Holocaust Memorial Day

Lord Gold Excerpts

Thursday 13th February 2025 Lords Chamber

[Lord Gold (Con)]

My Lords, it is an honour to follow the noble Baroness, Lady Brown of Silvertown, this afternoon. I, too, would like to add my congratulations to the noble Lords, Lord Katz and Lord Evans of Sealand, and to the noble Baroness, Lady Levitt, on their excellent contributions and maiden speeches. I have no doubt that each of them will make a wonderful contribution to this House. I would like to tell the noble Baroness, Lady Levitt, that from my position I was able to see that her husband was smiling right through her presentation, with such pride. I have also come away thinking there is no such thing as a quiet breakfast in their household.

The noble Lord, Lord Khan, in opening this debate in such a powerful way, mentioned seeing Manfred Goldberg last week. I, too, had the privilege of listening to this wonderful, articulate 94 year-old, who vividly described his life in Germany pre-war and how, miraculously, he managed to survive the brutality and suffering imposed on him by the Nazi regime. Unfortunately, though, Manfred is now in the minority; very few Holocaust survivors remain alive to tell us of their experiences and give us first-hand testimony to the wickedness imposed upon them and millions of others.

Unless we continue to remember the Holocaust, and the wickedness shown to the Jewish minority and other minorities across Europe, there is no guarantee this will not happen again. The photograph of released hostage Eli Sharabi captured by Hamas on 7 October 2023, looking so gaunt and emaciated, reminded so many of us of the liberation of Belsen in 1945 and the horror discovered there. We say “Never again”, but the rise in anti-Semitism here—3,528 cases reported by CST in 2024—across Europe and in Australia, Canada and the USA, makes the risk of repetition a real possibility. Particularly worrying is the rise of anti-Semitism in our universities. Although much can be done to inform and educate those born after the war, especially our children—the Holocaust became part of the English national curriculum in 1991—hearing from survivors who experienced the horrors of the Holocaust is the best way of achieving this.

If this cannot be done face to face, giving our children the opportunity of hearing from survivors remotely is the next best thing. Therefore, it is commendable that at a recent Holocaust Educational Trust dinner, our present Prime Minister announced a national ambition that every schoolchild should hear the recorded testimony of a Holocaust survivor. Other initiatives include investing a further £2 million for Holocaust education, announced by the Chancellor in her Budget, and for the teaching of the Holocaust to continue to be compulsory in state schools and expanded to include academies. These initiatives were announced by the Secretary of State for Education, Bridget Phillipson, following a curriculum review.

All this is excellent, but to keep the memory of the Holocaust alive and to inform and educate today’s and tomorrow’s generations, the creation of Holocaust centres and memorials all around the world is so important. That is why I strongly support the building of a memorial and learning centre. While the Holocaust galleries at the Imperial War Museum are impressive, building a lasting memorial here, right in the centre of Westminster, next to our Parliament—which has always stood for liberty and freedom all around the world—is making a massive statement that we in the UK remember now and will not forget in the future the events of the 1930s and 1940s which resulted in 6 million Jews and other minorities being slaughtered.

Let the world know that in this wonderful United Kingdom, our home, we will always stand against tyranny and prejudice, wherever they raise their ugly heads. The 2015 Prime Minister’s Holocaust Commission report recommended the building of a “striking and prominent” new national memorial, to be located in central London. There can be no more striking and prominent location than right here in Victoria Tower Gardens. Objections have been raised to this location. It is argued that there are security and traffic issues, that the atmosphere of Victoria Tower Gardens will be changed, that access may be restricted, that too many people might visit the memorial—3 million visitors a year are expected, and I hope that we increase on that number—and that there are alternative sites. Frankly, I do not believe that these objections stack up. Security and traffic issues will arise wherever the memorial is located, and we will sort them, as we always do. As for the atmosphere in the park, I know how sensitive those responsible for the memorial are to this issue and how they truly believe, as do I, that the park can be improved.

By going ahead with the building of the memorial and learning centre here, we are raising awareness of the Holocaust and acknowledging its importance, just as was achieved last month by the visit of His Majesty King Charles to Auschwitz on Holocaust Memorial Day, commemorating 80 years since the liberation of Auschwitz-Birkenau. No other memorial in any location in the world will be as prominent as this one—

[Lord Carlile of Berriew (CB)]

The earlier part of the noble Lord’s speech was very moving and compelling, but a number of us have avoided burying this debate in a difficult discussion about the Victoria Tower Gardens proposal. Will he do the same and move on to another subject?

