 final item of business today is a member's business debate on motion number 15216 in the name of Stuart Maxwell on Holocaust Memorial Day 2016. This debate will be concluded without any questions being put. I would invite the members who wish to speak in this debate, press the request to speak button now or soon as possible. Mr Maxwell, if you are ready, you have seven minutes to open the debate please. Ie, Gareth tomorrow, 27 January, march the 71st anniversary of the Liberation of Auschwitz, Birkenau. I'd like to commend the work, both of the Holocaust Memorial Day Trust who organized Holocaust Memorial Day and of the Holocaust educational trust who work hard to educate people, especially children, about the realities of the Holocaust and work to make sure we never forget what happened in the heart of Europe in the 20th century. F Ianfer, dwylo'r cyfnoddau dweud, trwy'r lle crystal cyfrwars iawn i ddeu llwygarol mewn ôl i'r mewn amddian nheadwll yn H..] Llywodraeth i Auschwil yn unrhyw lle am ddi, ac mae'n gweithio i ddaw nhad oedden i Loryn a Brandon i Wachmuthy neu oedden ni, ddwylo'r lle crystal cyfrwars iawn i ddeu llwygarol a'r yefyrdd rhaglachol ym bach ar gyfer rhanol i ddaw nhad oeddeu llwygarol i Auschwil. The Gathering The Voices project is holding a reception to which I would gladly invite all members here tonight. Gathering The Voices is a fantastic project that is recording the oral testimony of holocaust survivors who came to Scotland and making sure that their voices never fall silent. Even after all the survivors are long dead, people can listen to them and hear a first-hand Ie ddewidio o'r atrosidol y trafodaeth sy'n graed, ond mae ei gwasanaeth i rhanferio'r grannu ein syniad hwn yn 8. Mae yrdd ysteadfyn Mulgoedd, wrth gwrs, a'r hynny'n ddewidio'r cerddau a'r rhanaf mwyaf mae'r cymryd. Mae'r ganferio iawn yn ymddiol ydy'r hynny'n clir i'r ddefnyddio'r gwnaethau ar gyfer, yn rhoi mae'r ysgril gael i'r ddwygr, fel y rheirgyff Sir Nae Caerdyd a'r camp, mae'n ddyswod oedd yn ddyswod yn ddyswod mwy o gyfer y fforsiwn yn ymgyrch. Felly, Mae Gennyddiadnaf yn ystod o'i wneud eu phwrddol i gael i gael y ffordd a'i wneud o'r cyfnodau i'r ffordd o'r gael i'r gastchamberau yn dda. Ysgolwydau ar yr ysgolwydau mae'n ffordd o'r cyddiol yn gwaith o'r cyllidol, o'r cyllidol sy'n gwneud o'i amser o'r cyflodiad. Over a million men, women and children were murdered at Auschwitz Birkenau alone and in total the Nazis murdered around 6 million Jewish people during the second world war. Auschwitz Birkenau was one of the six extermination camps that the Nazis built with the express purpose of annihilating the Jews. The others were Belzec, Bojanic, Sovivor, Treblinka and Cielmno. All of them were built in the east and Poland and lands occupied by the Nazis. The theme of this year's Holocaust Memorial Day is don't stand by and we remember the stories of those brave men and women who did not stand by and who saved lives, particularly lives of so many Jewish children. A few years ago I was privileged to attend an event at which Mr Peter Zettinger spoke. He had been rescued from the Warsaw ghetto as a small child by Irina Sendler, one of the people whose story of the Holocaust Memorial Day Trust are highlighting this year. Irina Sendler was a poly-social worker who smuggled approximately two and a half thousand children out of the Warsaw ghetto. Those children, such as Mr Zettinger, were then sheltered by various ordinary people whose names we perhaps shall never know who risked their lives and the lives of their own families to keep the Jewish children safe. Peter Zettinger was one of the lucky ones. At the end of the war he was alive and even better, his mother came and found him a few months after the war was over. His father unfortunately had perished but he had one parent left. It was different for most of the children who came on the kinder transport to Britain. The majority of them never saw their parents again. It is unimaginable for us having to make the decision to put our child on a train, send it off to an unknown and unknowable future in a foreign country. It is an act of courage, an act of love but an act of desperation and we are lucky not to have had to face such a choice. Another one of the people highlighted by the Holocaust Educational Trust is Sir Nicholas Winton, who died last summer at the age of 106. Sir Nicholas Winton was responsible for rescuing 669 children from Czechoslovakia on the Czech kinder transport and finding them sponsors here in Britain. Sadly, at the last group of 250 children he tried to rescue were trapped in Prague. They were due to leave on 1 September 1939, but Germany invaded Poland. War was declared and they could not leave. Most of them, therefore, died. Of the 669 children whom Sir Nicholas Winton saved, many went on to live lives of great distinction, including Heiney Halbastram, a distinguished mathematician, and Renata Lexova, a paediatric geneticist to name but two. Their talents would have been lost to the world