Today the Holocaust has become an inescapable component of public history in Britain. Auschwitz takes a central and symbolic place when we remember the Nazi genocide. It has not always been so. From the 1940s to the early 1960s it was the Warsaw Ghetto uprising that provided the focal point for memorial events. In the 1980s, in contrast to the present, the British government was reluctant to promote memorialization of the Holocaust. One constant over decades, however, is that public memory of the mass murder of Europe’s Jews has been infused with political meanings and political controversy. In this lecture, David Feldman explores how memorialisation of the Holocaust has changed over time, why it has done so, and the role of Holocaust memorialisation today.
David Feldman is a Professor of History at Birkbeck, University of London where he is also Director of the Birkbeck Institute for the Study of Antisemitism, and a Professor of the History of Antisemitism, University of Melbourne. His most recent book, coedited with Marc Volovici, is Antisemitism, Islamophobia and the Politics of Definition (Palgrave, 2023). He is co-author of Facing Antisemitism: the struggle for safety and solidarity, a report on antisemitism in Britain today (Runnymede Trust, January 2025). He has worked with a wide range of organisations including the United Nations, the Victorian and Albert Museum, the Jewish Museum and the Football Association. His writing has appeared in The Guardian, the Financial Times, Haaretz, the New Statesman, The Independent and the Political Quarterly.