On responding to the news that City Hall are donating £300,000 to the Auschwitz-Birkenau Foundation, Karen Pollock MBE, Chief Executive of the Holocaust Educational Trust said:
“With the Holocaust still in living memory, there are those who would seek to deny or distort the truth of the past. The best antidote we have is evidence – hearing the testimony of the eyewitnesses or seeing for yourself the very places where the Holocaust took place. That is why we are so grateful to the Mayor of London for his commitment to support the preservation of the former Nazi concentration and death camp Auschwitz-Birkenau, sending a clear signal of the central place the Holocaust has in our collective memory.
We know that the survivors will not be here to tell their stories forever, but when young people today see with their own eyes the piles of human hair shaved from the victims, or the remnants of the gas chambers and crematorium, they become witnesses to the truth and carry the legacy of the past. That is why we have ensured that over 40,000 students and teachers from across the country have visited Auschwitz, and will continue to ensure the next generation never forgets”