David Cameron announces the location of UK’s permanent Holocaust memorial
British Prime Minister David Cameron has announced the location of what will be a permanent Holocaust memorial.
The memorial, announced last year, will be erected by Parliament in London, in the Victoria Tower Gardens.
Speaking during Prime Minister’s Questions in the House of Commons on Holocaust Memorial Day, David Cameron said: “Mr Speaker I know the whole House will want to join me in marking Holocaust Memorial Day.
“It is right that our whole country should stand together to remember the darkest hour of humanity. 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.
“Today I can tell the House that the memorial will be built in Victoria Tower Gardens. It will stand beside Parliament as a permanent statement of our values as a nation. It will be something for our children to visit for generations to come.”
The memorial will be put up in Victoria Tower Gardens
He continued: “I am grateful to all those who have made this possible, and who have given this work the cross-party status it so profoundly deserves.”
The Holocaust Commission last January recommended that the new National Memorial should recognise all victims of Nazi persecution, including gay people.
The Prime Minister established the cross-party Commission in 2014, to explore issues including a permanent memorial to victims of Nazi persecution.
Chancellor George Osborne last year pledged £50 million to fund the new memorial and Holocaust education centre.
It came after former Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg became the first senior politician to back the inclusion of gay victims of Nazi persecution.
Speaking to PinkNews on Holocaust Memorial Day in 2014, Mr Clegg, then Lib Dem leader paid a moving tribute to the gay victims of the Nazis and to the pink triangle which he said has evolved from “a badge of shame” to “an international symbol of freedom and pride”.
On last year’s Holocaust Memorial Day, Mr Cameron paid tribute to all those who were persecuted by the Nazis, including gay people.
