I was privileged to be at the Holocaust Educational Trust’s Lord Merlyn Rees Lecture last night. Lord Janner welcomed everybody in his delightful Lord Janner style. Martha Vearney chaired it, Francis Maude spoke and Sir Ian Kershaw gave a deeply disturbing historical analysis about the interaction between Hitler, Heinrich and civil servants – raising the question about whether British civil servants would have acted any differently.
At least 10 holocaust survivors were in the room. That was chilling and immediate. Three young HET ambassadors spoke incredibly movingly about their visits to Auschwitz. I cried like a kid.
I visited Ravensbrucke frequently when I was training teams from BASF Schwarzheide. We went there by bus – groups of maybe 30. We didn’t talk much. Everyone should visit.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ravensbrück_concentration_camp .
The work that HET does is super-important with their mission including “combating antisemitism, racism and prejudice in our society today”. http://www.het.org.uk/
More quotes from last night to follow….