Planning permission was granted today, 29th July 2021, to build the country’s first National Holocaust Memorial and Learning Centre in Victoria Tower Gardens, next to the Houses of Parliament.
The new structure will be the national focal point to honour the 6 million Jewish men, women and children who were murdered in the Holocaust, and other victims of Nazi persecution, including Roma, gay and disabled people.
The co-located Learning Centre will also focus on subsequent genocides in Cambodia, Rwanda, Bosnia and Darfur. The world-class facility will give visitors powerful and engaging experiences to learn about the Holocaust and subsequent genocides through a variety of media including photographs, film footage and audio recordings to keep the memories alive for younger generations, present and future, as a dark warning from history.
Work is planned to start later this year with an anticipated completion date of 2025.
Reading about the new Memorial I came across a talk given by Holocaust survivor Mala Tribich to the students of Kingsmead School, Enfield on Holocaust Remembrance Day, 2017. Ms. Tribich is still a prominent member of the UK Holocaust Memorial Foundation which is behind the Westminster Memorial project, and is still a dedicated and superb educator regarding this darkest moment in modern European history. If you start viewing her talk I don't think you will be able to stop, or to forget the deeply personal and gentle way in which she leads her listeners into an understanding of the lowest troughs and the highest peaks of which human beings are capable.
Running time: 55 minutes 46 seconds
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