Amid protests Holocaust memorial will be built in London's Victoria Tower Gardens

Architect David Adjaye will build a national memorial dedicated to the victims of the Holocaust near London’s Parliament. The project was first announced in 2016, and now the British government has given the green light to build the memorial. It will consist of twenty-three large bronze sculptures and will include an underground education center.

British Communities Secretary Robert Jenrick said, "We have a duty to ensure that the Holocaust is not forgotten hands and never repeated. The Memorial and Learning Center is intended to lead everyone to reflect, remember and honor those who suffered and died and is intended to educate future generations in the elimination of anti-Semitism."

Construction on the memorial is scheduled to begin by the end of the year and will be completed by 2025. The British government is contributing 75 million pounds to the construction, while another 25 million pounds has been raised through donations; the government also plans additional funding to cover operating costs and to ensure free admission to the memorial.

The Memorial and Learning Center was approved despite controversy: in fact, permits had first been submitted in 2018, but the council and residents complained that the memorial would create problems for the gardens (the Save Victoria Tower Gardens website presents the downsides about the center’s construction), which are already close to other memorials. Forty-two academics had also joined the protest, commenting in a letter that the memorial placed next to Parliament would be seized upon as an “exaggerated” U.K. response to the Holocaust. In addition, some had raised the issue of the memorial as a possible terrorist target.

Marie van der Zyl, chairwoman of the Board of Deputies of British Jews, said that “it will be extraordinarily powerful to place a Holocaust memorial right next to the center of U.K. democracy.”

Pictured is a rendering of the Memorial and Learning Center project in Victoria Tower Gardens.

Amid protests Holocaust memorial will be built in London's Victoria Tower Gardens

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