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Labour condemned by Holocaust survivor at launch of memorial design exhibition
'Members of the Labour party have to do something, otherwise this memorial is a waste of money'
September 4, 2018 15:45
'Members of the Labour party have to do something, otherwise this memorial is a waste of money'
September 4, 2018 15:45A Holocaust survivor has attacked Labour over its antisemitism crisis, as Shadow Foreign Secretary Emily Thornberry stood metres away at the launch of a public exhibition of the designs of a memorial to Shoah.
In an imprumptu speech, Agnes Grunwald-Spier stood to speak after politicians, including Ms Thornberry, gave speeches. She said: “Members of the Labour party have to do something, otherwise this memorial is a waste of money.”
She spoke from the podium, saying she felt “bitterly disappointed at what’s happened in the Labour party," particularly at the results of Labour’s National Executive Committee elections, which saw Pete Willsman re-elected, despite the fact the JC revealed a rant in which he said Jewish “Trump fanatics” were making false allegations of antisemitism in the party.
In her speech, Ms Thornberry said: “This memorial will teach the millions who visit it that whatever hatred flourishes in this world, it starts with a concept of ‘them’ and ‘us’, and depends on the demonisation of the other. And that is a lie. There is no ‘other’, there is only us.
“Whenever we see such hatred, whenever we see members of any community facing abuse, prejudice, discrimination, let alone in a community that has suffered as much as our Jewish friends, and our brothers and our sisters, there is a responsibility on all of us to speak up.”
When the JC tried to ask Ms Thornberry as she was leaving the event about Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn’s association with a group known for Holocaust denial, she gave no response.
As reported by the Daily Mail last week, Mr Corbyn told a Parliamentary select committee in 2016 that he had not attended any events held by Deir Yassin Remembered since he found out that its founder Paul Eisen promoted Holocaust denial.
Mr Corbyn neglected to mention that, in 2014, almost a decade after the views of the leader of Deir Yassin Remembered were made public, he met members of the group to meet him in Parliament.
Speaking to the JC after her speech, Ms Grunwald-Spier said Ms Thornberry’s presence at the launch was “completely hypocritical and disgraceful”.
She added that the shadow foreign secretary had “defended what he [Jeremy Corbyn] said about Jews not understanding English irony".
“Elie Wiesel said the Holocaust happened because people were indifferent to the fate of the Jews," she said.
"Corbyn has neither the will or the intention to do anything about it. And if she’s the shadow foreign secretary, then it falls to her to do something about it and I don’t believe she will.
"Words are cheap. She can come here and read her speech that somebody else has written for her.
“I was a baby in the Budapest Ghetto. My parents both survived, by a miracle and brought me to England in 1947 because they thought England was a safe, decent country.
“If they were alive today and they saw what was going on, they would be absolutely horrified.”
In his speech at Tuesday's exhibition launch, Communities Secretary James Brokenshire emphasised that “there can be no more powerful symbol of our commitment to remembering the men, women and children who were murdered in the Holocaust, and all other victims of Nazi persecution, including Roma, gay and disabled people, than by placing the memorial in Victoria Tower gardens, in the shadow of Parliament."
“The Holocaust… is a warning to us where hatred can lead, a stark reminder that the institutions of government can become instruments of injustice and terror – a reminder that the Holocaust was also made possible by bystanders, countless numbers of people who stood by and didn’t challenge the actions of the murderers.”
Former Labour Shadow Chancellor Ed Balls and Lord Pickles, co-chairs of the UK Holocaust Memorial Foundation Advisory Board, said the same.
Mr Balls said: “What better place than next to our Parliament to remind this generation and future generations of Parliamentarians of their obligation to uphold the values of liberty and tolerance?”
Lord Pickles said that the memorial’s location would “remind Parliament that it has the power to protect and the power to oppress. The memorial is part of a learning centre that will remind all communities of the cost of indifference, intolerance and bigotry.”
