Holocaust Memorial Bill

Lord Herbert of South Downs Excerpts

Report stage
Wednesday 11th June 2025 Lords Chamber

[Lord Pickles (Con)]

My Lords, I do not regard this as a wrecking amendment at all; I think it is a very thoughtful one that has been on a journey where unintentional consequences have occurred. 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 there 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.

The noble Lord is right that “genocide” has been used in an almost flippant way in trying to describe things. We have had instances in which people have refused to take immunisations and have compared themselves to the Jews. We have heard noble prelates describe environmental problems as a holocaust. I think it is important to recognise why the Holocaust was unique. I think Members around the Chamber will remember our dear friend David Cesarani, sadly no longer with us, a very distinguished British historian of the Holocaust. David had this ability to put things very neatly and in 22 words he managed to sum up the Holocaust:

“The Holocaust involved the systematic use of state power, modern bureaucratic methods, scientific thinking, and killing methods adapted from industrial production systems”.


There has been no subsequent holocaust—and no prior holocausts—that would fall into that definition, except one. That is why the manuscript amendment is so vital because the Roma and Sinti genocide was identical to what happened in the Holocaust in that the individuals were selected not because of what they did, not because of what they thought, not because of their sexual preferences, but because they were Roma or Sinti. They were killed in ghettos and murdered in Auschwitz. It was an attempt to annihilate a race and the previous amendment would have ruled them out, in effect. I just wanted to make that clear because there has already been quite a bit of speculation that this was an attempt to push out the Roma and the Sinti. That is not the intention of the proposal. It would never be the intention of this House.

I am very sympathetic but I hope I will be forgiven for probing just a little. I may be wrong on this, and I would like the Minister to give a reply. As I read it, if you did a commemoration inside the learning centre without education, would that be in contradiction to this very sensible amendment? If that is the case—because I believe the amendment is an important one—is there some way that the magic of the usual channels can fix any defect? I am looking at the most distinguished member of the usual channels. I hope he will give active consideration to this should that be the case. If I am wrong, I would be delighted.

[Lord Herbert of South Downs (Con)]

My Lords, some years ago I visited the Dachau concentration camp just outside Munich. It made a huge impression on me, as did visiting the memorial and learning centres in Jerusalem and in Berlin. One thing particularly struck me, perhaps because it touched me personally. In Dachau there was a display of the different badges prisoners in the concentration camp were required to wear. One of those badges was a pink triangle, which was reserved for the prisoners who were detained there because they were homosexual. Some 50,000 people are estimated to have been given severe life sentences by the Nazis, and some 15,000 to 20,000 were sent to concentration camps for being homosexual. Most of them died or were killed. Some were subject to horrific experiments, including castration.

I think it would be the effect of the noble Lord’s amendment that the learning centre should not provide information or education about that part of the atrocities perpetrated by Nazi Germany. Sometimes the word Holocaust has been used to include those atrocities. I understand, of course, the force of his argument and the purpose of his amendment—his wish to reserve the education centre and its focus for the appalling crime of attempted genocide perpetrated against Jewish people. If homosexuals, who were also targeted by the Nazi regime, are to be excluded from this learning centre, we should acknowledge that and be conscious of it. Perhaps alternative educational provision can be made. If they should be included—the atrocities were committed against a smaller number of people but were by the same regime with the same sort of motive—then I am not sure the amendment allows for that and should itself be amended at a later stage, should this House accept it tonight.

I do not in any way seek to belittle the crime of attempted genocide against the Jewish people—of course not. Nor do I think we should ignore or belittle what was done to people by the same Nazi regime simply because they were gay.

[Baroness Deech (CB)]

I think the discussion so far indicates just how ambiguous the point of this learning centre is. Still no one knows exactly what it is going to teach and what will be in it. I heard the presentation from Martin Winstone. I recall from that that he did not know what lesson was to be learned and that the centre was not going to combat antisemitism.

Over the last few years, I have asked many questions about which genocides will be included. I have had various answers from Ministers and former Ministers, including the noble Baroness, Lady Scott of Bybrook, and different answers to Written Questions. Sometimes we are told it is the Rohingya or Kosovo. Other times we are told it is all the people who were victims of the Nazis. This indicates to me no clarity about what is going on. Most of the other Holocaust memorials around the world address a question that is very painful for this Government and Parliament. The British Government closed the doors of Palestine in the 1930s, and even after the war. I always think of how many more people may have been saved—maybe millions—if Britain had abandoned the mandate and allowed Israel to be created in 1938 rather than 1948. This country bears that responsibility, as it did after the war, when it still would not let people into what was evolving into Israel.

