After 10 years of dispute, UK Holocaust memorial may finally break ground

A decade in the making, the project has survived fierce objections and design disputes to edge finally toward reality, promising a striking space for remembrance and education in the heart of London.

It was back in January 2014 that then-UK prime minister David Cameron, feeling that the UK had not done enough to memorialize the unique horrors of the Holocaust, set up a Holocaust Commission.

“The Holocaust is unique in man’s inhumanity to man,” ran its remit. “…As the events of the Holocaust become ever more distant, they will feel increasingly remote to current and future generations. The Holocaust Commission will investigate what further measures should be taken to ensure that Britain has a permanent and fitting memorial to the Holocaust.”

It was not as though Britain had failed to commemorate the Shoah. A memorial was established in 1983 in Hyde Park, in the very center of London. Conceived as a garden of boulders surrounded by white-stemmed birch trees, the largest boulder is inscribed with this text from the Book of Lamentations: “For these I weep. Streams of tears flow from my eyes because of the destruction of my people.”

In January 2015, Cameron’s Holocaust Commission issued its report and recommendations, which were instantly accepted in full by the government and endorsed by the opposition.

It recommended there should be a “striking and prominent” new memorial, located in central London, to serve as the focal point of the nation’s commemoration of the Holocaust.

In addition, a world-class learning center, to be located alongside the memorial, should become the hub for Holocaust education throughout the country.

The decisions it reached on both instantly plunged the whole project into a whirlpool of objections. Dispute and dissension have pursued it ever since.

The site selected for the new memorial, and included in the terms of the international design competition that the foundation also announced, was a small park adjacent to the Victoria Tower, which stands at the far end of the Palace of Westminster, the seat of the UK parliament. At almost five acres, Victoria Tower Gardens is about the size of three football pitches.

The announcement was no sooner published than it was followed by a flood of objections. Victoria Tower Gardens, it was argued, is too small to absorb a large memorial. Much of its green open space and amenities for everyday public recreation would be destroyed.

The project would harm the setting of the Palace of Westminster World Heritage Site, as well as existing listed monuments in the gardens. Security, crowding, traffic, and flooding risk were additional problems. Siting it within the Imperial War Museum would be more appropriate.

Finally, it was pointed out that an Act of 1900 protected the gardens as public open space.

It was on this issue that objectors sought a legal ruling. In 2022, they took their case to the High Court and won. The legal determination was that the Holocaust memorial would breach the 1900 Act, which restricts the use of Victoria Tower Gardens to that of a public garden.

To overcome this legal barrier, the then-Conservative government introduced a new piece of legislation – the Holocaust Memorial Bill – to disapply certain provisions of the 1900 Act so as to allow the project to proceed as planned. This parliamentary strategy enabled the project to remain “up and running.” Some objectors, however, signaled their intention to pursue further legal action.

The international design competition attracted 92 entries. In October 2017, the foundation announced that British-Ghanaian architect Sir David Adjaye, leading a team that included Israeli designer Ron Arad, had submitted the winning design.

Their memorial building features 23 bronze fins, with the gaps between them representing the 22 countries where the Holocaust destroyed Jewish communities. Each gap serves as a separate path down to a hall leading into the learning center.

The design was immediately subject to a torrent of criticism. The row of tall, bronzed fins and sunken courtyard was, it was asserted, visually harsh and out of sympathy with both the subject matter and its surroundings.

Some contended that combining an underground learning center with a memorial would result in a cramped, didactic experience that risks oversimplifying the Holocaust. Others argued that the design would create a “theme-park” style procession and a potential security target, subordinating contemplative remembrance to spectacle and crowd management.

All these objections, and a multitude of others, have been thoroughly and meticulously addressed during the passage of the bill through the House of Lords. Since the government continues to promote the project with strong cross-party support, it is highly probable that the Bill, as amended by the Lords, will be passed by the Commons and receive Royal Assent during the current parliamentary session, expected to run until spring 2026.

This means that the groundbreaking ceremony could take place before the end of 2026. Official project literature suggests that the construction phase would take around three years. So, provided the determined objectors do not get their way, Britain’s new Holocaust Memorial and Learning Center, envisioned in 2014, could finally become a reality some time in 2029.■