British government okays contested Holocaust monument in London
Graphic by Angelie Zaslavsky
(JTA) — The British government has approved a contested plan for a prominent Holocaust memorial center outside Parliament in London.
Friday’s decision by the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government means that the ambitious project has cleared its final major bureaucratic hurdle about five years after its inception.
The plans include 23 large bronze sculptures and an underground learning center to be built in Victoria Tower Gardens outside the Palace of Westminster, which is the seat of the legislature of the United Kingdom. The project will receive $105 million in government funding and is scheduled to be completed in 2025.
Opponents of the plan have raised multiple objections, ranging from landscaping objections and concerns it would exaggerate Great Britain’s role in rescuing Jews to fears it would be targeted by terrorists and eclipse a nearby monument marking the abolition of slavery.
Westminster Council, the local government of the London borough of Westminster, last year blocked the project from gaining planning permission, prompting the ministry to set up an inquiry commission. The ministry decided to go ahead with the project despite the Council’s objection.
The Board of Deputies of British Jews in a statement said it welcomes the government’s approval for the project.
Among the project’s critics was Ruth Deech, a Jewish member of the House of Lords, the upper house of the British parliament. She said the location of the monument — a large park with few preexisting facilities for a learning center — creates unnecessary complications that risk making the project “ineffective.”
—
The post British government okays contested $105m Holocaust monument in London appeared first on Jewish Telegraphic Agency.
This is a moment of great uncertainty. Here’s what you can do about it.
We hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, we’d like to ask you to please support the Forward’s independent Jewish news. All donations are still being matched by the Forward Board - up to $100,000 until April 24.
This is a moment of great uncertainty for the news media, for the Jewish people, and for our sacred democracy. It is a time of confusion and declining trust in public institutions. An era in which we need humans to report facts, conduct investigations that hold power to account, tell stories that matter and share honest discourse on all that divides us.
With no paywall or subscriptions, the Forward is entirely supported by readers like you. Every dollar you give is invested in the future of the Forward — and telling the American Jewish story fully and fairly.
The Forward doesn’t rely on funding from institutions like governments or your local Jewish federation. There are thousands of readers like you who give us $18 or $36 or $100 each month or year.
Support our mission to tell the Jewish story fully and fairly.
