Broken Bonds

The Holocaust Memorial Day was commemorated last week. The Guardian included interviews with six of the dwindling number of survivors living in the UK. Each told a deeply traumatic story of personal tragedy amid unspeakable wickedness. But in each case they emerged from their horrors into the unending relief of the predicatable safety of a routine existence.

Sabina Miller (pictured) lived an almost feral existence in the forests of Northern Poland in the early 1940s but soon after the war settled in Hampstead London, raised a family and lived a comfortable life. On her reception into English society, this remarkable lady said, "For the first two or three years I was still apprehensive to tell people I was Jewish. I fell in love with this country because what I got was kindness and acceptance." Here is a great example of our common humanity as a country to protect the persecuted- it should be a source of immense pride to us.

It was once but we seem to have regressed into an altogether more selfish and pernicious view of the needy and vulnerable who come to our shores for sanctuary. Or laws and institutions reflect this hardening of hearts.

A more modern version of Britain's treatment of an asylum seeker is Carmen Quiroga. She arrived with her children from Bolivia in 2002 and despite prima facie evidence of persecution and torture had her claim for asylum refused. Like a huge proportion of similar cases, she was successful in gaining a hearing for judicial review.

However, with a legal case still pending she and her family were arrested illegally, forced from their home and incarcerated in Oakington detention centre. The staff there routinely abused Mrs Quiroga, food and medicine were denied her children and twice they attempt to deport this family.

During one interrogation, she was struck by a guard for failing to keep eye contact. This assualt, for merely showing defiance in the face of oppressive bullying, was carried out in front of her children.

Within two years they had all been issued with passports and citizenship but had to wait eight years for any offer of compensation for this unforgivable brutality from the British state. She'll be waiting a while lot longer for any apology.