These are difficult questions, but they have to be addressed. The late Lord Sacks said that today’s antisemitism had morphed into anti-Israelism. We cannot escape that question. If we want to combat today’s antisemitism, there has to be some learning somewhere about the biblical, historical and practical need for the nation of Israel, and why it came about. That lack is what is driving much of the hatred on the streets today.

The reason why this amendment is good, but maybe does not even go far enough, is this. The Jewish genocide, unlike all the others that have been mentioned, is rooted in more than 2,000 years of antisemitism—not 1,000, but more than 2,000, and some take it back 5,000 years. The other genocides were the results of tribal hatred, religion, sexual distaste and so on. The other victims, on the whole, were minorities; of all the genocides that have been mentioned, the people were minorities within states, without their own self-determination and means of self-defence. This has nothing to do with democracy, which is why the choice of Victoria Tower Gardens is not a good one. Genocide usually happens because one is a minority within a majority state, unable to exercise self-defence—and the need for self-defence needs to be explained in this learning centre, if it is to teach anything.

We also have to stop putting all this in the past. The learning centre suffers from the deficiency that it will tell people what happened in the war, and about the Nazis. Full stop. Unfortunately some of that is continuing. The learned lawyer Anthony Julius gave a speech a week or two ago in which he said that for thousands of years antisemitism had been a default position almost across the world. My generation were lucky in that this receded for the last 80 years or so, but it has come back, I am afraid to say. We cannot just talk about antisemitism in the past—“It was all Germany, it all happened a long time ago, and now we’re in a democracy and it’s all fine”. That is not the case. It is an ongoing matter.

One has to combat antisemitism with today’s weapons of explanation, which have to encompass what the survivors did after the war. That is a difficult issue for people to confront, because what the learning centre is apparently going to teach, if anything, is very odd—the British reaction to the Holocaust during the war. Did people know about it? Did they not know about it? There will be the Kindertransport, and maybe even the failure to prosecute Nazi war criminals who arrived here after the war. But what one learns from that I really do not know.

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. 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.

It has been assumed too readily that learning the facts of the Holocaust inures against antisemitism. Today proves that it does not. I am afraid the learning centre will politicise and de-Judaise the treatment of Jews. We see this at national Holocaust remembrance ceremonies every year: an hour or two of self-congratulation and feeling much better. We need to overhaul Holocaust education and teach that the Holocaust did not succeed. The distinguishing feature of the Jewish community over the ages is survival against all the odds, not just death and victimhood. At every Passover celebration, the people around the table say, “In every generation they rose up to destroy us, but God delivered us from their hands”. That is a lesson that needs to be repeated today.

The learning centre as it stands is not good enough. “Never again” means concentrating on the Jewish genocide and antisemitism, and remembering the need for a safe and strong Israel—the world’s only haven for the persecuted and the survivors of the Holocaust—almost regardless of its faults. Hence the vital nature of this amendment, to secure at the very least a decent rationale for the learning centre.

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[Baroness Berger (Lab)]

My Lords, I declare an interest as a vice-president of the Jewish Leadership Council. I am conscious of time but very keen to speak briefly. I have a deeply personal connection to the atrocities that our discussions relate to. I lost over 100 members of my family on my mother’s side in the Holocaust and have been involved in many Holocaust education initiatives domestically and abroad over the last almost 25 years. I have visited a number of memorials and their associated learning centres across the world. I have also studied at the International School for Holocaust Studies at Yad Vashem.

Many noble Lords on both sides of the House have referred to the very serious issue of antisemitism in the debate. You do not need to be Jewish to walk in a Jewish person’s shoes, to care deeply about any form of hatred, including anti-Jewish hatred. It is perhaps worth noting that I do not think any other Members of this House have seen six people convicted in this country for the antisemitism and death threats directed towards me because of my faith.

It is in that vein that I have followed this debate very closely from the start. I am sorry that I do not share the view of the proposers of this amendment, despite agreeing with them on many other matters. I wish to speak briefly about this amendment, and in doing so speak against it, but also set out my support for the Government’s proposal for a national Holocaust memorial together with an education centre. I would have liked to set out my support before our debate today, but I was not yet introduced to this House. As I said, I will endeavour to keep my remarks very brief.

