News
Holocaust Memorial by Parliament will go ahead, vows Government
Minister for Faith Kemi Badenoch pledges to ensure that what happened in the Shoah is never forgotten
June 23, 2022 12:26
Minister for Faith Kemi Badenoch pledges to ensure that what happened in the Shoah is never forgotten
June 23, 2022 12:26Britain’s Minister for Faith has reiterated the Government’s commitment to building a Holocaust memorial next to the Houses of Parliament, despite the project’s recent troubled history.
Writing in the JC, Kemi Badenoch recalls a recent visit to Rome’s Jewish Museum and says: “The Holocaust, which saw the murder of six million Jewish men, women and children, provides a stark reminder of where hatred and intolerance can lead. It is only by remembering this history, that we can build a better future.”
She says the Government is building the proposed Holocaust Memorial and Learning Centre “to ensure that what happened in the Holocaust… is never forgotten”, adding Britain owes it “not just to Holocaust survivors, but to the British people now and for generations to come”.
The proposed £100million Westminster memorial has been delayed for months while a protracted battle over planning permission unfolds. In April, the Government lodged an appeal against the High Court decision to stop it being built on the site of Victoria Tower Gardens. Mrs Justice Thornton had ruled there was “an enduring obligation to retain the new garden land as a public garden”.
She said the structure would represent an “exceptionally serious intrusion into a green public open space of the highest heritage significance”.
The memorial was first proposed in a 2015 cross-party report commissioned by then prime minister David Cameron and entitled “Britain’s Promise to Remember”. The project has the backing of the Chief Rabbi, the Board of Deputies and the Holocaust Education Trust.
However, Rabbi Dr Jonathan Romain of Maidenhead Synagogue welcomed the High Court ruling, saying: “We know from the resurgence of antisemitism in countries abroad with powerful Holocaust museums, that buildings do not change minds: it will be far better for the UK to use the £100 million to have an education programme in schools nationally than a London-centric memorial.”
The UK Holocaust Memorial and Learning Centre, initially set to open in 2024, would commemorate the six million Jewish people murdered in the Holocaust, alongside the Roma, gay people and the disabled.
The Learning Centre would also seek to reflect on subsequent genocides in Cambodia, Rwanda, Bosnia and Darfur.