Humanists UK marks Holocaust Memorial Day

Humanists UK President Adam Rutherford and Chief Executive Andrew Copson will attend the National Holocaust Memorial Day Ceremony in London today. The event commemorates all those killed by the Nazis during the Holocaust, including six million Jews, as well as those of more recently recognised genocides in Cambodia, Rwanda, Bosnia, and Darfur. The online commemoration will be viewed by survivors, their families, community groups, and schools from across the country.

Andrew Copson will also attend the UK Government’s official Holocaust Memorial Day event organised by the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office.

Humanists among Nazi victims

Humanists were among those persecuted early under the Nazi regime. Humanist organisations were banned in the Third Reich just four months after Hitler came to power, most notably the German Freethinkers League (Deutscher Freidenkerbund). At the time the League was one of the largest humanist organisations in the world, with a membership of over half a million people. 

In a speech delivered in Berlin in October 1933, Hitler boasted that he had successfully won his ‘fight against the atheist movement’ and ‘stamped it out’. In August 1934, he condemned the ‘atheistic movement’ as one of the ‘symptoms of degeneracy in the world of today’, along with ‘Bolshevik culture’ and ‘criminality’.

Many famous humanists were victims of or refugees from the Nazi regime because they were also Jews, such as the German scientist Albert Einstein, Polish scientist Joseph Rotblat, and the Austrian scientist Freud, all of whom joined UK humanist organisations in their exile. Across Europe, many humanists were also involved in efforts to support refugees fleeing Nazi-occupied countries, including Humanists UK Executive Director Harold Blackham, Humanists UK members Sir Nicholas Winton, Hetty Bower, and many more.

The Holocaust had a profound effect on the humanist movement. Drawing from his personal experiences of Nazi occupation, Dutch humanist Jaap van Praag pioneered research into the concept of psychological ‘resilience’, which would be crucial to the development of humanistic psychology. Italian humanist Umberto Eco developed his landmark writing on the defining characteristics of fascism – often presented as a 14-point series of warning signs – based on his experiences of Nazi occupation.

Humanists UK patron Jacob Bronowski’s reflections on the Holocaust informed his deeply humanistic writing and broadcasting work about human fragility and the human capacity for evil. Humanists UK patron Sir Joseph Rotblat, who was a scientist on the production of the atomic bomb, channeled his experiences into peace campaigning, and won the Nobel Prize for Peace.For others such as Humanists UK patron Alf Dubs – who came to the UK as a child refugee from Czechoslovakia – these experiences inspired a lifetime of campaigning for the vulnerable and least fortunate. The same was true of other lesser-known humanists who were kindertransport children or refugees from Nazism, such as Sharley Mclean, Eugene Leviné and many more.

Humanists UK Director of Public Affairs and Policy Richy Thompson said:

‘On Holocaust Memorial Day, we remember and acknowledge the victims of genocide throughout history – including the six million Jews murdered by Nazis during the Holocaust, alongside many LGBT people, political dissidents, other racial minorities, disabled people, and humanists.

‘Today we stand shoulder to shoulder with people of goodwill from all creeds and nationalities not only to remember all the victims of genocide, but to challenge the injustices we tragically witness today, and the dogmatism and ideology that fuels them. The horrors of genocide are a perpetual reminder of our duty to defend and champion diversity, tolerance, democracy, and the right to individual dignity and liberty’.

Read more about what happened to humanists during the Third Reich

Read about secular Jews who helped shape the humanist movement

Visit the Holocaust Memorial Day Trust website