PM: Holocaust memorial to be built next to parliament

A memorial to remember the "darkest hour of humanity" will be built next to parliament, the Prime Minister said on Holocaust Memorial Day.

Addressing MPs before Prime Minister's Questions, David Cameron said that a Holocaust memorial will be built in Victoria Tower Gardens in Westminster, "for our children to visit in generations to come".

The Prime Minister, who is due to meet Holocaust survivors at a Downing Street reception today, said: "I know the whole House will want to join me in marking Holocaust Memorial Day."

On Wednesday, survivors of Nazi death camp Auschwitz commemorated the 71st anniversary of its liberation by Soviet troops.

David Cameron said the memorial in London will 'show the importance Britain places on preserving the memory of the Holocaust'. Credit: UK parliament

The announcement came a day after a ceremony was held at City Hall with London Mayor Boris Johnson and Holocaust survivor Hannah Lewis in attendance.

The national memorial was one of the recommendations of a report published on last year's 70th anniversary of the liberation of the concentration camp at Auschwitz-Birkenau.

Mr Cameron has promised £50 million towards the monument, as well as the establishment beside it of a "world-class" education and learning centre, details of which are still to be announced.

Chairman of the UK Holocaust Memorial Foundation, Sir Peter Bazalgette, said: "The task of the Holocaust Memorial Foundation was to find a site that would allow a striking, prominent and iconic memorial to be built.

"There is nowhere better to achieve this than beside parliament. I stood there with a Holocaust survivor earlier this week and I will never forget his reaction when I told him of our plans."

Around 1.5 million people, mostly Jews, but also Poles, Roma, Soviet prisoners of war, homosexuals and people of other nationalities, were killed at the Nazi camp which has became a symbol of the horrors of the Holocaust.