Rob Rinder: We must stop the language of prejudice becoming the norm

More than 500 people gathered in central London on Thursday to hear an impassioned plea by Rob Rinder not to allow the language of prejudice and antisemitism to become the norm.

Rinder was the guest speaker for the annual fundraising lunch of the Anne Frank Trust, which engaged in this year’s Holocaust Memorial Day theme of “Bridging the Generations” by focusing on the link between the community’s last survivors, and young school and university students, many of whom have become Anne Frank ambassadors.

The event was chaired by the journalist Emma Barnett, who paid particular tribute to one of the lunch’s guests — Karen Cravitz, widow of Melvin Cravitz, who died in last Yom Kippur’s terror attack at Heaton Park Synagogue in Manchester. Heaton Park had been her family’s shul, Barnett told the audience, and she warmly welcomed Mrs Cravitz.

Many tributes were paid to the co-founder of the Anne Frank Trust, the late Eva Schloss MBE, who, through her mother’s marriage to Otto Frank, Anne’s father, had become Anne’s posthumous step-sister. Eva died earlier this month aged 96, and Dan Green, the Anne Frank Trust’s new chief executive, was one of many speakers to praise her dedication to the “education and empathy” which has become a hallmark of the Trust’s work. Green noted that next year will mark the 80th anniversary of the publication of Anne Frank’s Diary, and that in the last academic year  130,000 British students had taken part in Anne Frank Trust programmes.

He also announced that an original artwork by Peter Sacks, “Anne Frank: Resistance” is to be auctioned next month, with funds going to the Trust. Sacks said: “If Anne Frank were alive today, I’m certain she would absolutely by urging compassion and understanding and the opposite of prejudice. We are drowning in prejudice and her spirit cries out against that”.

Seven survivors were present and memorial candles were lit by several of them, together with a young Ukrainian refugee and Julian Schild, son of Rolf Schild, who co-founded the fund-raising lunches and whose family have pledged to keep supporting them. Sophal Din, a survivor of massacres by the Khmer Rouge in Cambodia, also lit a candle.

Matthew Pennycook, MP, who is Minister for Housing and Planning, said that the Trust’s work with young people was “vital”, and pledged that the government would do everything possible both to tackle antisemitism and to preserve the memory of the Holocaust.

But it was left to Rob Rinder to remind the audience of the terrifying level of complacency and indifference which was present in 1938, and which ultimately led to the deaths of six million Jews — including Anne Frank and her sister Margot.

“Catastrophe”, Rinder said, “enters via people’s ability to ‘continue as normal’”. Repeatedly, he cited Anne Frank’s diary entry in which she wrote that “Despite everything, I still believe that people are really good at heart”. Rinder observed: “Goodness does not operate on instinct alone. It needs practice. Courage. Guidance. The girl who wrote those famous words never stopped observing. Even in hiding, she kept describing the world honestly, insisting that her voice mattered.”

Rinder, who was awarded an MBE for his services to Holocaust education, added that Anne did not write these words as “comfort. They were written as defiance. It was the voce of a young person insisting on the possibility of human goodness at the very moment when the world around her had stripped away her rights, shut her out of daily life, and marked her as someone who no longer belonged”.

“Dehumanising language” had once again “found a mass audience”, Rinder said, urging his listeners to understand the importance of education “to interrupt the process before it reaches its inevitable conclusion”. The tragedy of Heaton Park, he said, “was not that it took place, but that it felt inevitable”.

Early reports suggest that £640,000 was raised at the lunch, with further donations expected in the coming days.