In Prime Minister’s questions today, to mark Holocaust Memorial Day, Prime Minister David Cameron announced that a “striking national memorial” will be built in Victoria Tower Gardens, next to the Houses of Parliament.
Prime Minister Cameron said: “I know the whole House will want to join me in marking Holocaust Memorial Day. It is right our whole country should stand together to remember the darkest hour of humanity”.
The Prime Minister continued: “Last year, on the 70th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz, I said we would build a striking national memorial in London to show the importance Britain places on preserving the memory of the Holocaust”.
He said that the memorial would serve as a permanent statement of Britain’s values and would ensure the education of future generations about the Holocaust: “Today I can tell the House, this memorial will be built in Victoria Tower Gardens. It will stand beside Parliament as a permanent statement of our values as a nation and will be something for our children to visit for generations to come. I’m grateful to all those who have made this possible and who have given this work the cross-party status it so profoundly deserves”.
The Chair of the UK Holocaust Memorial Foundation, Sir Peter Bazalgette, welcomed the announcement today. He said that “there is nowhere better” to build the new holocaust memorial, and that “we’re doing the right thing for our country by creating a permanent reminder of the need to fight hatred and prejudice in all its forms”.
