We should be asking the right questions about Holocaust memorials

Two constituents later another man arrived. He wanted to complain about the council. His kitchen was tiny and he was trying to do something about it. The council was making such a fuss, forcing him to jump through legal hoops. And his neighbour was being a real pain.

William said: “By any chance did it have some brick there, then a window there, and a pathway there, while your neighbour’s house is just here?”

Planning disputes, William was explaining, are a total political loser. And the key is to understand that, while you can take a view, often it is just one person’s perspective and interest against another. One person’s light against another person’s kitchen.

Which brings me to the Holocaust memorial. I’ve been very confident until quite recently that the design approved by the Commission would be built in the place identified by the government. Now I’ve become sharply more pessimistic.

It seems as though planning objections might sink it. It’s hard to be cross with people who don’t want something built near their house. Who does? A friend of mine had Arsenal’s new stadium built right across the road from his house. He formed a committee to object. Because he is quite famous and a Manchester United fan, he was targeted by furious Gooners. But he replied: “Listen, what do you expect? It’s my home. I live here”.

So I understand locals resisting the memorial. And as for the design, well it’s a matter of taste and judgment. 

I was on the jury that chose the design, so I’m biased. I think it strikes a good balance between being bold and not overpowering the park. I believe (and I work nearby and have done almost all my life) it would be an enhancement to the area, not a disfigurement. There were other great designs but we thought this one got the balance right.

Yet this, too, is just a matter of opinion. I respect those who feel that a little less boldness would be a good thing. I do not but that is because I strike the balance in a different way. There is no right and wrong with it.

But there is one part of the argument where I am a little less phlegmatic about the opposition to the siting of the memorial. That is the argument that Holocaust memorials don’t work, as proven by the fact that antisemitism has been on the rise despite the fact that we have built them.

Literally the only good word I have to say about this terrible argument is that it was made by Ruth Deech, about whom I think every possible kind of nice thing. I’m so used to finding her correct and compelling that her making this point did make me pause.

For a second. And then I thought, no. That really is a nonsense point.

Let me start with a basic statistical observation. Building Holocaust memorials may not have stopped antisemitism rising altogether, but perhaps it would be rising faster without the Holocaust memorials. 

The implication of the argument being made, of course, goes deeper. It is that all Holocaust education is pointless and we should stop it. This may sound an almost offensive extrapolation of the argument, but it really isn’t. If the argument against memorials is that they don’t work because antisemitism is rising the same must be true of Holocaust education. 

And if the response is that we might succeed with more education, well perhaps we might also succeed with bigger memorials.

Daniel Finkelstein is associate editor of The Times.