I am only sorry that we do not yet have a national Holocaust memorial and that these proceedings have already taken so many years. During that time we have lost some extraordinary Holocaust survivors, those first-hand witnesses since the pledge was made by the noble Lord, Lord Cameron, in his previous role as Prime Minister more than 10 years ago. We have lost some inspirational people, including Sir Ben Helfgott, a man I had the privilege to meet a number of times. He captained the British Olympic team twice and it is his sister, Mala Tribich MBE, who tirelessly shares her testimony to schools and businesses and who has eloquently outlined her support for the national Holocaust memorial and learning centre, as was shared before the dinner break by the noble Lord, Lord Pickles.

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. If you accept the premise that we should have a national Holocaust memorial here in Westminster adjacent to our Houses of Parliament—and having listened to the debate this evening, it appears there is majority support for that—I think it is absolutely correct that the learning centre should be located together with the memorial to ensure that a visit to the memorial delivers a full educational experience.

There has to be a learning resource in its immediate vicinity in the same way that major sites such as Auschwitz-Birkenau, Dachau and Flossenbürg in Germany and the Holocaust Museum in Slovakia all have educational facilities alongside the memorials. In the USA most major Holocaust memorials are paired with museums or education centres—in Washington DC, New York, Texas and Florida and, most significantly, as we have discussed a number of times this evening, at Yad Vashem in Jerusalem.

Unlike some other noble Lords, I am heartened by representations from the academic advisers—those experts to the Holocaust Memorial Foundation—who have set out in correspondence to this House that the main focus of the memorial and learning centre will be to explore the differing responses of individuals, communities and institutions, including the press, Government and Parliament, to the persecution and mass extermination of Jews by Nazi Germany.

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. I went through all the correspondence that was shared with all noble Lords. I was struck in particular by the words of the director of the Holocaust Centre North in Huddersfield, Dr Bucci. I think he best summed it up in his letter to all noble Lords when he said that the Holocaust did not begin with violence, it began with legislation.

To place this memorial beside the seat of our democracy is to honour that history and to serve as a lasting reminder of the weight of responsibility borne by those in power. This is especially urgent at a time when radical ideologies are finding their way into mainstream discourse. The memorial will stand as a visible permanent statement that our democracy must always be alert to the dangers of intolerance, scapegoating and division.

Noble Lords from all sides of the House attended an event a couple of months ago. It was the Yom HaShoah service held in the Victoria Tower Gardens on the 80th anniversary of the liberation of Bergen-Belsen. I and many others took footage. There were hundreds of schoolchildren from across the country who took part in the service. I thought it was a very fitting service, but it was also indicative of the memorial we can have there.

In conclusion, I do not think we need any alternative plans, as this amendment sets out. At best, this is a severely delaying amendment. I hope noble Lords will reject it and we can progress with this Bill.

[Lord Herbert of South Downs (Con)]

I would like to interrogate the argument, which is an important one, that, to use the noble Baroness’s phrase, the location of the learning centre next to our Parliament is essential. That is not the case in relation to other Holocaust learning centres around the world, is it?

The United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, which has been referred to—the most visited in the world—is nearly two miles from the United States Capitol. It is, of course, within the overall area where there are many memorials and government buildings, but it is not proximate to the United States Capitol. The Jewish Museum in Berlin, which I referred to earlier, is the same distance of nearly two miles away from the Reichstag. The Jewish memorial is a little closer, but the Jewish Museum is an outstanding and much visited place, with an amazing experience and building designed by Daniel Libeskind.

The kernel of the argument of those of us who have concerns about the location of the proposed learning centre—not the memorial—is that the consequence of being so determined that it should be right next to our Parliament is that will be a much smaller, less impressive and less suitable learning centre than it would be if an alternative venue was chosen. The other arguments are secondary to that. The security concerns will be concerns wherever the location is.

There will also be an impact on a very small space. We have little of that kind of green space around our Parliament building so I think it is perfectly reasonable to accept the noble Baroness’s amendment and look for alternative sites. This is not just because of the effect on Victoria Tower Gardens, but because we are going to end up with a much less optimal learning centre if we persist in combining it with the memorial in this too-small space.

[Lord Inglewood (CB)]

My Lords, unlike most speakers in this debate—although I think I am with the previous speaker—I come at this from the perspective of being concerned about Victoria Tower Gardens. I do not suppose that that is a surprise, coming from somebody who is the president of Historic Buildings & Places and a fellow of the Society of Antiquaries. It is my considered view that what the Government are proposing is overdevelopment of Victoria Tower Gardens. Earlier this afternoon I did not go to the Cross-Bench group meeting, but skived off and walked round the gardens, and I must say—let us be under no illusions—if this goes ahead, it will wreck the gardens.