without Sir Nicholas Winton's intervention. Consider, however, the fate of Jewish children who were orphans before war broke out, already desperately vulnerable and alone. That brings me to another person who did not stand by. This was a lady called Jane Heaning, who was a Scottish missionary originally from Dumfries and Galloway. She worked in an orphanage in Budapest looking after the children, both Jews and Christians, in her care. She did not come home to the safety of Scotland even when Germany invaded Hungary but stayed to care for her orphans. She was urged to come back to Scotland but in another display of love and courage she refused to leave. It is terrible to think of the vulnerability of Jewish orphans without any relatives to shield them in Nazi-occupied Europe. Eventually, Ms Heaning was arrested by the Gestapo for spying, for working with Jews and for listening to the BBC. She admitted to every charge except the charge of espionage, and for the crimes of looking after Jewish orphans and for listening to the BBC on the radio, she perished in Auschwitz along with many of her charges. One of a tiny handful of Scots who died in Nazi concentration or extermination camps. There are stained glass windows in memory of her in Queen's Park, Government Hill Parish Church, only about two miles from where I live, where she used to worship before she went to Budapest, and I certainly hope to go and view them sometimes soon. For those who did not stand by, their legacy continues into the future, long after they are dead. Not only in the lives of the children they saved, but in those saved children's own achievements and offspring, and in the shiny example of love and courage that they present to us today. Presiding Officer, it is often said that Shakespeare has a quote for every occasion, but this time I have to disagree with what one of his characters said. In Julius Caesar, Anthony says, the evil that men do lives after them. The good is oft interred with their bones. We can see today that that is not true. The good deeds of those who did not stand by continue to bear fruit today and will do so long into the future. Good deeds are never done in vain, and I think in these rather frightening times that we must remember the heroism and courage of those in the past who did not stand by but held out a hand of friendship, a hand of support and solidarity to imperiled children and not just remember them but commit to doing the same. I now call on Ken Macintosh to be followed by Kenneth Gibson. There we are. Thank you, Presiding Officer. At least the lights didn't go out here again. Can I thank Presiding Officer and Stuart Maxwell for giving us this opportunity to mark Holocaust Memorial Day 2016? In fact, I, too, have stood here. I want to thank several organisations and individuals for the work that they do to mark this important day in our calendar. Starting with the Holocaust Memorial Day Trust. The Holocaust Memorial Day Trust has supplied helpful and thought-provoking material to schools, voluntary organisations and local authorities across the country and has supported a series of events, including, for example, a joint ceremony in East Renfrewshire and Renfrewshire on Saturday night, a national remembrance in Falkirk tomorrow evening and one organised by Edinburgh schools in Firhill High School on Thursday evening. The Holocaust Educational Trust runs the lessons from Auschwitz programme, the fruits of which we heard at time for reflection earlier today, when two young ambassadors, Lauren Galloway and Brandon Lowe, spoke eloquently of their impressions and experience from their visit to the infamous death camp. I urge members who have not had the opportunity to do so that the HET's book of commitment is available to be signed in the Parliament still today and will be around tomorrow. Members may have also seen the exhibition currently on display in the Parliament's garden lobby from Gathering the Voices, a remarkable project collecting the testimony of Scottish survivors of Nazi persecution. As Stuart Maxwell mentioned earlier, he is hosting a reception in the Parliament immediately following this debate, and I am sure that Gathering the Voices would welcome every member's presence. Just one of the faces stating out from the photographs and the documents at the Gathering the Voices exhibition is that of a young Bob Coutner. For those who did not have the pleasure of knowing him, Bob was a remarkable man. He was charming, he was engaging, he was funny and he was a survivor of the Holocaust. Bob's family fled Nazi Germany for Fascist Italy before, finally, some of them reached the relative safety and security of the UK. Bob did not just write about the difficulties and the horrors that he had lived through. He devoted long hours of his life to talking to pupils and others about his own experiences, his tales of youthful espionage, fleeing across Europe, interrogating Nazis after the war and held everyone enwrapped. In fact, at this time last year, I