be prepared to help those who need that help. Critical developments across the world certainly indicate that there is that growing sense in many countries to blame the outsider for the issues that are taking place. It is not a new notion, but unfortunately that history has repeated itself time and time again, only with that different outsider. In the past, in Scotland it would have been Irish Catholics or Italians. Now people are blaming others because their skin colour is different or they are fleeing somewhere to get that better life here. Scots have actually done the very same thing for centuries. Scots have left to go and get that better life somewhere else. I will close, because I am conscious of time, but I was privileged to listen to two of my constituents, Megan Quinn and Rhys Lambert, who delivered the time for reflection on the 12th of June last year. That was the date of Anne Frank's birthday. They were part of that. They are students at St Cullum's High School in Gwyrwch, and they were doing a project with the Anne Frank Trust. Working with that trust has shown their dedication and also the dedication of the school to learn and to teach others about the absolute misery and humanity to man at the Holocaust that they delivered. I now ask Aileen Campbell to respond to the debate. Well, just like everyone else, take as long as you would like. Thank you very much, Presiding Officer. Like others across the chamber this afternoon, I want to thank Richard Lyle for tabling the motion, speaking so movingly about to the motion and for highlighting the significance of Holocaust Memorial Day. It has been, I think, everyone would agree, a really powerful, moving and emotional debate, and I thank all who have contributed. Regardless of whether you don't think you had something different to offer, I think that everybody's voices have added and contributed hugely and immensely to this debate. International Holocaust Memorial Day provides a really important moment for us all to gather and to collectively reflect upon the terrible events of the Holocaust and the millions of people who were murdered. It's also an opportunity to remember the courage that the bravery that is shown by all those who fought for liberty, freedom and justice, some who, sadly, paid with their lives. I particularly want to highlight Annabelle Ewing's speech about Irina Sandler, who was clearly a remarkable, inspiring and brave woman. I'm glad that Annabelle had the moment and opportunity to pay tribute to what she did and her legacy. We must remember the unspeakable persecution by the Nazis of the Jewish community, as well as the persecution of gay people, disabled people and anyone else who was viewed as different. It's also estimated, as others have said, that as many as 1 million Gypsy and Roma people were also murdered by the Nazi regime. As others have expressed, we must never forget the horrors of the Holocaust and other genocides around the world, which are a stark reminder of the inhumanity and violence that bigotry and intolerance can cause if it's left unchallenged. On that, Adam Tomkins is absolutely right and he powerfully expressed that the Holocaust was calculated. It was systematic and it was motivated by hate. Again, Adam Tomkins, Richard Lyle, Tom Arthur and others were also correct when they said that there is no room here in politics for passion and for anger, but there must be never any room for hatred. While we remember and reflect on that, action and leadership is required of us all as politicians to show example in our discourse and our conduct. I think that on all of those issues, we are all united on that. Maside lights, sadly, the Holocaust and the remembrance that followed has not spelled the end of hatred. This year marks, as others have mentioned, the 25th anniversary of the Rwandan genocide and the 40th anniversary of the end of genocide in Cambodia. Last year marked the 25th anniversary of the start of the atrocities in Northern Bosnia. Atrocious human rights violations are still happening in the world right now. They are happening in Sudan and Darfur, where millions of people are being forced to flee their homes as they face the threat of violence and persecution. Last year, the dreadful attack at the tree of life synagogue in Pittsburgh saw an ordinary day of worship turn into a day of fear that was felt across the world. Collectively, the debate has coalesced around a strong, united message in many ways. It is a simple message that we must not be complacent in the face of discrimination, racism and hatred. We must take action to tackle hatred and intolerance and promote the positive vision of the society that we aspire to be. That message has never been complacent, as one was made very strongly by Ross Geir. That is why, each year, we work in partnership with the Holocaust Memorial Day Trust and Interfaith Scotland to deliver Scotland's national Holocaust Memorial Day event. I have the privilege this year of speaking at the event in East Renfrewshire. There are a variety of events taking place across Scotland next week, and I hope that members will take the opportunity to participate, again showing that the united stance that Scotland is taking across our communities, across local government and the Scottish Government, that lessons of the past must guide our future. Like Alex Rowley, I would like to say a little about this year's theme, torn from home. Many of us take home for granted that it is our physical place of residence, it is our community or our country, and such places should offer a sense of safety and security that is important to our everyday lives and our sense of wellbeing. I cannot imagine the feeling of if any of those places were to be taken away from me or my family, or if we were forced to leave those places behind—places that we have built our lives around and attached such strong feelings of belonging and connectedness—places that we feel safe in. As Cabinet Secretary for