Antisemitism ahead of Holocaust Memorial Day

Attention is starting to turn to 27th January, Holocaust Memorial Day, less than three weeks away now. Sadly, the reasons are not all positive, nor related to the importance of remembering that darkest period in human history and the events that led up to it.

This week we heard about King Charles and Queen Camilla leading tributes to Holocaust survivor Eva Schloss, who was the stepsister of diarist Anne Frank and was described as a "beacon of hope and resilience". She died earlier this week, at the age of 96, having survived the Auschwitz Concentration Camp and devoted the rest of her life to overcoming hatred and prejudice.

We also heard about the BBC having to issue an apology after omitting any mention of Jews in the 26th December episode of its Repair Shop programme, which discussed the Kindertransport operation that rescued thousands of Jewish children from Nazi persecution between 1938 and 1939.

Even more troubling was the report on Thursday that a memorial bench fitted with an audio box telling the story of a local Holocaust survivor was smashed and dumped into the boating lake at Clowes Park in Salford on Wednesday 7th January.

Smashed memorial bench (photo credit Campaign Against Antisemitism)

As events like these continue, it is little wonder that the Campaign Against Antisemitism have described the government’s latest plan for tackling antisemitism as "very disappointing" because it does not match the gravity of the situation that Jews find themselves in after more than a decade of inaction by successive UK governments.