heard him and saw him do just that with a large group of young people at Williamwood High School. Two months later, in March 2015, he died at the age of 91. Representing East Renfrewshire, I have had the privilege of knowing several Holocaust survivors—Marion Grant, the Reverend Ernest Levy, Bob Coutner, Ingrid and Henry Wuger—still. What stands out about all those remarkable people is not the scars of their experiences but their warmth, their generosity and their humanity. Our world has been scarred by the attempted genocide of the Holocaust. In parts of the world today, the barbarity of killing people because of their religion or their ethnicity continues, people are thrown off buildings to their death for being gay. Our response cannot be anti-semitism and Islamophobia. It should be the tolerance, the kindness and the humanity shown by survivors, like Bob Coutner. One of the most encouraging lines delivered by Lauren and Brandon today was on this year's theme for Holocaust Memorial Day, Don't Stand By. As Lauren said, she would not stand by and let the Holocaust be forgotten. I can think of no finer tribute to Bob, the efforts that he made on behalf of others and the millions who never lived to tell their own story. I congratulate Stuart Maxwell for securing tonight's debating time. It is vital and important to remember the 11 million men, women and children murdered by the Nazi regime in occupied Europe during World War II. On half of those people were Jewish and they faced mass extermination simply because they were Jewish. During World War II, two-thirds of Jewish people living in Europe were killed by the Nazis, although some countries, such as the Baltic States in Europe, were 90 per cent murdered in just a few short years. It is not simply the death of those people whom we must remember, but the cruelty, torture and humiliation that many of them suffered and the way they were mercilessly hunted by their fellow-man. Auschwitz Birkenau was a primary centre for the annihilation of Jewish people during the Nazi regime and those not too sick, young or old, were worked to death on miniscule rations and horrific and inhumane conditions, some were even experimented on and less than 1 per cent survived. Other camps, such as Treblink and Belzec, little, if any, work was required from prisoners, were murdered almost immediately upon arrival and indeed only two people survived Belzec of 434,000 who arrived and in Treblinka a few dozen survived following a prisoner's revolt and escape, although more than 800,000 were exterminated. Holocaust survivors alive today vividly recall those horrendous experiences and it's just as important on a Holocaust memorial day to take time to remember the indescribable experiences these people have lived through and the lives that they have built subsequently. The horror that the Jewish people face during World War II is one that we truly struggle to understand. However, it's vital that we do not shy away from these difficult issues and to continue to educate communities across Scotland about the tragic events of the Holocaust. The theme of this year's Holocaust memorial day, as Stuart outlined, is don't stand by and this is a message that we must face head on. Atrocities such as the Holocaust do not take place simply due to actions of one person. Dark and horrific policy makers still gain power in the world and will bystanders to genocide may not actively be involved in such violence, standing by due to indifference or simply fear obviously has an impact and allows those who are evil to move forward. One does not need to actively support state policies of persecution in order to have an adverse effect on the lives of innocent people. The message of don't stand by highlights accountability that we face in modern society in terms of global responsibility for fundamental human rights and democracy. That is a message that we must continue to remind ourselves of as we fight against any form of bigotry or racism. We should remember that, although the Holocaust was unique in terms of its industrial nature and in many other aspects, right up to the present day we know of many other genocides of the last century, the Armenian Genocide, the Ukrainian Halodomar. They are appalling genocide in Cambodia, and, of course, we all know about Darfur Rwanda. I believe that much of what is happening today in Syria can be termed genocide, certainly in terms of the Yazidi population. As Robert Burns said, man's inhumanity to man makes countless thousands more, but by learning from the Holocaust we can educate people to ensure that such actions do not happen again or, at least, if we can, such ideas are kicked as far as possible into the realms where no one even wishes to contemplate the evils that such appalling ideas generate. Bigotry and racism are no place in the world, and we must challenge such ideas. We are a country that has been greatly enriched by the lives of Holocaust survivors, as Ken McIntosh mentioned. We must celebrate and appreciate