Westminster Holocaust Memorial to be built in 2027, claims leading supporter
Leading US magazine questions why it has proven so difficult to build a Holocaust Memorial in London
Lee Harpin is the Jewish News's political editor
One of the leading supporters of a Holocaust Memorial and Learning Centre being built in Westminster has predicted the long-promised project will be built in 2027.
Lord Eric Pickles – co-chair of the advisory board overseeing the building of the memorial – told the influential American magazine The New Yorker that while work on the memorial had paused while new laws made their way through Parliament he was confident new planning would allow the memorial to go ahead.
Pickles claimed there was a campaign of misinformation being spread about the likely impact of the Memorial and Learning Centre, telling the magazine:”“We are subject to either people thinking we’re going to go super-woke, or they think we are going to go imperial, triumphant.
“And we are not. We are not going to do either.”
The Conservative peer and commentator Daniel Finkelstein said he also supported the need for a striking national monument next to the Palace of Westminster to teach and remind future generations about the horror of the Shoah.
The alternative to not building a memorial, said Finkelstein, was to do “nothing.”
But he also told the magazine it was clear there was not “unanimous support” for the memorial within the Jewish community, but this was not uncommon in relation to many issues.
In an article headlined Why Is It So Hard to Build A Holocaust Memorial in London? Baroness Ruth Deech expressed strong criticism of the project.
She said:”“Everybody loves dead Jews, the living not so much. I think that sums it up.”
Louise Hyams, a Conservative councillor in Westminster, also told how the local planning committee had unanimously rejected the memorial because it was “too large, too imposing.”
She added:” It did not really, I think, get over the message that a Holocaust memorial should.”
The article noted how in 2026 a decade would have passed since the then PM David Cameron announced that the new structure would be built in Victoria Tower Gardens, close to the Houses of Parliament.
But it noted how the project has been beset by delays, legal challenges, rocketing costs, and complicated arguments in which several Holocaust survivors have themselves expressed opposition to the project.
Lord Pickles was asked when he believed the Memorial might finally be built, and he suggested his best guess was 2027.
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