Mr Katz said that he had decided to attend the event, which was billed as “Never Again – For Anyone”, rather than going to the official Holocaust Memorial Day (HMD) commemoration at the Guildhall.
He described how “the event was slanted as anti-racist but the room was brimming with raging hatred, directed at Israel and Jews not sharing the organiser’s views”.
Mr Katz wrote: “Jeremy Corbyn walked down the aisle with a policeman, pointing to those he wanted removed. As he approached me, I held up my HMD invitation and demanded to question my fellow survivor but no questions were allowed."
In an article published by the JC at the time, another Jewish person in the room also described how “five pro-Israel supporters had been evicted from the room by the police at the behest of Jeremy Corbyn MP.”
The JC understands there were others in the room who have claimed Mr Corbyn was not responsible for the eviction of Jewish protestors from the event.
Mr Katz's letter continued: “their leaflet [promoting the event] bore the solemn pledge ‘Never Again’ and displayed the familiar image of Jewish women with their hands up and their heads held high being led out of the burning Warsaw Ghetto, alongside a picture of what looks like an angry crowd of ululating Arab women ululating giving the V sign – a photographic perversion of which Goebbels would have approved.”
Dr Hajo Meyer, a Holocaust survivor, spoke at the event to condemn those who, in his words, use the “Nazi genocide of Jews to justify the ethnic cleansing of Palestine by the state of Israel.”
Mr Katz, however, described how the organisers of the tour had “shamelessly exploited a feeble, 84-year old anti-Zionist survivor [Dr Meyer] by parading him up and down the country.
“To hold such a hate-fest on that solemn day was a travesty, and to equate Gaza with Auschwitz, repeat fabricated Palestinian atrocity stories and compare Jews to Nazis is odious and deeply hurtful, particularly to those who suffered and lost family,” he said.
In an article published by the JC at the time, another Jewish person in the room also described how “five pro-Israel supporters had been evicted from the room by the police at the behest of Jeremy Corbyn MP.”
The JC understands there were others in the room who have claimed Mr Corbyn was not responsible for the eviction of Jewish protestors from the event.
Mr Katz was born in Poland and was eight years old when the Second World War began in 1939. He published a memoir of his experience of the Holocaust, Gone to Pitchipoi, in 2013.
