The Shoah marks the darkest period in the history of mankind. It is a horror that touches each of us in different ways. For me it was my first childhood visit to the United States Holocaust Memorial in Washington - paralysed in front of single photographs of executions in Ukraine - reading story after story of families destroyed over the most unfounded, bitter and historic racism of all - antisemitism.
And it expanded as a teenager through my developing understanding of the extermination of those parts of my Jewish family which have remain remained in Eastern Europe. But the astonishing all-pervasive impersonal horror of the Holocaust goes far beyond any individual reflection or experience.
The significance of Holocaust Memorial Day is eternal. It shines a light on how even in perceived metropolis liberal cities, such as 1920s' Berlin, the potential for scapegoating, racism and prejudice can result in the greatest of human horrors. It makes us see how seemingly ordinary people can evolve into an evil kind. It makes us see how quickly political rhetoric and posturing can become murder.
This is why Holocaust Memorial Day must forever remain an essential part of this country’s educational calendar. This is why we should all support the Holocaust Memorial Day Trust and Holocaust Educational Trust in the phenomenal work they do.
The threat of antisemitism remains live and real. It is seen now in Britain not only among the far-left and the far-right. We can still recognise today individuals who share attitudes that - at a fundamental level - echo those of so-called “educated” Nazis.
And the lesson is a lesson for our broader politics too - for all the forms of populism, of scapegoating and of divisions of “us“ against “them” that today across Europe, in the United States and the Middle East provide the oxygen for this hate-filled deadly ideology. Which is why we must always and forever - however painfully - remember and consider and rehearse this most difficult to comprehend, most difficult to imagine, most inhuman of human horrors.
