Holocaust Memorial Day Debate, House of Commons

In March 1939 a ten year-old Jewish boy from a small industrial town called Ostrava in what was then Czechoslovakia was put on a train by his mum and two teenage sisters.

He was the only member of his family young enough to be allowed to leave and it was the last time he'd see them.

His mum and sisters were eventually rounded up, imprisoned first in a ghetto, then in Theresienstadt, before being murdered in Treblinka.

That boy arrived in the UK able to speak only three words of English - hot, cross and bun.

But he grew up to become the youngest grammar school head master in the country, was honoured with an MBE for his contribution to education and his charitable work and adopted four children - one of whom was me.

And this - Mr Hancock - explains why this is for me, such an important issue.

I was brought up learning about the Holocaust from my parents and hearing stories of the suffering, the appalling cruelty and the scale of the slaughter left me with a conviction that I have held ever since:

A conviction that prejudice leads to intolerance, then to victimisation, and eventually to persecution.

A conviction that we have a duty - every single one of us - not to stand by, but to make a difference, to fight discrimination, intolerance and bigotry.

I have seen similar convictions awoken in students from Dudley who visited Auschwitz with the Holocaust Educational Trust and then came home and went out campaigning against racism.

The Lessons from Auschwitz Project is now in its fourteenth year and has taken up to 16,000 students and teachers from all over the UK to Auschwitz-Birkenau so that based on the premise that 'hearing is not like seeing' -  young people can see what can happen if prejudice and racism become acceptable.

As a result of funding initiated by the last government and continued by the current one, every school will have students who see with their own eyes the appalling cost of racism and anti-Semitism, able to explain to their peers in their own words.

So I want as well - at the outset - to pay tribute to the Holocaust Educational Trust for the phenomenal work that they do in reminding people not just of the horrors of the Holocaust - but of the lessons every generation must learn afresh.

And I want as well to thank everyone who has or will take part in this debate - and the Hon Member for Croydon Central for securing it, because this debate shows that our country's politicians want to come together, to unite in a determination that these horrendous crimes are never forgotten; and to join in a promise that we will - all of us - in whatever way we can, work to ensure that they are never repeated.

My dad's story teaches us that when other countries were rounding up their Jews and herding them onto trains to the gas chamber, Britain provided a haven for tens of thousands of refugee children.

Think of it: Britain in the thirties. The rest of Europe succumbing to fascism. Hitler in Germany , Mussolini in Italy , Franco in Spain .

Here in Britain, Mosley rejected.

Imagine 1941: France invaded. Europe overrun. America not yet in the war.

Just one country standing for liberty and democracy.

A beacon to the rest of the world.

Fighting for not just our liberty, but for the world's freedom too.

Britain did not just win the war. Britain won the right of people around the world to live in freedom.

And look at Britain's response to the Holocaust?

It is true that Britain did not do enough and could have done more, but no one can deny that when other countries were rounding up their Jews and herding them onto trains to the gas chamber, Britain did provide a haven for tens of thousands of refugee children on the Kindertransport.

And it was British troops who liberated Bergen-Belsen, rescuing tens of thousands of inmates from certain death and giving back compassion, hope and freedom to the Holocaust survivors, many of whom have prospered under the democratic values of the UK.

So when people ask why Britain is important, what does it mean to be British, does it matter if the countries that make up the UK, go their separate ways or what is special and unique about our country, I say that it is because of who we are as a people and what we are as a country that British people came together and stood up to the Nazis and laid down their lives for freedom.

What makes you British is not what you look like or the colour of your skin, not where you or your parents were born nor how you worship.

It's not your race or the religion your practice, but the way you behave, what you believe and the contribution you make.

What makes you British is our belief in these timeless British values – values British people have fought and died for - of democracy, equality, freedom, fairness and tolerance.

And it is our unique and historic commitment - something Britain was prepared to fight for - that makes us the greatest country on earth.

It is been a privilege for me to meet people like Zigy Shipper, Ben Helfgott, Mala Tribich and Joanna Millan who survived the concentration camps and went on to rebuild their lives and make a huge contribution to Britain, bringing up families, setting up businesses, and who now spend their time travelling around the country speaking to schools, reaching future generations, ensuring these crimes are never forgotten.

What a privilege it has been for me to listen to these great men and women come and speak at the Holocaust Memorial event I organise in Dudley each year, to see their courage and dignity, but even more the humbling sense of duty and commitment, which means that even today survivors use their experience of these terrible events to create a better future for all of us.

And I want to pay tribute to another British hero – a great man who lived in Stourbridge in Dudley.

Known as the British Schindler, Frank Foley was an MI6 agent at the British Embassy in Berlin in the 1930s where he was working as a passport control officer. He provided papers to let Jewish people escape, forged passports and even sheltered people in his own home.

As the BBC says, "at great personal risk, Frank Foley's bravery & compassion saved thousands of lives & some even believe the figure could run into tens of thousands".

But the thing that has always struck me is that after the war he retired to Stourbridge, where he lived out his years in anonymity until his death in 1958.

Go to Eveson Road where you will see that he lived in the most typical British house in the most typical British street you could imagine.

And so what Frank Foley teaches us is that seemingly ordinary people can find the courage within themselves to do extraordinary things, to do the right thing when the easier, safer course would have been just to walk away - in his case risking his life to save so many others.

So for me, the importance of remembering the Holocaust is to remember the greatest crime ever inflicted by man against his fellow man in the bleakest chapter in the history of the 20th century; to pay our respects to all who suffered at the hands of the Nazis in the Holocaust and in other more recent genocides; and to remind ourselves that what makes us the peple we are and Britain the country it is, is the unique response to the Holocaust and to the Nazis.

So let us rededicate ourselves today to the timeless values of democracy, equality, freedom, fairness and tolerance.

And let us pledge again to fight prejudice and hatred wherever it is found.

Because there could be no better tribute than that to the memory of those that perished sixty years ago.