Thursday 9th February 2012 | 18:46

Statement by Dr James Smith, Chairman of The Holocaust Centre, regarding visit to Poland with Aidan Burley MP

I spent two days with Aidan Burley in Poland. I facilitated the trip and there was no plan by the Conservative Party, myself or The Holocaust Centre to put this visit into the public domain as a media gimmick, but rather it was to be a meaningful learning experience about the devastating impact of genocide committed by the Nazis.

There were some powerful and evocative moments which could have been used for media advantage, but it was not the aim of this trip to suggest Aidan was superficially atoning for his actions. There were no cameras, no reporters and no press releases.

I was not paid to undertake this trip and The Holocaust Centre was not to derive benefit or exposure. It was privately organized and paid for by Aidan and myself.

I am not a Conservative Party member and did not vote Conservative at the last election. However I respected the serious manner in which the Conservative Party was dealing with the matter as part of an internal process.

In temperatures that went to minus 18C Aidan and I walked around the former Jewish quarter of Krakow which was decimated by the Nazis from a thriving pre-Holocaust Jewish population of 65,000 to 150 members of the Jewish community today. We visited the site of the former ghetto in Krakow popularized in the movie Schindler's List and we visited Auschwitz-Birkenau in equally cold weather.

After an invitation by the Galicia Jewish Museum to attend a talk by a survivor from Auschwitz, Aidan requested we return to hear his account. Everything we did in these two days was in need of respect and attention though as an MP we agreed he may have certain urgent work to respond to. When he replied a text from London, he was at the back of the hall, out of sight of the survivor. I was sitting next to him and though I was concentrating on the survivor's talk, not Aidan, if he were asleep as has been said, I am sure I would have noticed.

This was not an isolated trip. Aidan planned to visit The Holocaust Centre to meet with survivors and observe educational programmes about the Holocaust.

I don't minimize the stag night whatsoever and take the Holocaust extremely seriously – which is why I've spent nearly twenty years and given up my medical career to promote education about it and respect for victims of the Holocaust. It is also why I went to Poland with Aidan.

Finally I'm conscious that today tens of thousands of people in South Kordofan, Sudan, are under attack by people accused by the ICC of committing genocide. I am struck that while all this attention is given to one backbench MP who is now investing his time to learn about the Holocaust, there is hardly any outrage or interest in the fate of these Sudanese people suffering genocide today. We have to get some perspective and I think the Burley story is being blown out of all proportion.