[Lord Gold (Con)]

I thank the noble Lord for that intervention. It so happens that I am through on this. I just wanted to add one last word, which is that we should be very proud of going ahead with this. I accept the noble Lord’s intervention and have nothing else to say except to pay tribute to everyone who has spoken here today. Every single speech has been most moving.

Holocaust Memorial Bill

Lord Gold Excerpts

2nd reading
Wednesday 4th September 2024 Lords Chamber

[Lord Gold (Con)]

My Lords, it is an honour to follow the noble Baroness, Lady Bottomley, even though I am not in full agreement with what she had to say. It saddens me very much that the debate so far has concentrated on location. I will come to that in a moment, but let me start by talking about the need for a fitting memorial.

For many people of my generation, born after the war when so many had lived through it and served our country bravely, knowledge of the Nazi atrocities, the murder of 6 million Jews and so many others was known by the majority of us, subscribing to the statement “never again”, but now it is different. Few survivors of the war are still living, let alone survivors of the murderous camps. There are only a handful of people able to provide their testimony of what they lived through—of what the Nazis did and of how they tried to wipe out the Jewish race. Yet despite the Holocaust being on the national curriculum there are so many people, especially young people, who do not know what happened or do not believe it.

As an example of how little is known, I am shocked that in a 2023 survey over a third of people polled had no idea that Winston Churchill was our wartime Prime Minister. Indeed, in a US survey in 2020, 63% of those polled did not know that 6 million Jews perished in the Holocaust.

In 1994 the film director Steven Spielberg recognised the need to create a permanent record of what had happened, so he launched the Shoah Foundation to interview and record the testimonies of Holocaust survivors in order that this evidence would always be available when those who had suffered the Nazi regime were no longer alive. This was an unprecedented effort to record, preserve and share the facts. It gave me considerable comfort that knowledge of the Holocaust would be engrained in our minds and that of our children and grandchildren for ever, but I now have real fears that this may not be the case.

Advances in social media and the creation and dissemination of false news have enabled wicked people to deny the Holocaust and challenge the authenticity of the testimony that has been recorded. The creation of false images provides Holocaust deniers with an excuse to challenge the authenticity of the filmed testimony. As a result, in a 2023 poll a fifth of US citizens between the ages of 18 and 29 believed that the Holocaust was a myth. This confirms my fear that the frightening rise of anti-Semitism, especially since 7 October 2023, shows that the lessons from the Holocaust have been forgotten by many and how the recent history of the Jewish people has been totally ignored.

This all demonstrates how important it is to have a permanent memorial to the Holocaust and a learning centre that can educate and inform, not watered down by attempting to equate what happened to other acts of genocide. This is essential if we are to ensure that present and future generations truly know what happened. But I go further: as we have heard, a great number of noble Peers who support the creation of a Holocaust memorial believe that it should not be located in Victoria Tower Gardens. We have heard today why that is so, but I consider that no place in Britain is more suitable for such a centre than there.

It is right next to the mother of Parliaments for the whole world and at the very heart of our democracy, where Winston Churchill’s famous speeches against Nazism were made during the war. The symbolism is enormous. This is a statement to our people and the world that we truly remember the Holocaust and recognise its significance. Millions of people from all over the world visit London every year, and many will come to see our Parliament. What a statement it will be to them if they see that we regard a Holocaust memorial and learning centre as so important that we locate it there. As to the logistical issues and security problems, of course those are serious but we have shown before that we can cope.

Nevertheless, today we have heard some most important points of concern, not least in the speech by the noble Earl, Lord Effingham, which I hope the Government will answer. There have been suggestions that the memorial should perhaps be separated from the learning centre, and the Government should consider this. Around the world there are tremendous memorials to the Holocaust —in New York, Washington and Berlin. The buildings themselves tell you what has happened. They are very moving. As the noble Baroness, Lady Bottomley, pointed out, Yad Vashem is a tremendous memorial to what happened. That is what we should be creating in the gardens nearby, and we can look after the other issues that have been raised today.