Holocaust Memorial Day - Lowestoft 2012

This is the text of my words at Lowestoft Train Station for HMD 2012. Lowestoft played a small but wonderful role in helping refugee children:

I wonder how many times each day, each week we shake hands with people. I wonder how often we find shaking hands a meaningful experience, it can become very much part of an instinctive routine for us. But a hand shake is both symbolic and meaningful; it shows warmth, unity and equality, trust agreement and respect. A hand shake means something.

Imagine, then, how 200 child refugees must have felt when, on a cold December day in 1938, Dr Harrold Barraclough – the then mayor of Lowestoft ensured that he shook the hand of each and every child as they disembarked trains before making their way to Pakefield and Southwold. Those children, I suspect, found every meaning in that simple gesture and I feel privileged to now hold the office that represents those actions many years ago.

We should remain proud today that Lowestoft played a part in offering refuge and safety to those Jewish youngsters so that they did not perish with over one million other Jewish Children and five million Jewish adults who died alongside gay people, Romani’s, the disabled and other religious and minority groups during the second world war.

Often we may say ‘it must never happen again’ but sadly it already has in Rwanda, the former Yugoslavia and in other places and still today around the world. Having offered refuge to those 200 children we must now make sure that we do not allow Lowestoft to be refuge to hatred and discrimination in any form.

We may not, on our own, be able to stop atrocities from occurring but we can refuse to accept behaviour that perpetuates division and difference, we can reject racism and discrimination of other kinds in our day to day lives and we can treat all those we meet with respect and dignity.

Remember the power of Dr Barraclough’s actions and perhaps we can try to extend a literal or a actual hand shake to people who we encounter day to day – we remember the fallen of this Holocaust Memorial Day best by our actions in the future, speak up, speak out do not forget them and do not fail them.

Thank you