Next generation must learn of ‘catastrophic moral failure’ of Holocaust – Lammy

The next generation must not be allowed to focus on online “clickbait” and ignore the grim lessons of the Holocaust, David Lammy said.

The Foreign Secretary said youngsters needed to understand “how the seeds of such a catastrophe are still around us”.

Speaking at a reception co-hosted by the Israeli embassy in the UK, Mr Lammy said: “‘Never again’ is a solemn promise which we owe to the victims, but also which we must uphold for our own sake, and for the sake of future generations.

“We need Holocaust remembrance. Holocaust education. Action against antisemitism – it is how we build a better future for us all together.”

At the event in the Foreign Office he highlighted a digital exhibition featuring 80 objects from filmed testimonies of British Holocaust survivors and refugees, presented as 80 individual social media posts.

He said: “Eighty years on from the defeat of Nazism, the number of survivors still with us is inevitably dwindling.

“The world of the 1930s and ’40s can feel ever more distant from our high-tech world of today. The next generation risks being distracted, clickbait making it all too easy not to grasp the full horror of the Holocaust.

“We therefore need to find new ways to tell the story, to capture people’s imagination, young people’s most of all, and prompt real reflection.

“We need them to understand what a catastrophic moral failure for humanity Auschwitz was, and how the seeds of such a catastrophe are still around us.”

Tottenham MP Mr Lammy said: “As a black man descended from the Windrush generation, as MP for the most diverse constituency in Britain – including, I am proud to say, a thriving Jewish community – and now, as Foreign Secretary, I see all too many signs of that lingering infection.

“Auschwitz did not start in its gas chambers. Genocide does not start with genocide.

“It starts with denial of rights. With attacks on the rule of law. With a festering resentment of the other.”