Chamber and committees

Are we content to pursue it on that basis?

Members indicated agreement.

Having participated in or observed these debates for 17 years, it is difficult at times to think how to bring a fresh perspective to the debate, so I congratulate Paul O’Kane on his speech. It has been a privilege to work with him since he was elected in 2021 and with others to ensure that there is a genuine cross-party approach to the way in which we remember—and ensure that the country remembers—the events of the Holocaust.

In the same way, I congratulate Ben Macpherson on the successful event that he held this week on yet another example of the fear that the Nazis engendered that led to so much loss of life.

I wonder, colleagues, when you put up your Christmas decorations. I am quite late in the day in doing so. I still have a real tree, which, this year, went up on Saturday 16 December—it very often goes up on the weekend before the week of Christmas. Bear in mind that date—16 December 2023.

Last year, I saw the latest movie adaptation of “All Quiet on the Western Front”. I think that many of us might, at some stage or another, have seen a version of “All Quiet on the Western Front”. Indeed, the title is a phrase that has worked its way into the common language.

“All Quiet on the Western Front” was originally a book that was written by Erich Maria Remarque, who was a veteran of the first world war. It sold 2.2 million copies in its first 18 months. It is a book about the futility of the loss of life in the first world war, but it was detested by the Nazis. The author of the book found that it was banned. It was burned on Kristallnacht, and he had to flee the country. He moved to the United States and, actually, had a very glamorous life. He had affairs with Hedy Lamarr and Marlene Dietrich, and he married Paulette Goddard. They left $20 million to the commemoration of events of the Holocaust.

Back home, the Nazis arrested Remarque’s sister, Elfriede Scholz. In the judgment of the court, it was said:

“Your brother is unfortunately beyond our reach—you, however, will not escape us.”

On 16 December 1943, she was beheaded by the Nazis for the crime of being the sister of a brother who wrote a book about the first world war that the Nazis detested. The fragility of freedom.

In “A Village in the Third Reich”—a book that I commend to everybody—you can read about the village of Oberstdorf, one of the world’s first skiing tourist resorts, which benefited from massive international tourism, including Jewish tourism, and about how an insidious little clique in the village imposed the will of the Nazis to ban the Jewish community. There was subtle resistance throughout, but people there found themselves to be persecuted, arrested or shot for any collaboration or effort to save Jewish people. The fragility of freedom.

In last year’s debate, I referred to Danny Finkelstein’s magnificent book, “Hitler, Stalin, Mum and Dad”. It is about his grandfather, Alfred Wiener—the inspiration for the Wiener Holocaust Library, which supplied the exhibition that Ben Macpherson hosted in the Parliament this week—and his grandmother Grete, who were in Germany, and his grandparents Dolu and Lusia Finkelstein, who were in Poland. It is about the remarkable journey that the Wieners had through Nazi Germany and the heroic efforts of his grandmother to save his mother and her two sisters, as they moved through the concentration camps to Bergen-Belsen.

In Bergen-Belsen, Grete Wiener did everything to save her three daughters and, in the end, they got out; they got out near midnight on 24 January 1945. The Wieners crossed the border to Switzerland and to freedom. Grete had triumphed: she had protected her girls through the long years of Nazi occupation and terror, kept them alive through the valley of death, given them every last crumb of food and seen them to safety.

Alfred Wiener had managed to go to New York, and Camille Aronowska, who was based in Switzerland but learned of the prospective exchange, informed him of it. He also received a telegram from the Red Cross, which said that his wife, Margarete Wiener, and the children had escaped from Germany to Switzerland. However, there was a final bit, which said:

“MARGARET WIENER PAST AWAY AFTER ARRIVAL ON WEAKNESS”.

She had done and given everything that she could to save her daughters in Bergen-Belsen and was so weakened by the experience that she literally died on the train as they escaped from that climate. The fragility of freedom.

Whether we are talking about Elfriede Scholz, the community of Oberstdorf, the Wieners, the Finkelsteins or Marianne Grant, whose daughter mentioned this, too, Primo Levi said:

“It happened, therefore it can happen again.”

The fragility of freedom.

We must remember, and we must ensure that, although Primo Levi worried, it can never happen again, even though we know that that is such a difficult task and statement to honour.

Good morning and welcome to the first meeting in 2024 of the Citizen Participation and Public Petitions Committee. Because of the prevailing weather alerts, several of our colleagues are joining us online, as are all our witnesses this morning. I imagine that we will have a particularly exciting time as we try to negotiate the technology with the various participants.

The first item on our agenda is a declaration of interests. Unfortunately, my colleague Maurice Golden is not able to attend today, so his substitute, Oliver Mundell, is joining us for the first time. Although Mr Mundell is no stranger to the work of the committee, this is the first time that he is attending as a substitute, so I invite him to declare any relevant interests.

Item 2 is to decide whether to take items 6 and 7 in private. Is Mr Torrance, who is online, content with that?

I think that you look very fetching and smart, Mr Barn. I do not think that you need to be concerned at all.

Thank you, Mr Ewing. I think that that is appropriate. That clarification will now appear in the Official Report of the meeting.

We can now enjoy talking with Mr Barn. I will start with a more general question. Is that product placement that you have on your mantelpiece there, Mr Barn? I am looking at the Costa mug. I assume that no sponsorship fee is being paid.

Do you have any views on why Transport Scotland said that it would fail to meet its original 2025 deadline for the A9 dualling programme? What is your overall impression of why that did not happen?

Was that due to a lack of direction?

Mr Torrance, do you have an insightful question?

Yes.