National Holocaust memorial will be built beside Parliament to honour the six million Jews murdered by the Nazis after £100m scheme is approved
- Holocaust Memorial and Learning Centre will be built in London after minister signed-off recommendation
- Board of Deputies of British Jews welcomes decision and Holocaust survivor Susan Pollack is ‘in admiration’
- Local public inquiries were held last year due to the application being called in for central consideration
- Plans faced objections from Save Victoria Tower Gardens campaign group which called approval ‘divisive’
A national Holocaust memorial centre will be built next to Parliament after a minister signed-off on a recommendation that the location would present a ‘powerful associative message’.
The Board of Deputies of British Jews welcomed the decision by the Government after local public inquiries were held in October and November due to the application being called in for central consideration.
Plans to build the Holocaust Memorial and Learning Centre to mark the atrocities committed by the Nazis against the Jewish people and other minorities during the Second World War, faced objections from campaign groups.
An artist’s impression shows the entrance of the planned Holocaust Memorial and Learning Centre at Victoria Tower Gardens
An artist’s impression showing the park view of the proposed Holocaust Memorial and Learning Centre in Westminster
An artist’s impression of the aerial view of the proposed Holocaust Memorial and Learning Centre next to Parliament
Former MPs Eric Pickles (left) and Ed Balls (rear), the co-chairs of the UK’s Holocaust Memorial Foundation, with Holocaust survivors Sir Ben Helfgott (front left), Lily Ebert BEM (second right) and Susan Pollack MBE (far right) in London today
Holocaust survivors Susan Pollack MBE (left) and Lily Ebert BEM (right) sit at Victoria Gardens in Westminster today
An artist’s impression issued by the UK Holocaust Memorial showing the entrance of the proposed memorial in London
A minister has agreed with a planning inspector that the memorial should be built in Victoria Tower Gardens in London
The initial proposal for the Holocaust Memorial and Learning Centre (artist’s impression) was objected to by campaign groups
An artist’s impression issued by the UK Holocaust Memorial showing the park view of the proposed Holocaust Memorial
An artist’s impression issued by the UK Holocaust Memorial showing the entrance pavilion of the proposed memorial
Holocaust survivor Sir Ben Helfgott doffs his hat at Victoria Gardens in Westminster as he welcomes the new memorial
How a victim of Nazi persecution became a weightlifting champion
Sir Ben Helfgott was ten years old when the Second World War broke out, with his parents having prepared to leave Poland in 1935 amid fears for their future.
They had permits to travel to Palestine to begin a new life, but Sir Ben’s grandmother did not want them to go and said they should stay in Poland.
He grew up in Piotrkow, where all Jews were ordered to move into a ghetto in October 1939 – with 15,000 crammed into an area previously designed for up to 4,000, before another 13,000 were brought in.
Holocaust survivor Sir Ben Helfgott at Victoria Gardens today
In Piotrkow the deportation and murder of Jews began in October 1942, with 22,000 Jews from a total population of over 24,000 rounded up in a week. Some 3,000 had already died from starvation and typhoid.
Sir Ben learned that both his parents were in hiding, but his grandfather had been transported straight to the death camp at Treblinka. He then managed to contact his parents and he and his father went back to the ghetto, leaving his mother in hiding.
But his mother and youngest sister Lusia, who was eight, were then rounded up and held in a synagogue. In December that year, the Nazis took 100 people at a time out of the place of worship and killed them in the woods, group by group – including his mother and Lusia.
In July 1943 the Nazis decided to clear out the ghetto and the town became ‘Judenrein’ (free of Jews).
In 1948, Sir Ben began weightlifting and two years later he won a gold medal at the Maccabiah Games in Israel
The Nazis fled from Piotrkow in August 1944, with the Russian army advancing towards them. It was hoped that that the town would soon be liberated but this did not happen, and Nazi soldiers returned to Piotrkow.
There were then more round-ups, with 300 Jewish men sent to Buchenwald, with Sir Ben and his father amongst them. His sister Mala and her cousin, Ann, were deported to Ravensbruck. The rest were sent to Czestochowa to work in munitions factories.
Sir Ben and his father were in Buchenwald for nearly two weeks, and then Ben was separated from his father and sent to Schlieben. Ben’s father was left behind in Buchenwald. In April 1945, Sir Ben was transported to Theresienstadt – and three weeks later it was liberated.
However, after the liberation, Sir Ben found out that his father had been shot a few days before the end of the war, as he tried to escape from a death march.
He then made it to England, arriving on VJ Day and spending time at Windermere in the Lake District. From there 30 of the boys in his group were sent to Essex and finally Sir Ben moved to Belsize Park in North London where he lived in a hostel. He helped to establish a club for Jewish young people, called the Primrose Club, and attended Plaistow Grammar School.
In 1948, he began weightlifting and two years later he won a gold medal at the Maccabiah Games in Israel.
He then represented his adopted country Britain at the 1956 Melbourne Olympic Games, 1958 Commonwealth Games in Cardiff where he won a bronze medal and at the 1960 Olympics in Rome. He was captain of the British weightlifting team on all these occasions.
For nearly 50 years he has been chairman of the ’45 Aid Society, a group formed by and for the boys and girls who arrived in England in 1945 from Nazi Europe.
