BBC political editor Nick Robinson has urged young people to raise the subject of the Holocaust as much as possible in day to day conversation and on social media, “to make people remember”.
Mr Robinson told teenagers at the annual conference for Holocaust Educational Trust ambassadors: “It is your job first and foremost to say that it did happen. This is not an argument, it is not a debate.
“It happened and it could happen again,” said Mr Robinson.
Over 300 HET ambassadors - young people who have taken part in the trust’s Lessons from Auschwitz project and run events and talks in their regions to educate others on the Holocaust – attended the conference.
They raised concerns about online antisemitic abuse and the pros and cons of using new technology in the future of Holocaust education.
Members of a packed audience asked panellists how to deal with antisemitic abuse and Holocaust denial on social media at a discussion on “how we talk and think about the Holocaust”.
Panellist, journalist Hugo Rifkind, said that people who believed that the Holocaust was too big a subject to be dealt with in social media had the wrong approach.
“We have to keep talking about it,” he said. “People can try to silence these things - for good reasons - but they should always be opposed. It is always better to be talking about it than not.”
HET chief executive Karen Pollock, who chaired the discussion, encouraged ambassadors to contact HET if they experienced any abuse.
Ms Pollock said: “Take that advice. Engage. Don’t be afraid to answer back when you know the truth."
One of the panel, documentary filmmaker Rex Bloomstein, said he did not believe Holocaust denial should be made illegal.
“I would not criminalise Holocaust denial. There has to be debate and if social media carries it for our generation then so be it.”
Mr Bloomstein came under fire from the Board of Deputies in 2008 for including an interview with olocaust denier David Irving in one of his films.
The positive side of technology in Holocaust education was explained by Dr Caroline Sturdy Colls, professor of genocide investigation at Staffordshire University, who said technological developments have allowed researchers to use non-invasive methods such as drones to find more information from Holocaust sites.
British soldier Bernard Levy described his experiences as a liberator of the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp in 1945.
“I was a soldier. Really my view of a liberator wasn’t what I was; I was a kid - 19 years of age”, said Mr Levy who met the Queen at her recent visit to the concentration camp.
Mr Levy had not spoken about his experiences for 68 years. “It has strangled me for all these years”, he said, “but talks like this have brought it out of me”.
The students at the all-day event, at the Queen Elizabeth II conference centre in central London, also participated in workshops and heard survivor testimony.