what they have brought to our society and our people and the fact that many of them chose to settle here. We are fortunate enough to live in a country that is not at risk of genocide, but discrimination is far from over, and the language of exclusion must be challenged. Holocaust Memorial Day allows us to begin work towards a safer future here and in other societies and communities. I thank Stuart Maxwell for bringing the motion before us today, and I also associate myself with the comments that have been made in the various speeches already made. Last year, we commemorated the 70th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz. It would be tempting to think that the enormity of that crime perpetrated by the Nazis was brought to an end and that the persecution of the Jews stopped that day when the Auschwitz concentration camp was liberated, but I think that that is to misunderstand the deeply seated anti-Semitism that existed across Europe prior to the war to which the Nazi party fuelled and also fed off, because the Jews from a dozen countries who were deported to Eastern Europe to be exterminated very often were deported with the complicit support of local populations. In 1946, some 200,000 people who had survived the concentration camps, 160,000 were to survive until the new year, 40,000 died in the immediate period afterwards. In addition, there were some 300,000 Jews who had fled Nazi Germany into Eastern and Central Europe, of a population of 3.25 million Poles, 80,000 had survived, 175,000 Hungarians and 90,000 others. Many, as I said, fled to the USSR and the USSR were keen for them to go. In fact, the only able-bodied adults who were able to leave the Soviet Union after the Second World War and through 1946 were Jews and many of them did and fled, hoping to return back to the homes that they had left behind. Their experience was anything but encouraging. Indeed, in the 12 months after the war, more Jews were killed in the 12 months after the war more Jews were killed in Central Europe than the 12 years before 1939. I draw to your attention the experience of Jews returning to the village of Kielce in Poland. It had a pre-war population of some 20,000 Jews, only 380 were left by the end of the war and many of them gathered in a Jewish mission in the centre of town. A young boy who left home and stayed out overnight explaining himself to his parents said that he'd been kidnapped by the Jews in this building and many other children had been too. The mob stormed the building. The boy, in fact, had simply been away looking for food and hadn't wanted to explain why he had raided food from somewhere else. There was no substance to his story too at all. The mob stormed the building. The 380 Jews that had survived, 42 were killed, young girls were thrown, hurled out of the top floor windows of the building and another 80 were injured. Scores were killed on trains trying to return to the properties that they'd left behind. In many cases, when they did arrive back, they were shunned and many fled for their lives thereafter. It has to be understood that in all parts of Europe a whole new middle class had evolved as a result of the opportunity that they had taken from the deportation of the Jewish community and they had no interest in the Jewish community returning. The deeply rooted anti-semitism that preceded the war did not end with the liberation of the concentration camps. It carried on and that is why the lessons of the Holocaust, which we've heard about in Parliament today and which we commemorate with this anniversary, are so important that they be restated at every opportunity. I want to touch on just a sentiment that Ken Macintosh concluded with, which was the attitude of many of those who survived because it coincides with an anonymous poem that was found in Ravensbruck concentration camp after the war. Remember, Lord, not only the men and women of goodwill but also those of illwill, but do not only remember all the suffering that they inflected on us. Remember the fruit that we brought thanks to the suffering, our comradeship, our loyalty, our humility, the courage, the generosity, the greatness of heart that has grown out of this and when they come to judgment let all the fruits that we have borne be their forgiveness. It's a difficult thing but the heart of many of those who went on to survive and this country has an honourable and proud record is the legacy and memory that we must celebrate and never, never simply say this can't happen again but ensure that we work to ensure that it does not happen again. Thanks very much. Now Colin Mark McDonald, that which will move the closing speaker to the minister. Thank you Presiding Officer and can I congratulate and commend my colleague Stuart Maxwell for securing this evening's debate and can I also commend Brandon and Lauren, who led Time for Reflection today and delivered what I thought were very powerful presentations to this Parliament. It's become traditional for us to hear from young people