I am sorry that I was unable to join Nottingham’s civic commemoration on Holocaust Memorial Day which focussed on the treatment of Roma and Sinti people under the Nazis. In 2011 I visited Auschwitz-Birkenau alongside Sixth Form students from Trinity and Bluecoat with the Holocaust Educational Trust and more recently met survivors of the genocide in Rwanda. These experiences were deeply affecting and strengthened my determination to ensure that we learn the lessons from history. The message of this year’s Holocaust Memorial Day was ‘Don’t Stand By’ and is an important reminder of the need to fight prejudice and discrimination whenever we encounter it.