Holocaust Memorial Day- We must never ever forget.

Holocaust Memorial Day- We must never ever forget.

Today is Holocaust Memorial Day. It is a day for sombre reflection, deep and abiding sadness, measured consideration and above all remembrance. It is a day that should never ever be forgotten because its meaning, profound and vital significance should always echo resonantly throughout the decades, centuries and generations for ever more.

It is a time for loss, grief, pain, hurt, of tragic reminiscence. lighting candles in quiet corners of our lives and praying for our loved, adored, admired and highly respected. For they were the ones who gave their lives and subsequently suffered the most abominable fate. Whole families, communities, friends, neighbourhoods, enormous swathes of  humanity were savagely killed and murdered for nothing whatsoever. And therein lies the greatest tragedy. All populations and demographics were wiped out with one fatal and bloody blow. It was death and relentless torture of the most brutal kind.

I'm the grandson of Holocaust survivors. My feelings and reactions are reflected by the entire population of the universe. There is a raw undercurrent of bitterness, fury, pain and utter revulsion which may never go away. I can never even begin to imagine the sheer immensity and magnitude of the Second World War and all its attendant horrors. It is hard to find words for the vile and despicable actions of the merciless and barbaric Nazi killing machine. The scale and severity of the Holocaust is totally beyond human comprehension. It should be seared on our consciousness for ever more.

So this is my personal homage to my wonderful grandparents and mum who sacrificed everything and much more than anybody can ever imagine. I'm Jewish and I'm deeply proud of it but no-one will ever know how deeply my wonderful grandmother was affected by the Holocaust. I saw the agony and almost unbearable trauma she experienced years and years after the Holocaust.

I saw my lovely grandmother tormented and traumatised by the Nazis. I saw her hysterically reliving those agonising moments when all hell visited her. Even in the mid 1970s my grandmother was still utterly convinced that those repulsive and abhorrent Nazis were still crawling the earth. She flung her entire body in all directions, shaking and trembling, gripped and paralysed with the most overwhelming fear. She ran across her living room terrified by what seemed be an invisible but what to her seemed a very real presence.

My grandmother was the loveliest lady, a deeply tactile and warmly affectionate grandma who lavished both my brother and I with R-Whites Lemonade, crisps, sweets, adoring hugs and everlasting love. My grandmother was an angel and a paragon of virtue, the finest of all grandmas, the very best and she certainly didn't deserve to suffer for as long as she did towards the end of her sweet life. She was the epitome of kindness and generosity, of tolerance and forgiveness. My whole family will always remember and never forget her. She will always be in our soul. This must never happen again.

Today we should all put down our tools, pause in supermarkets. ponder in offices and bow our heads in deep reverence for those who unforgivably perished in the most horrendous act of genocide of all time.  We should hold Holocaust ceremonies on every conceivable piece of land. We should take time to say our tender prayers for those who we never saw but felt we knew. They were the ones who were dragged to the gas chambers, starved torturously in concentration camps, beaten to death and then left to rot in muddy ditches, bodies thrown into pits, lifeless skeletal corpses now gone for ever.

So I would now like to appeal to everybody. The Holocaust must never ever be allowed to happen again. As a grandson of the Holocaust horrors I ask you please. We should never forget the vicious violence, the naked and remorseless murder and manslaughter, the savagery and sadistic pleasure that every vile Nazi took from their atrocities. It should never be witnessed again at any time in anybody's life.

Life of course is full of grave injustices, travesties of justice, miscarriages of justice. Life is littered with cruelties, terrible tragedies and global instabilities that may never seem to make any sense. We sigh with despair at the foolhardiness of our politicians, the outrageous outpouring of the fascists, the extremists, the sceptics and the downright ignorant. Sometimes we get it absolutely right but over 70 years ago we unreservedly got it completely wrong and the crimes committed then may never be forgiven.

A new film starring Timothy Spall and Rachel Weisz highliights the one man who quite categorically denies that the Holocaust ever took place. Denial charts the life of the deplorably misinformed historian David Irvine. Denial is more than just a historical tableaux because it also heightens awareness of  one man and his stubborn act of scepticism, his rabid racism and arrogant intolerance.

Irvine has since somewhat sheepishly backtracked on the numbers of Jews who died in the gas chambers but this probably amounts to no more than a feeble apology. This is not a personal attack on David Irvine but maybe I should tell you exactly what happened to my wonderful grandmother and then you might begin to change your mind. I somehow doubt though.


So now is the time to ignore all of those narrow minded imbeciles, those blindfolded revisionists who think that Holocaust was some glorified Hollywood movie, a drama acted out on some decaying film set, a figment of everybody's imagination. The Holocaust was the most horrific of all abominations, the most vulgar of all obscenities and if a certain Mr David Irvine should ever decide to take his head out of the proverbial sand I personally would be grateful if you would simply leave history where it is and just allow the facts and figures to speak for themselves.

This is not a personal attack on David Irvine but I would kindly ask you not to question both the documentary evidence, the visual evidence and those who were never allowed to speak for themselves. Of course Holocaust Memorial Day is a vitally important day and I'm afraid Mr Irvine is desperately and foolishly wrong. We must never ever forget Holocaust day. Let us all light a candle.