Agenda item

The Chairman made the following announcement:-

‘The 27th January 2023 was Holocaust Memorial Day. I made no announcements at the subsequent meeting as it was the Budget meeting. This is, therefore, the first opportunity I’ve had to speak about the theme of Holocaust Memorial Day.

And the theme of this year's Holocaust Memorial Day was ordinary people. I was asked to say some words on this subject. I was very moved and found this subject difficult – I will explain later.

The crimes of the Holocaust would not have been possible/without the cooperation of ordinary people, either by actively taking part or/by standing by and doing nothing. As is often quoted, "All it takes/for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing". This is a real story. In 1944, a five-year-old boy, Martin Stern, the son/of a Jew, an ordinary person, still alive today, was at school in the time of the Nazi regime and Adolf Hitler.

Two young men, ordinary people, came to Martin's class at school and asked, “is Martin Stern here today?” The teacher, an ordinary person who knew what was going on, answered, “no, he's not here today”. But Martin put up his hand and said, "I'm here". As he was being led out of the class, Martin looked back and saw the ashen face of the teacher. She knew where Martin was being taken.

Martin ended up with his sister in a prison camp. Martin saw many people being loaded as prisoners into cattle trucks. Ordinary people, railway workers and soldiers were just doing their jobs with no expression on their faces. One brave, local woman said she wanted to look after some of the children. She chose. Martin and his two-year-old sister. An ordinary man, came to their dormitory full of children and read out the children’s names one by one. And those children were escorted onto a train until it was just Martin with his two-year-old sister in the arms of this brave local woman, an ordinary person, in the prison dormitory.

All the other children were taken to the Auschwitz extermination camp. What can we do, us ordinary people? We can choose. We could choose to be like the two young men who gathered up Jewish children for extermination. We could choose to be like those railway workers and train drivers, all ordinary people. But people who took innocent children to their deaths. We could choose to be like the man who read the list of children to be taken to their deaths. Or we could choose, like many people, to do nothing. Or we can choose to be like the teacher, an ordinary person who did her best to protect Martin. And we can choose to be like the local woman who saved a brother and sister from extermination. We can only pacify our conscience by the delusion that we can do no harm if we take no part in evil. Bad men need do nothing more to achieve their ends than have ordinary people look on and do nothing. As ordinary people, we should speak out wherever we see prejudice by being constantly vigilant to ensure that we ourselves do not have any prejudice.

And now I will tell you why I have struggled with this story. As an armed forces child, going to forces schools, I regularly saw children being called out of class by name. In the sixties, when I was just seven or eight, when their fathers were killed in Aden. And as a teenager at a forces boarding school in Germany in the seventies when their fathers were killed in Northern Ireland. I was never called and my dad is still alive – we never saw our classmates again and can not imagine how these tragedies affected their lives.

It is, of course, the duty of the Town Crier to gain silence and introduce the First Citizen. Especially at outdoor events. As it was such an emotional moment for me, I have to say how grateful I was to have the Town Crier’s support on Holocaust Memorial Day’.

The Leader informed the Council that an official unveiling of a memorial bench for former Councillor George Barton, situated outside Sompting Parish Hall, had taken place earlier in the day. He thanked all those who had helped arrange the event and attended.

The Leader also advised that Adur District Council had won the iESE Green Council Gold Award for Sussex Bay. A presentation would take place at the Annual Council meeting in May 2023.

The Cabinet Member for Finance and Resources commended all those staff who assist local residents to access the benefits to which they are entitled. However, he pointed out that there was also a significant number of commercial people in Adur that also paid taxes of one form or another including business rates. The Council was looking at ways in which all businesses in Adur could be better supported to identify and claim relief they were entitled to.

There were no further announcements.