Downing Street Says » Reception for Holocaust heroes

A transcript of a speech given by the Prime Minister at a reception for receipients of a new medal for British heroes of the Holocaust.

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Can I welcome all of you to Downing Street today and can I say to you that it is with the greatest of pride and the most profound humility, but I welcome you here for this celebration of what I will call selfless humanity’.

And I want first of all to pay tribute to all our 28 British heroes of the Holocaust who we honour today for their compassion, for their resilience and for their great bravery.

To those with us, like Denis Avey and Sir Nicholas Winton – and I welcome both of them here; they are with us today and I’ve already talked to them – Denis, who I met on Holocaust Memorial Day, who helped a German Jew survive Auschwitz; Sir Nicholas, who rescued more than 600 Jewish children from Czechoslovakia, single-handedly spiriting them away to Britain by train. And to those who have gone before us, who have equally inspiring stories, and many of their relatives are here today, I want to say how much we hold in awe everyone who is a British hero of the Holocaust.

It was the extraordinary acts of ordinary people that sustained those suffering the greatest evil our generation has known and it is right that today we recognise that heroism. Let me, with you, pay tribute also to the Holocaust Education Trust, which has campaigned so passionately for these special awards, and let me thank the Holocaust Education Trust not simply for doing this, but for how in so many ways it tackles intolerance, prejudice and racism wherever it exists. Thank you, the Holocaust Education Trust, for everything that you do.

And I want to thank Sir Martin Gilbert, who’s here, for the meticulous historical research that he has done, reminding us that we must never forget. Sir Martin, thank you for everything that you do.

The Holocaust is modern history’s darkest chapter. It’s the most grievous example of degradation and depravity by men and women to men, women and children. It is against that background that the courage of those we recognise today, who risked their lives to save others, stands out all the brighter. Those individual acts of bravery, undertaken knowing that if discovered the highest price would be paid are not dimmed by the passing of the years.

Indeed, as we mark this year, the 65th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz, let us never forget that what happened is, yes, an epic of cruelty, but, yes too, it is an epic of courage, of people who did so much to help other people in need. It’s my belief that the service and sacrifice that lifted one generation must also inspire further generations for British people stood up against the evils of fascism with a fortitude unsurpassed in some other places.

That’s why I am proud that we have created this new award, to bring to public attention the exploits of all those who answered the call, not just of their country, but of their brothers and sisters in humanity, and whose stories have for too long gone untold.

The moving stories are a critical part of our nation’s wartime history and they serve a national purpose by carrying important lessons for us today, that although the worst of human evil took millions of lives it could not extinguish the generosity of the human spirit. The medals collected today bear the inscription, In the service of humanity,’ so these awards communicate our conviction that evil can never triumph. They symbolise our resolve to safeguard the future by understanding the past and, above all, they show our determination that, Never again,’ is no longer a slogan; it is and will become a reality.

As a boy, my father made sure that I was well aware of the struggle and sacrifices of the Jewish people. And there are some people who are survivors of concentration camps who are with us today and I thank them for joining us.

I discovered too how, as so much of the world stood by, incredibly brave men and women were moved to take extraordinary risks to help even strangers escape the Nazi slaughter, so I am delighted to be able to recognise some of those men and women here today. All of the 28 are heroes who will never be forgotten and always now remembered. This is a remarkable occasion for our country and I want to pay tribute to the 28 heroes and to all the families who should rightly have pride in their great achievements.

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» Sunday, February 9, 0110

Reception for Holocaust heroes

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