Holocaust Memorial Bill

Baroness Berger Excerpts

Report stage
Wednesday 11th June 2025 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Harding of Winscombe (Con)]

My Lords, I will address directly the question that my noble friend posed on why collocation is important and why this is the right location. I would just like to dispel a couple of myths in this debate. I thank the noble Lord, Lord Russell, for bringing it, and I think it is a very important and measured debate that we are having. It is an honour to contribute to it at all.

As I said, I have been on the Holocaust Memorial Foundation for a decade. That is my only lived experience of this. But what I have learned in that decade from sitting alongside real experts in Holocaust education is that it is so important that we feel this, as well as learning facts. I remind noble Lords that the leaders of all Holocaust education organisations in this country believe that this is the right place, the right size and the right way to do this as a national memorial. They know a thousandfold or a millionfold more than I do. I have watched them at work over the course of the last decade and I think that we should respect them, as my noble friend Lord Howard said earlier.

It will not be a tribute to British greatness—quite the opposite. It will ask us to think very deeply about Britain’s role in the Holocaust. There are some things that we can proud of but lots that we cannot. I would argue that, tempting though it is to believe that this is like the Cenotaph and that we would walk past and feel the pain of the victims and their families, actually the most difficult part of Holocaust education is not to think, “Oh my God, it could be my family who were victims”. The most difficult part of Holocaust education is to ask yourself “Could you have been a perpetrator?” That is the lesson that could not be more important today.

The sad thing is that, with every week that I have been on the Holocaust Memorial Foundation, it has felt more important that, as a country, we ask people to think about that. Collocating the memorial and the learning centre in the shadow of the Mother of Parliaments, where so many people have fought for liberty and freedom, is why it is the right place at the right time.

[Baroness Berger (Lab)]

My Lords, I was not going to rise in response to this amendment, but I was struck by contributions on all sides of the House from noble Lords that have drawn reference to Yad Vashem in Jerusalem. In the course of this debate, I did some investigation to understand why that memorial is underground, and I reflected on the experience of the architect who created Yad Vashem. It is primarily underground, and that was done to create a powerful symbolic and emotional experience for visitors. I have had the opportunity to visit, and have done so on more than two dozen occasions. The architect, Moshe Safdie, designed the museum representing the rupture in Jewish history caused by the Holocaust. Visitors descend into the earth, moving through dark galleries that evoke the descent into one of history’s darkest chapters.

I share that reflection only because there is a good reason why Yad Vashem is underground. Noble Lords can read more about it, if they wish to understand more, but for me, having been there and visited, it is part of the experience and why I shall vote against this amendment if it goes to a vote.

[Baroness Walmsley (LD)]

My Lords, I feel that I should restate, as I did in Committee, that this Bill is a free vote for our Benches. We feel that it is a conscience issue, so I make my remarks about my own opinions—and I feel very strongly about this.

I strongly support the right and honourable decision of the noble Lord, Lord Cameron, that we should have a national Holocaust memorial and a national Holocaust learning centre. However, I also agree with the noble Lord, Lord King, that it needs to be done right and it needs to be done soon. The choices that the Government have made about how to do it are not fitting for the seriousness and importance of the issue.

It is quite possible for us to have a fitting, appropriate and high-quality memorial in the park. After all, if we can have a memorial to six burghers who voluntarily offered themselves to save their city, can we not remember 6 million Jews who did not voluntarily die at the hands of the Nazis? Yes, we could have it in the park—and it should be a compelling place where we can contemplate the horror of the Holocaust and where we can remember and pray for the dead—not only the 6 million Jews who died but the other communities who suffered at the hands of the Nazis. I refer to the Romany people, the homosexual people and the people with physical and mental disabilities who suffered at the hands of the Nazis.

We also need somewhere where we can celebrate those who resisted the Nazis and those who survived the Nazis with very great courage, and celebrate the lives that they have subsequently made in this country and around the world—the families that they have grown and the contribution they have made to our society and societies across the world. That is the sort of memorial that I would like to see and I am very happy to see it near to Parliament. It is appropriate—but I would like to see it soon.

The problem, of course, arises with the learning centre. We all remember, and it is very important that we make sure that future generations remember. I say this with great respect to all Members of the House who have suffered the pain and loss of losing members of their family to the Holocaust. I am a lucky person who has not suffered that pain and loss, so to some extent I hesitate to speak—but I feel passionately that the matter is so important that we must do it right.

The main thing about remembering is that we instil in future generations what happens if people turn a blind eye to evil. That is what happened in Nazi Germany, and it must never happen again. I want to see a compelling and informative learning centre, in a place that is adequate to the importance of the issue that we are trying to teach future generations about.

I support this amendment, and I will support other amendments that raise issues that arise simply because of the way in which the Government have chosen to take this idea forward.

I say to the noble Lord, Lord Howard, for whom I have great respect—particularly regarding his family experience—that one of the reasons why this has taken so long to go through Parliament is that it is not right, and over the years people have realised that it is not right. We all want to do it right, so let us please do it right.