Peers have backed an amendment attempting to clarify that any learning centre built alongside a Holocaust memorial in Westminister should retain a focus on the Shoah itself and the scourge of antisemitism.
But after more than seven hours of intense debate, which ended at 1.17am on Thursday morning, there was still little clarify as to when, or if, a Holocaust Memorial and Learning Centre in Victoria Tower Gardens would be built.
As the Holocaust Memorial Bill returned to the Lords for its report stage, Faith Minister Lord Khan confirmed the government continued to support the project, now estimated to be costing over £140 million.
Lord Verdirame
One amendment moved by Lord Verdirame, sought to address concerns of “instances of Holocaust commemorations forgetting about the Jews or of such events being used as platforms for other messages. ”
“With this amendment, Parliament would send a clear signal that whatever the disagreements about the memorial itself might be, there would have to be none of this nonsense in this learning centre willed by Parliament and right next to Parliament,” the non-affiliated peer said.
“Our amendment contemplates a lesson beyond the Holocaust about which the learning centre should seek to educate visitors. It is the most obvious lesson that should accompany Holocaust education: educating about antisemitism.
“The rise of antisemitism is one of the great moral failures of our times.
“In our country 33% of religious hate crimes recorded in the year ending March 2024 targeted Jews, who make up barely 0.3% of the British population.”
Reflecting on calls for any learning centre to also educate on other genocides the KC Verdirame added:”The point is that Rwanda, like Darfur or Cambodia, has a very complex history that would have to be told properly, not as an appendix to the Holocaust and not on the false premise that there are parallels between, say, the Weimar Republic and the regime of Juvénal Habyarimana.”
Lord Pickles
Speaking in support of the amendment the Conservative peer Lord Pickles added:”I am very sympathetic because I went through the same process myself a few years ago, after the 2017 election, when the prospect of a Jeremy Corbyn Prime Ministership was a real and present danger.
“I certainly could see the possibility that the Holocaust memorial would turn into some kind of genocide museum or genocide and slavery museum and be completely watered down.
“I spent a lot of time worrying and trying to find ways round it. I have to say that if there had been a Jeremy Corbyn Government with that intent, I do not think there would be very much this House could have done to prevent it. ”
Baroness Deech, a strong opponent of the controversial building of the Memorial and Learning Centre in Victoria Tower Gardens, was also strongly in support of the argument that an educational arena that is used should focus on the Holocaust and Jews.
“I fear that the learning centre will continue the business of globalising the Holocaust, making it a vague word that can be applied to any kind of slaughter that one does not approve of,” she told the Lords.
“We need to combat the terrible racism that is appearing in professionals, artists, the media and the universities today. We cannot just treat the Holocaust as another murder in the past, not to be remembered on its own. It is a continuing story.”
Baroness Deech
Shadow Attorney General Lord Wolfson also aimed to play down the significance of some divisions within the Jewish community itself over support for the memorial and learning centre.
He told peers:”I agree on one point. The Jewish community can be said to be divided.
“It has been divided for as long as there has been a Jewish community, both in this country and elsewhere.
“If you read the Bible, you will know that there were some people who did not want to leave Egypt, so the fact that you have a divided Jewish community is not a new point. ”
The Conservative peer also urged his colleagues “against invoking the name of Rabbi Gluck” after the Stamford Hill rabbi said he opposed the building of the memorial and learning centre on the grounds it would do little to counter antisemitism.
“He was about the only person in the Jewish community who sought to maintain cordial relations with Mr Corbyn when the rest of us thought he was basically leading an antisemitic cult which, at one point, threatened to take over the Labour Party,” claimed Lord Wolfson.
“I am not going to take lessons from Rabbi Gluck as to how the Jewish community should operate.
“The overwhelming majority of the Jewish community is strongly in favour of this memorial and learning centre. The huge advantage of this amendment is that it will put the purpose of the memorial and the learning centre right there in the Bill.”
Rabbi Herschel Gluck
Lord Verdirame’s amendment was eventually agreed – 83 votes to 79 – and will now go back to the Commons for further debate.
Elsewhere during the debate Baroness Berger was praised by peers from all parties, as she made her first speech since entering the Lords, in support of the memorial and learning centre.
Berger , who said she backed the government’s position on the need for a memorial, revealed she has lost over 100 members of her family in the Shoah on her mothers’ side, and also reminded Lords that six people had been convincted in this country for threats to her.
She said:”I am very clear that a national memorial should be placed adjacent to our Houses of Parliament at the heart of our democracy and home of our national public life as a very physical reminder to us all of the horrific and unique history which saw the systematic murder of 6 million Jews and millions of non-Jewish civilians, including Roma, the disabled, Poles, Soviet prisoners of war and members of the LGBTQ community.
“It is the worst example in living history of what happens when good people do nothing.”
Lord Wolfson KC
Baroness Berger added:”The aim of the memorial and education centre will be to prompt visitors to reflect on questions such as: what more could and should have been done to help?
“It will highlight the fate of British nationals caught up in Nazi terror, and those involved in liberating camps, which many noble Lords have referred to this evening.
“I warmly welcome that evidence-based approach to help visitors engage meaningfully with the past, and to reflect on the very serious dangers of indifference, hatred and antisemitism—perils that we know have not gone away.
“Today sees record levels of anti-Jewish hatred in this country. I believe that this pedagogical approach, inspired by some of the leaders in this field, including from Yad Vashem, will make a difference.The proposed location of the memorial and learning centre is essential. ”
Conservative peer Lord Polak praised Berger’s words saying:”I want to say is that the most important speech tonight has just been made by the noble Baroness, Lady Berger.
“The courage and bravery that she showed, and what she was put through by her own people, in her own party, leads me to say that I admire everything she did. Every word that she said tonight, everybody should read.”
Baroness Berger
Speaking in the early hours, Baroness Deech, who withdrew her own amendment, outlined the continued serious objections to the project of some in the community, telling peers:”Not all the survivors want a memorial, or one in this place.
“No one has studied the impact. There is all this talk about it having to be next to Parliament to make some signal about democracy, but there has been no study of the impact of location or visiting.
“No one has done a study to say, if you go and visit a Holocaust memorial museum, what you will feel like when you come out at the other end. The model that we have been given is somewhat misleading. It does not show the whole project.
“As for the unfortunate little Victoria Tower Gardens, which is really a very nice place and an open space for Peabody building inhabitants and all those who live in flats, it is going to be real mess in the forthcoming years because it will be a repository for the scaffolding, the building equipment, concrete mixers, et cetera, associated with restoration and renewal.
“The prospect that anyone will be able to stroll around and enjoy it for the next 30 years or so is simply untrue.”
Lord Khan, the UK’s Minister for Faith, Communities and Resettlement.
Earlier Lord Pickles had criticised an amendement, later withdrawn, which aimed to cap the cost of taxpayers of the project at £ 75million, with further contributions from the Holocaust Memorial Charitable Trust.
Pickles raised the spectre of antisemitism, and the conception that the Jewish community was a wealthy one, as he criticised the suggest it could afford to pick up the remaining £60million itself to complete the project.
