Holocaust Educational Trust dinner marks 80th year since the end of the Shoah

Cabinet members and prominent TV broadcasters were among the guests at the Holocaust Educational Trust’s annual appeal dinner on Monday evening, with Professor Ambassador Deborah Lipstadt delivering the keynote speech to more than 600 attendees.

Twenty five years on from her landmark legal battle against British author David Irving, who had sued her for libel for describing him as “an Adolf Hitler partisan” and Holocaust denier in her book, the American historian and diplomat told the room: “how things have changed since then. We thought, perhaps naively so, that we had decimated Holocaust denial. In the past few years we have seen clearly that we have not.”

When the Holocaust Educational Trust (HET) began its educational activities, she said “the notion that antisemitism was wrong, if not evil, was a given. No one had to be convinced. What they had to be taught was what that hatred could lead to. We did not believe we had to teach students that it was something that threatened the common good.

“Today, too many people are not sure that antisemitism is entirely unjustified. ‘What are the Jews complaining about?’ They ask. Simply put, these people either fail to take antisemitism seriously or consider a Jew’s complaints about it unjustified or even worse, as a foil to cover up for other things. Antisemitism is the longest or oldest continuous hatred….  We must fight and fight.. We will overcome. We have overcome far worse.”

The charity’s flagship fundraising event celebrated its achievements over the past year, including commemorations held to mark the 80th anniversaries of the liberation of Europe’s concentration camps and the end of the Second World War.

Key guests of honour were Holocaust survivors and their families, as well as 100-year old British army veteran Mervyn Kersh, who was at Bergen-Belsen in the days after its liberation.

Among the many MPs in attendance were Chancellor Rachel Reeves; Home Secretary Shabana Mahmood; Secretary of state for Communities Steve Reed; Secretary of state for Work and Pensions Pat McFadden; Labour Party Chair Anna Turley; Securities Minister, Dan Jarvis; Solicitor general Ellie Reeves; Justice minister Sarah Sackman; Schools minister Georgia Gould; Treasury minister Dan Tomlinson. Chief Rabbi Ephraim Mirvis and other denominational heads were present, as well as broadcasters including Nick Robinson, Ed Balls and Rob Rinder, and actors Tracey-Ann Oberman and Louisa Clein.

The evening was compered by broadcaster and journalist Natasha Kaplinsky.

Opening the evening, Holocaust survivor Mala Tribich MBE said: “In Bergen-Belsen we needed hope, because without hope, there was no survival.  By the time the British came to liberate me, I was 14 and had spent almost 6 years in Nazi hell.  My brother Ben and I were all that was left of the Helfgott family. Today, 80 years on, survivors like me worry about whether people will learn from the past. And we worry about a future where Jewish people still face antisemitism, the hatred that we hoped and prayed we would never see again.

“So, we share our stories. And the young people we speak to promise they will never forget. They promise they will speak out. Holocaust Educational Trust Ambassadors are keeping our stories alive. Hope was needed 80 years ago. And hope is needed today. For survivors like me, the Holocaust Educational Trust and their Ambassadors, are our hope. I believe in them.”

With the appeal dinner following a year of antisemitism persisting at record levels, HET chairman Craig Leviton said: “The phrase “Never Again” was first used by Holocaust survivors in Buchenwald in April 1945. It is a phrase that resonates with all of us. It means different things to different people — but above all, it must mean never again should there be the extermination of the Jewish people.

“It was only 80 years ago that people in this room experienced and survived that horror. So when survivors tell me — as they do — that they have not felt such concern about antisemitism since 1945, I take that very seriously. And so should everyone.”

The Trust marked the first year of its Testimony 360: People and Places of the Holocaust programme, and celebrated its awards, including a Charity Award in the Education category and a Third Sector Award for Digital Innovation of the Year.

HET’s chief executive Karen Pollock said: “Most of the young people we teach have never met a Jewish person. They come in with impressions and opinions – and they leave with facts and truth. They learn where antisemitism came from, where it led, and what it looks like today.

“They stand at the very places where the Holocaust happened. They listen to survivors. They use the latest technology to learn about the oldest hatred. And they are changed by it. There are tens of thousands, from all backgrounds, who now understand the truth of the past and are determined to make a better future.”