Sir Sadiq Khan has travelled to Poland to attend the 80th anniversary commemoration of the liberation of the Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration camp.
The London mayor, speaking on Monday ahead of the ceremony, said it was vital to be a witness to the truth of how more than a million people lost their lives, at a time of “fake news” being spread on social media.
Speaking to The Standard, Sir Sadiq also reiterated his support for the long-delayed Holocaust memorial to be built beside Parliament and said he hoped construction would start soon.
Monday afternoon’s commemoration at Auschwitz will be attended by King Charles and President Macron of France.
Sir Sadiq was invited after City Hall donated £300,000 to the Auschwitz-Birkenau museum five years ago to help preserve the concentration camp to educate future generations.
“It is important I am here,” he told The Standard. “We have the biggest Jewish community in the entire country – almost 150,000 Londoners who are Jewish.
“Some of them have parents who perished in the Holocaust, some have grandparents [who perished].
“For them it’s incredibly important for us to remember the horrors of the Second World War and the Holocaust but also it’s the best way to rebut the disinformation, the lies that there is on social media.”
He added: “When I came five years ago for the 75th commemoration there were 200 Holocaust survivors.
“This year I’m told there are less than 50. This may be the last milestone where we have Holocaust survivors.
“It’s an honour and humbling to be here. We have only got one British Holocaust survivor with us, Mala Tribich.”
Sir Sadiq has visited Auschwitz several times, including when he was the MP for Tooting – when he accompanied pupils from his former secondary school, Ernest Bevin, on a trip organised by the Holocaust Educational Trust.
“My abiding memory of my first-ever trip was seeing things [that belonged] those who died – their glasses, their shoes, their clothes, their hair, seeing the industrial scale of the killing. That stayed with me forever,” he said.
On Monday morning the mayor visited Krakow, both the ghetto where thousands were held and the square where people were put on “death trains”.
He said he was “angry and distressed” at the “heightened fear” experienced by Jewish Londoners since the October 7 attacks by Hamas on Israel in 2023.
The Labour government has changed the law to overcome planning restrictions that saw the Holocaust Education Centre blocked by the High Court.
Sir Sadiq was one of the judges who chose the design for the memorial. The original plan was for it to have opened in Victoria Tower Gardens, adjacent to the “House of Lords end” of the Palace of Westminster, in 2024.
“I think it is right and proper it should be next to Parliament,” he said on Monday. “It should be for parliamentarians to be able to see this Holocaust memorial and education centre.
“I am really pleased that the Government has lifted any hurdles. I appreciate we have been waiting a long time for this. It’s been years now since we chose a particular design. The site has been one we have identified for a while.
“I’m looking forward to construction beginning and it being built, so future generations can learn about the horrors of the Holocaust.
“Also, if you are a parliamentarian, you can learn about the consequences of dehumanising people, the consequences of discrimination, which ultimately can lead to genocide.”
