David Baddiel fears ‘Holocaust fatigue’ as interest in the Nazi genocide wanes

“Nazis were marching in Charlottesville in 2019,” he said. “Antisemitism always reappears. I don’t get the sense that it’s gone away.”

When a deadly mass shooting took place in Illinois’ heavily Jewish Highland Park suburb this month, “Nobody talked about it as an attack against Jews,” he said.

His advice to young people confronted by a lack of interest in the Holocaust, he continued, was “don’t be ashamed to discuss antisemitism in the conversation about other racism”.

Visiting Auschwitz-Birkenau with the HET was an “incredible experience”, Mr Baddiel added.

“I was kind of frightened of going… it was at once enormously depressing and wonderful to go.”

As a rabbi read Kaddish for the dead, he said, snowflakes began to fall and, despite being an atheist, it was hard for him not to think that the souls of his dead relatives were present somewhere.