My blog looking ahead to next week’s important conference on the #Holocaust

On Monday the Embassy will be taking part in an important international colloquium here in Madrid, organised by the Centro Sefarad-Israel. You can find more details here.

We are participating on behalf of the British Government, and in the UK’s capacity as Chair of the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance this year.

The IHRA is a 31-member international body, which seeks to ensure that the Holocaust is sensitively and appropriately commemorated, researched and taught. And the UK’s aim over this year has been to increase the IHRA’s effectiveness and international presence.

But holding the IHRA Chair is not the UK’s only contribution to helping remember the Holocaust. Prime Minister David Cameron has convened a Commission to recommend how to create a permanent Holocaust Memorial and linked education resource in the UK. The Commission is tasked to make that recommendation by July 2015 – the 70th anniversary of the British liberation of the Bergen-Belsen camp. Meanwhile the UK’s Holocaust Memorial Day Trust is the inspiration for over 2,000 events, which take place in January every year in the UK.

We are also prioritising education about the Holocaust. It is a mandatory subject in the National School Curriculum. And the Centre for Holocaust Education in London University pioneers the study of how the Holocaust is taught. A separate organisation, the Holocaust Education Trust, regularly takes 2 sixth form students (aged 16-17) from every school in England and Wales to visit Auschwitz.

Chairmanship of the IHRA is an important and shared international responsibility.  We took over from the excellent tenure of Canada.  We pass on the role to Hungary in 2015 – and are already in close contact with our Hungarian colleagues about the continuing work of the IHRA.  IHRA Chairmanships should be mutually supportive, to help ensure continuing Holocaust remembrance and education.

The international collaboration at the centre of the IHRA’s work helps ensure that the world never forgets the horrors of this terrible period of human history, and that future generations in all countries can ensure it never happens again.