Communities, I had the privilege to meet refugees and people seeking asylum and to listen to people who have been forced to leave their own homes and their own livelihoods behind, who have been separated from their friends and their family and have faced the very frightening uncertainty of an unknown future. That unknown future is often more appealing than remaining at home and facing the consequences of hate or prejudice. The reality is that no-one chooses to be torn from home yet, despite years of remembrance of the horrors of Holocaust, remains an experience for far too many around the world, with Alex Rowley reminding us of the 50 million people who are displaced around the world. Although I am proud that Scotland has a long history of welcoming people of all nationalities in faith and we are committed to supporting their integration into our communities, it is vital that we continue to send a message that Scotland is a welcoming place for all those who have chosen to make this country their home and to do so with a vigilance that never permits the creep of complacency. Although Scotland is an open and inclusive nation, we are not immune from hateful behaviour or prejudicial attitudes. In June 2017, we published an ambitious programme of work to tackle hate crime and build community cohesion, and I achieved an action group with key stakeholders to take that work forward. However, one area that I want to particularly emphasise is our approach to tackling antisemitism, and we know from our regular engagement with Jewish organisations and community leaders that Jewish people continue to experience antisemitism and discrimination. It was a message that I heard at our most recent Interfaith summit, one that I struggled to listen to because of its impact on the Jewish community. That antisemitism is absolutely unacceptable. There is no place in Scotland for any form of antisemitism or religious hatred that makes our communities feel insecure or threatened in their daily lives. Scotland's diversity is our strength, and we value and appreciate our relationship with our Jewish communities. That is why we formally adopted the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance's definition of antisemitism in June 2017. We must never forget what prejudice, including antisemitism, can lead to and therefore why education about tolerance, compassion and respect is so important. We are committed to providing opportunities for Scotland's children and young people to learn about the Holocaust as part of their education. It is for that reason that the Scottish Government continues to support the work of the Holocaust Educational Trust and its lessons from Auschwitz project, which is an incredibly powerful way for young people to gain insight into the horrors of the Holocaust and, just as importantly, to learn about why it happened. Today, more than 4,000 Scottish students have participated in the project, as well as over 550 Scottish teachers. Last year, the First Minister visited Auschwitz as part of the programme, along with 89 pupils from a number of Scottish schools. I have really and truly appreciated the contributions from members who have visited Auschwitz and their moving accounts of what they saw, their experience and how it impacted upon them. While the living memories and testimonies of the Holocaust survivors fade, it makes it even more crucial for the next and future generations to continue to learn about the Holocaust as part of their education and in order to merge into their adulthoods as responsible, compassionate citizens of the future. My House of the Holocaust Memorial Day in Scotland provides us an opportunity to learn from the past and encourage us to work together to tackle hatred and prejudice so that we can create a stronger, more inclusive future for everyone. Our commitment to promoting and supporting Holocaust Memorial Day demonstrates our collective resolve to stand in solidarity with victims of genocide and other human rights abuses and atrocities around the world. We must keep the memory of such genocide alive and never forget the consequences of bigotry on intolerance. However, this is about more than just memory and not forgetting, it is about action, it is about vigilance and it is about commitment. Commitment to tackle all forms of oppression, hate and discrimination. Vigilance to never let it go when we hear hate or witness prejudice or tolerate attempts to create an otherness of anyone who may be different. It is about acting to work collectively to create a Scotland where in a world that is tolerant, kind, compassionate and celebrates that diversity. Another world is possible and free from hatred if we strive to make it happen, but it will take more than reflection. That is why I am proud that in this Parliament this afternoon, regardless of political party, on this we are absolutely united, because in many parliaments and in many chambers around the world, that is simply not the case. We should seek to draw power from that, we should seek to draw pride from that but we should also seek to use that and the messages that come from this Parliament, that united message that comes from each and every one of us as elected representatives, that we can use that to make change, to make progress on tolerance and to make sure that that happens not just in Scotland but first of our shores. That would be one way in which we can make sure that the Holocaust Memorial and the Memory does not just become something that we remember and reflect upon, but that we strive to make and create a better future in the here and now and for the future generations ahead. Again, I pay tribute to Richard Lyle and to everybody, each and every member who took part in this debate today, for their moving, their powerful articulation of why this continues to be something that we should remember and commemorate in this parliaments. That concludes a very important debate today and this meeting is suspended until 2.30.