National Holocaust Museum Director Marc Cave added: “The UK’s theme for Holocaust Memorial Day 2025 is ‘For a Better Future’; well, let’s look at the promise of a better future on offer from some. They promise that a world without Jews, and certainly without a Jewish state, is a better world. They have expressed exhilaration at the latest pogrom: October 7.
“In the cultural arts space, there is a real need to educate and encourage dialogue about that. It has become illiberal. It shows a tendency to endorse the false prophets of today’s extreme left and extreme political Islamism, who recycle the mad delusion of the extreme right and indeed of the Nazis,” said Cave.
A pair of children's ‘butterfly glasses’ made by Shlomo Mansour, 86, the oldest person currently held hostage by Hamas at National Holocaust Museum's new international touring exhibition 'THE VICIOUS CIRCLE’. (Photo: David Parry)David Parry
The Vicious Circle, with funding from the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government, is open in Soho from 21-28 January before touring internationally, first in Tallinn, Berlin and the European Parliament in Brussels.
The exhibition ends with a video call to action, inviting viewers to think critically about how, if at all, the Vicious Circle can be broken: “Time and again, false prophets have promised that slaughtering Jews will set us free,” the video says. “The pogroms they incite have destroyed thousands of communities by murdering & expelling their Jewish inhabitants… and trapping everyone else in an ongoing delusion. After 2000 years, isn't it time to break the vicious circle? And dare to create a virtuous circle… which lives, lets live, and co-creates?"
You can visit the exhibition at 13-14 Dean Street, Soho, London, W1D 3RS until 7pm on the 28th of January.