THERE are now few people old enough to have lived through it, but each fresh generation gives the same answer when asked to name the greatest evil of the 20th century.

The calculated brutality of the Holocaust, the deliberate killing of six million people, mostly Jews, is something that we never forget.

In school we all learn about the horror of the concentration camps and it is right that we do. Knowledge of the crimes of the last century, perpetrated on our doorstep in Europe, helps to guide us towards a better future and must never be allowed to fade from public memory.

It is for this reason that Holocaust denial, the belief that Nazi atrocities were fabricated by Jewish people themselves for the purposes of propaganda, must be challenged wherever it is found. This disturbing conspiracy theory is spread by a hard core of nasty elements on the fringes of public life. It is a racist lie, designed to foster hatred of Jews and to encourage further persecution of a people who have suffered so much, and is actually illegal in Germany.

Back in November 2010 I visited Auschwitz with pupils from Sandside Lodge School in Ulverston and Barrow Sixth Form College as part a programme run by the brilliant Holocaust Educational Trust. Once you have seen the camps and understood the scale of the evil that happened there, it becomes impossible to stay silent when the facts are twisted and denied. Sadly the rise of the internet and of social media, which have brought so much enlightenment, have also made it easier for this sick idea to make it into the mainstream.

Last week I singled out a Barrow man because of his vile anti-Semitic posts, including holocaust denial. I took this unusual step because I believe there is a duty on us all to stand up to racist abuse, whether it is on the street or online. The internet cannot become a safe space for hatred, bigotry and racism and that requires all of us to work to keep it decent and civilised.

Last week has only redoubled my determination to continue to work with the Holocaust Education Trust and local schools to open the eyes of the next generation and work for a world where we say never again to such barbarity.

If the Holocaust was the greatest crime of the last century then what is happening in Syria is certainly the foremost horror of the current one. Hundreds of thousands of people are dead, millions are fleeing for their lives and chemical weapons are still being dropped on innocent children in Aleppo.

The people responsible for these atrocities are the brutal dictator Bashar al-Assad and his ally, President Putin of Russia, who has supplied him with weapons and is using his own airforce to bomb Aleppo. Just a few weeks ago the Russians bombed a UN aid convoy carrying food and other vital supplies to desperate civilians, but so far there has been little or no real response from the international community to what was a clear war crime.

We talk endlessly about the importance of sanctions and diplomacy, but we need to understand that until we stand up to Putin with the threat of stronger action then he will continue to bomb hospitals, slaughter civilians and flaunt international law.

Focus has rightly been on the Al-Assad controlled areas of Syria in recent months and the threat to global security posed by twisted ally, Putin. But it also is in the UK's interest to defeat the other malignant force which has become embedded in the region thanks in part to the cowardice of the West in recent years.

The black flag waving extremists of Daesh want to use their base in the Middle East to poison the world with their sick, ultra-violent perversion of the peaceable faith of Islam. That is why the liberation of the Iraqi city of Mosul matters to all of us.

I was able secure a question session for MPs with defence secretary in parliament this week on the offensive which is now under way with air support from the RAF. I used it to stress our gratitude to everyone on the frontline who is fighting against this medieval-style horror which seeks to wipe out our way of life.

More than ever, we must remember the lessons of the 1930s. Appeasing bullying dictators and murderous cults does not work and only leads to more war and more suffering. We must show the determination and moral courage to confront evil or we will see it continue to grow and threaten us all.