of their thoughts and experiences following a visit to Auschwitz to Mark Holocaust Memorial Day and every year I think it is fair to say that the presentations we receive at Time for Reflection continue to be powerful and thought provoking. I've stood in the gas chambers at Auschwitz, I've stood on the platform at Birk now where individuals would be sorted into lines, those who were considered to be productive for labour within the concentration camps and those who were to unknowingly be sent to an immediate death. It is difficult to compute at the time that you are standing there, the enormity of that situation, the idea that human beings could do something like that to one another. It is fair to say and I think that the point has been made that this did not simply appear out of the sky and arrive all of a sudden, that was a long lead-in to the Holocaust itself but also the Nazis capitalising upon a wave of antisemitic sentiment, which was often fuelled by individuals of prominence and media outlets who promoted and endorsed a certain view of the Jews, which allowed it to gain public traction and made many people desensitised to the horrors that would be committed within society even before it got to the stage of the final solution being enacted. What I took from today's presentation by Lauren and Brandon and from the Don't Stand By call that is being made on Holocaust Memorial Day is that we often say that those who fail to learn the lessons of history are doomed to repeat them. I fear that we are reaching that stage again because if we look around we see inflammatory rhetoric being put across in the pages of mainstream newspapers in relation to individuals of certain religions or ethnic backgrounds, we see it being the rhetoric of certain high-profile political candidates and politicians in relation to those of specific backgrounds. I fear that many of the lessons and many of the arguments that have been made since the Holocaust are lost and falling on some deaf ears, as again a situation of economic difficulty gives rise to the blaming of it on a specific group or a specific section of society. We must stand firm against that and we must ensure that that rhetoric does not win the day and that those people who put across those arguments and those who would be susceptible to those arguments are shown first of all the error of those arguments but secondly where those arguments lead because those are the arguments that would have led in the past to the kinder transport being turned away in the way that we see many people now arguing that unaccompanied refugee children should not be accepted into our borders. They would have led in the time of the Holocaust to mass extermination of people and that all started from arguments around who was responsible for economic difficulties that were faced by society. It started with the idea that individuals of a certain religion or background should have to be identified publicly by some form of insignia and these are all elements that we now start to see creeping back into mainstream discourse so we must as we were told today not stand by we must stand firm against this kind of creeping rhetoric and this kind of intolerance being allowed to come back into society so I support very much the arguments that have been put forward today and I believe that we have much to do still to ensure that this kind of extremism does not rear its head in mainstream politics and mainstream society again. I move the closing speech from the minister Dr Allan you have seven minutes all thereby. Thank you Presiding Officer and can I like others thank Stuart Maxwell for again bringing a motion on Holocaust Memorial Day to be discussed at this member's debate. This debate is of course to remember those victims of genocide to stand in solidarity with the survivors living among us in our communities and to recognise our responsibility to raise awareness of what it means to live in an equal and just Scotland. Now as has been mentioned by others the theme of this year's Holocaust Memorial Day is Don't Stand By and this builds on the legacy of last year's reflections which focused on the 70th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz. This year it is forward looking with a clear call to action in the present. As we focus on the contemporary relevance of the Holocaust and subsequent genocides we should consider our individual responsibilities not to be bystanders to hate crime and to prejudice and indeed nor to international threats of genocide and nor should we be unaware of the suffering of people who are fleeing from such persecution. We have very sadly instances recently of abominable hate crimes and killings of innocent people including the Paris killings on 13 November and the Burkino Faso attacks on 18 January. Those and other incidents should be constant reminders to us about where it is that intolerance and disrespect ultimately lead all of us. Now there have been memorable contributions in this debate from members from Ken