On Monday, I attended the Cambridge Union’s Holocaust Memorial Day lecture, during which Dr Martin Stern shared his harrowing story of surviving Westerbork and Theresienstadt concentration camps following his imprisonment at just five years old. He told us, in no uncertain terms, that we as human beings are not very good at upholding the promise of “never again”. I left wondering how we can be better at it.

When you’re young, it’s easy to take the slipping away of time for granted. We are the last generation for whom the Holocaust is within living memory. My Grandad vividly recalled hearing “Mr Hitler on the wireless," as well as long nights spent in bomb shelters as a young boy. My Granny, who was born in 1943 and lost her father to the war, spent countless hours of her free time reading about the Holocaust and attempting to understand its atrocity. Despite growing up in Britain, for them, the Holocaust was a grimly omnipresent fact of life. Yet only three generations later, I have found myself explaining to my peers why the Holocaust really was that bad.

Our generation occupies a unique position. Our grandparents grew up in a world in which the Holocaust was viscerally real. Now, we are entering adulthood at a time when one of the most powerful individuals in the world can do a fascist salute on stage at the inauguration of a US president, and in which, on the eightieth anniversary of its liberation, a third of young adults in the UK don’t know what Auschwitz is. We straddle the line between the living memory of the Holocaust and a dark descent into ignorance. With this comes obligation.

"I have found myself explaining to my peers why the Holocaust really was that bad"

We have a responsibility to change the trajectory of the legacy of the Holocaust. During his lecture, Dr. Stern shared the statistic that 30% of Germans believe their ancestors were part of the resistance, which is a statistical impossibility. Disturbing as this figure is, it’s human nature to have the conviction that we would have been, and are currently, on the right side of history. But we must see these impulses for what they are (denial, and also arrogance) and resist them.

One of the most powerful tools we have is education. We have the unique privilege of being able to hear testimonies from Holocaust survivors. Taking the time to listen to these stories and doing all that we can to amplify them, even if this is as simple as sharing what we have heard with family and friends, is a way of honouring the victims of the Holocaust, and making the most of the time that we have left with its remaining survivors.

Realistically, I know not everyone will have the opportunity to hear first-hand accounts of the Holocaust in this way. Despite the incredible lengths that survivors go to to share their stories with as many people as possible, they cannot reach everyone. This is why Holocaust education in schools is so essential.

"We straddle the line between the living memory of the Holocaust and a dark descent into ignorance. With this comes obligation"

Keir Starmer recently reiterated his commitment to the teaching of the Holocaust. I was obviously heartened to hear this, but couldn’t help but think about my own experience of Holocaust education in Scotland, where, unlike in England, it is not mandatory for schools to teach the Holocaust. My education was largely limited to a screening of The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas, while my younger sister learned nothing at all because her class ran out of time to study the Holocaust.

At first, I assumed Scotland’s lacking Holocaust education must be a terrible oversight. At the time, I was a Member of the Scottish Youth Parliament, and I resolved to propose a motion to my peers calling for mandatory Holocaust education in Scottish secondary schools. I first grew more cynical when a staff member at the youth parliament told me to remove the word ‘genocide’ from the description of my motion, because it might be upsetting.

Ultimately, the motion was by far the most unpopular at that sitting. But I was sure that, unlike my youth parliamentarian peers, Scotland’s education officials would see the light. I submitted multiple questions asking whether Holocaust education might be made mandatory to the Scottish Government through a sympathetic MSP. Every single one was swiftly rebuked. My most harrowing moment was speaking to a high-up representative of Education Scotland, who told me bluntly that she “couldn’t add everyone’s bit of history to the curriculum”. After all, just last week someone had asked her to make teaching the Jacobite Rebellion mandatory.

I believe Scotland provides an unsettling case study. Ignorance about the Holocaust is pervasive across the country and the world. We as a generation occupy a unique position as the last for whom the Holocaust remains in living memory, as we must take the responsibility this affords us seriously. We must commit to being on the right side of history.