But housing and planning minister Chris Pincher agreed with planning inspector David Morgan that the ‘application should be approved’ for its construction at Victoria Tower Gardens.
Hungarian Holocaust survivor Susan Pollack said today that she was ‘speechless, quite honestly, in admiration’ for the scheme, but the Save Victoria Tower Gardens campaign called the approval ‘divisive’.
The Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government’s decision letter said the minister ‘agrees with the inspector that the location next to the Palace of Westminster would offer a powerful associative message in itself, which is consistent with that of the memorial of its immediate and wider context’.
It added: ‘The minister of state further agrees with the inspector’s conclusion that the location of the UKHMLC adjacent to the Palace of Westminster can rightly be considered a public benefit of great importance, meriting considerable weight in the heritage and planning balance.’
The report accepted that there would be a ‘modest loss of open space and functionality within’ Victoria Tower Gardens but found the positives of the location outweighed the negatives in building the memorial there.
The letter, written by the planning casework unit and dated July 29, said the inspector had found alternative locations not to be suitable.
Mr Morgan found the Imperial War Museum ‘lacks a detailed scheme’ and ‘carries clear potential constraints that may hamper its delivery’.
Mr Pincher agreed with the report that two other sites – Potter’s Field adjacent to Tower Bridge, and a site next to Millbank Tower – were ‘even more lacking in detail and feasibility, merit still lesser weight’.
Marie van der Zyl, president of the Board of Deputies, said: ‘I am delighted that the minister of state has granted planning permission for the memorial.
‘As I said to the inquiry, there will be something uniquely powerful about locating a memorial to the Holocaust right next to the centre of the UK’s democracy.
‘Whilst the Holocaust was a particular crime against Jewish people, the Nazis also viciously persecuted Roma, gay and disabled people, and this memorial will speak to that.’
The Government has already committed that the Holocaust memorial will be free ‘in perpetuity’ to visitors when it opens, putting it on the same footing as the UK’s most significant museums and monuments.
Ms Pollack, a Hungarian Holocaust survivor, welcomed the news: ‘I’m speechless, quite honestly, in admiration.
‘I think [the Holocaust] has to be taught again and again and again because many have a suppressed distrust against the Jews and I think it is long overdue to leave that and to accept that we are all hoping to live a peaceful life and Britain is offering that because it is a beacon of hope for the future.
‘It shows that we do not tolerate any form of racism against anyone because it has the potential to grow into an impossible situation’.
Scheduled to open in 2024, the centre is intended to be the focal point for national remembrance of the six million Jewish men, women and children murdered in the Holocaust and all other victims of Nazi persecution, along with providing a place for reflection on ‘subsequent genocides’.
A total of £75 million of public money has already been put towards construction costs, with the investment due to be supplemented by £25 million from charitable donations.
A campaign group opposed to the proposals to build the memorial next to Parliament said it was consulting with lawyers before making its next move.
Baroness Ruth Deech, from the Save Victoria Tower Gardens campaign, called the approval ‘divisive’.
‘Last autumn’s public inquiry raised serious concerns about the plans’ impact on heritage and a valuable public park, as well as raising issues of flood risk, security and damage to mature trees,’ said the peer.
In a post on social media, the group said: ‘We are deeply disappointed, and with our lawyers are now reading the full decision and considering our next steps.’
London Gardens Trust had also raised concerns about the ‘loss of park land for quiet relaxation to become a crowded and ticketed civic space’, while also expressing fears it would overshadow the park’s statues, including the Buxton Memorial Monument marking the abolition of slavery.
Westminster City Council, which had raised objections about the proposal, said it ‘respected’ the minister’s decision.
A council spokesman said: ‘This application was called in by the Secretary of State in November 2019 in light of the scheme’s national significance.
Another park view of the proposed Holocaust Memorial and Learning Centre at Victoria Tower Gardens
Holocaust survivor Sir Ben Helfgott holds a photo of his father Moishe Yakov, who died in the Holocaust, in London today
Housing Secretary Robert Jenrick with holocaust survivor Lily Ebert BEM at Victoria Gardens in Westminster today
Holocaust survivor Sir Ben Helfgott, accompanied by his grandson Reuben (centre), speaks with Robert Jenrick today
Eric Pickles and Ed Balls with holocaust survivors Sir Ben Helfgott, Lily Ebert BEM and Susan Pollack MBE in London today
Victoria Gardens in Westminster, where the go-ahead has been given to build a Holocaust memorial, is pictured today
‘As part of the process the council’s planning subcommittee gave its views on the scheme in February 2020 following an extensive public consultation. We note, and respect, the minister’s decision.’
The head of a Holocaust memorial charity has welcomed the announcement that a memorial to the victims along with an education centre will be built in Parliament’s Victoria Gardens.
Karen Pollock, chief executive of the Holocaust Educational Trust, said of the announcement: (The memorial) being in the shadow of Parliament, in the heart of our democracy where key decisions are made, people of influence are reminded of the warning signs, the warnings from history about what can happen when hate flourishes and when people ignore racism’.
The Ministry for Housing, Communities & Local Government announced the memorial after a consultation was set up under David Cameron on how to teach people about the Holocaust.
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