A Holocaust Memorial for London

by Marie Lynam

Last week the government announced that it intends to build a National Holocaust Memorial and Learning Centre  in Victoria Tower Gardens near the Houses of Parliament in London. This memorial – first proposed in 2021 – will “honour the victims of the Holocaust” and “help combat antisemitism”.The Memorial will also pay tribute to the Romas, gays and disabled people and others who were victims of Nazi terror in the Second World War. Sadly it will not mention that the Soviet Union was the primary liberator of the Nazi death camps. 
And some survivors and those whose close relatives died in the Holocaust  say the phrase ‘never again’ also means nothing without action against Israel’s genocide in Gaza today.
On the 27 January 1945 Soviet troops liberated prisoners of the Auschwitz concentration camp – the largest death camp of the Third Reich. That day is now recognised by the UN as the Holocaust Memorial Day. Last week a group of Holocaust survivors from various countries held a simple street ceremony and demonstration on that day to remember all the victims of genocide in the heart of the capital.
Holocaust survivor Agnes Kory told the left-wing Canary news outlet that “it was the Russian army that liberated the Jews of the Budapest Ghetto in 1945. It was a Russian soldier that liberated my mother and myself. At Memorial Day events I say this as loud as I can, making sure that the people around me can hear it”. 
Another survivor, Israeli peace activist Haim Bresheeth-Žabner, said  “I am deeply shocked about the total denial of the events in Gaza by the wide variety of Holocaust memorial institutions. All such institutions are run mostly by Zionist Jews, and all share an unwillingness to mention a genocide in real time...”.
And Chris Romberg said “the Holocaust was not the only massacre committed by the Nazis and their collaborators: the genocides of the Roma and Sinti (Porajmos) and of the Slavs took place in parallel, as did the murders of disabled people, LGBTQ+ people, political opponents and many others. They too should not be excluded from our memory, nor from the call Never Again! It applies to everyone”.