Macintosh, Kenny Gibson, from Jackson Carlaw, Mark McDonald and it's been clearly reaffirmed throughout this debate that we must ensure that the Holocaust Nazi persecution and subsequent genocides are not forgotten, not trivialised and crucially not denied. Again, schools, colleges, universities, faith groups and communities across Scotland are remembering Holocaust Memorial Day with candle lighting ceremonies, with memorial events, music, drama and poetry. I would like to thank the Holocaust Memorial Day Trust and Interfaith Scotland for their partnership in organising the commemorative programme of events taking place this week. I would also like to thank the Holocaust Educational Trust for placing the book of commitment in the Parliament this week and for the outstanding work that they do. The Scottish Government is pleased to have been able to provide funding for senior pupils from Scottish schools for some seven years now, since 2009. As a result of this, well over 2,000 pupils have had the experience of visiting Auschwitz and learning from that experience. I heard the honour a few years ago of taking part in one of those visits, and it is not an experience that I will readily forget, it is an experience that was well described by Mark McDonald. I am pleased that the First Minister has recently announced the Scottish Government's continued commitment to this programme through the confirmation that the funding will continue in 2016-17 to enable more young people in Scotland to take part in the lessons from Auschwitz project. It is not only the experience of visiting Auschwitz that is so powerful. The lessons from Auschwitz programme supports young people to go on to be ambassadors for the project. As other members have mentioned, two of those ambassadors, Lauren Galloway and Brandon Lowe from Ochmute High School in Fife, led a very moving and eloquent time for reflection at the start of our session in Parliament today. We should be, I should say rightly, proud of young people like Lauren and Brandon, who share their experience and teach others about the vital importance of understanding and respect for people of different religions, beliefs, attitudes and behaviours, and the importance also crucially of never forgetting what can happen without such tolerance. As I said, across Scotland events we will be held in remembrance. Tomorrow my colleague Alex Neil will be attending Scotland's national holocaust memorial day in Falkirktown hall on behalf of the First Minister. He will be fortunate to hear from Inge Auerbacher, who was born in Germany, and between the ages of 7 and 10 was in the Tretzin concentration camp in the form of Czechoslovakia. Inge survived when the Red Army rescued the family in May 1945, and he went on to a distinguished life and a distinguished career. We are fortunate in Scotland to live in a liberal society where there is less personal risk associated with challenging prejudice and discrimination. We cannot imagine the trauma of those living through the holocaust or more recent crimes such as the genocide in Srebrenica. Indeed, it almost seems impertinent for us to even to try to imagine what that experience was. In Nazi Europe or indeed more recently during the wars on the Balkan and elsewhere, a challenge to authority would very likely result in deportation or death. We cannot imagine having to make decisions of those kinds. I think that it is important that we do not condemn what we did not experience, but we also should not perpetuate the idea that only a certain type of person can stand up against discrimination and excuse ourselves as not the right person to speak up. We should not absolve ourselves of our own responsibility. Sometimes, in certain circumstances, ordinary people undertake extraordinary acts of courage. I am sure—and this has been mentioned by others—that you will have been moved, Presiding Officer, to have learned of the death of Sir Nicholas Winton last year and to have learned of his amazing contribution in rescuing so many young people through the kinder transport in Czechoslovakia. As has been described and alluded to by others, this was an example of one man's courage in the face of a truly terrifying and pitiless regime. Earlier today, the First Minister signed the book of commitment here in the Parliament and I encourage my colleagues in the chamber to take time to reflect and to add their names. We must, in conclusion, never any of us be complacent about intolerance and hatred. We must challenge and eradicate all forms of discrimination and prejudice wherever we can. I thank you again for the opportunity for all of us to contribute to the member's debate. The contributions that have been made here today have reflected all our personal commitments to education and commemoration of the Holocaust and other genocides around the world. It is a fitting way for this Parliament to commemorate this important day. I thank you all for taking part in this important debate. I now suspend this meeting appointment.