Senior ministers were visibly moved as Holocaust survivor Mala Tribich, 95, became the first survivor of the Nazi death camps to address a Cabinet meeting in the UK. Speaking on Holocaust Memorial Day, she received a standing ovation after her five-minute speech, during which several Cabinet members lowered their heads and dried their eyes.
Mrs Tribich urged ministers to become witnesses to the atrocities as the last surviving eyewitnesses age. She said recent terror attacks in Manchester and Sydney had left survivors “shaken to the core”, adding: “How, 81 years after the Holocaust, can these people once again be targeted in this way?” She stressed that remembering the past was no longer enough and pleaded with the Government to act.
The Prime Minister called the occasion “incredible”, saying all were humbled by her courage. He said it was the Government’s duty not just to listen but to act against anyone who tries to deny or distort the Holocaust, and pledged to tackle antisemitism “wherever it reared its ugly head”.
Mrs Tribich was deported to Bergen-Belsen concentration camp with her younger cousin when she was about 14. She spent less than three months there, largely incapacitated by typhus, before watching from her sickbed as people ran towards what she later learned were British troops. Tens of thousands of people, including Anne Frank, died at the camp, which was liberated on 15 April 1945.
Karen Pollock, chief executive of the Holocaust Educational Trust, said survivors share their stories in the hope that future generations will always know what happened. She described the Cabinet meeting as a poignant reminder of the responsibility to confront anti-Jewish hatred and ensure the legacies of Holocaust survivors endure.
