Britain’s new Holocaust Memorial

 Updated version of article published in the Jerusalem Report, issue dated 12 January, 2026

          On January 22, 2026 King Charles gave his Royal Assent to The Holocaust Memorial Bill, which automatically converted it into an Act of Parliament.  In a few years the UK government hopes to unveil a striking new Holocaust Memorial close to the Houses of Parliament.  After more than a decade of setbacks, delay and frustration, the project has passed its last hurdle.  Now all that is left is to build it.

It was back in January 2014 that then UK prime minister, David Cameron, feeling that the UK had not done enough to memorialise 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 Britain has a permanent and fitting memorial to the Holocaust...”

   It was not as though Britain had failed to commemorate the Shoah. A Holocaust Memorial was established in 1983 in Hyde Park, in the very centre 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."

            Remembrance services are held there every year, the most recent on July 7, 2025, when Prince William joined survivors and bereaved families, together with key figures from the Jewish community and British public life, to honor the victims of the Holocaust.

            There is also a permanent Holocaust exhibition in the Imperial War Museum in South London, designed to connect the Holocaust to the broader events of the Second World War.​ Following a multi-million redevelopment in 2021, the exhibition now extends over two gallery floors, presenting a detailed account of the Holocaust and its impact.

   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 Centre, to be located together with the Memorial, should become the hub for Holocaust education in every part of the country. 

To help carry the project forward, the government set up a UK Holocaust Memorial Foundation composed of eminent establishment figures including the Chief Rabbi, Ephraim Mirvis. The Foundation quickly embarked on a dual search – for a suitable location and a winning design.

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 less than 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 amenity for everyday public recreation would be destroyed. The scheme 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, signalled their intention to pursue further legal action.

The international design competition attracted 92 entries.  In October 2017 the Foundation  announced that the 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 the fins representing the 22 countries where the Holocaust destroyed Jewish communities.  Each gap acts 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 centre with a memorial would result in a cramped, didactic experience that risks oversimplifying the Holocaust.  Others that the design would create a “theme‑park” style procession and potential security target, subordinating contemplative remembrance to spectacle and crowd management.

All these, and a multitude of other objections have been thoroughly and meticulously addressed during the passage of the Bill through the House of Lords.  And now the Bill has become an Act of Parliament.  This means 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 Centre, envisioned way back in 2014, could finally become a reality some time in 2029.