Miliband hears new details of family’s history at Yad Vashem
Justin Cohen is the News Editor at the Jewish News
Ed Miliband was presented with new information about his family’s Holocaust history during a visit to Yad Vashem, writes Justin Cohen in Jerusalem.
The politician returned the Jerusalem museum 15 years after honouring the Catholic family who had helped to hide his mother and other family members during the Shoah.
Visibly moved and often shaking his head at the enormity of what he was hearing, Miliband was shown panels and testimony tracing the Nazis policies towards the Jews to the concentration camps. He visibly bulked at being told of the 14,000 people incarcerated at Bergen Belsen who died after liberation from illness and malnutrition.
Miliband saw sacred items including a Sefer Torah scroll destroyed during Kristallnacht and despite it being a relatively brief visit, paused for a couple of minutes to listen to audio testimony from the scene of the murder of thousands in a forest 10km south of Vilna.
After laying a wreath in memory of the six million including members of his own family murdered during the Shoah, he took his time writing in Yad Vashem’s visitors’ book, pausing at one point to ask how much space he could take up. “I am incredibly moved and humbled to pay this visit,” he wrote.
“It reminds me of my own family loss but also of the suffering and courage of so many Jews. Above all, it is a lesson we must fight anti-Semitism and prejudice wherever we find it.” He concluded by paying tribute to those who saved others, invoking the Talmudic phrase ‘he who saves a single soul it is as if he saved an entire world.”
Earlier in the day, ahead of his Q and A at HebrewUniversity, Miliband had a surprise meeting Mendel Mandelbaum and his son Jonathan, both of whom work at the institution, and whose family took refuge in same monastry in Belgium as the Labour leader’s grandmother .
Thank you for helping to make Jewish News the leading source of news and opinion for the UK Jewish community. Today we're asking for your invaluable help to continue putting our community first in everything we do.
For as little as £5 a month you can help sustain the vital work we do in celebrating and standing up for Jewish life in Britain.
Jewish News holds our community together and keeps us connected. Like a synagogue, it’s where people turn to feel part of something bigger. It also proudly shows the rest of Britain the vibrancy and rich culture of modern Jewish life.
You can make a quick and easy one-off or monthly contribution of £5, £10, £20 or any other sum you’re comfortable with.
100% of your donation will help us continue celebrating our community, in all its dynamic diversity...
Engaging
Being a community platform means so much more than producing a newspaper and website. One of our proudest roles is media partnering with our invaluable charities to amplify the outstanding work they do to help us all.
Celebrating
There’s no shortage of oys in the world but Jewish News takes every opportunity to celebrate the joys too, through projects like Night of Heroes, 40 Under 40 and other compelling countdowns that make the community kvell with pride.
Pioneering
In the first collaboration between media outlets from different faiths, Jewish News worked with British Muslim TV and Church Times to produce a list of young activists leading the way on interfaith understanding.
Campaigning
Royal Mail issued a stamp honouring Holocaust hero Sir Nicholas Winton after a Jewish News campaign attracted more than 100,000 backers. Jewish Newsalso produces special editions of the paper highlighting pressing issues including mental health and Holocaust remembrance.
Easy access
In an age when news is readily accessible, Jewish News provides high-quality content free online and offline, removing any financial barriers to connecting people.
Voice of our community to wider society
The Jewish News team regularly appears on TV, radio and on the pages of the national press to comment on stories about the Jewish community. Easy access to the paper on the streets of London also means Jewish News provides an invaluable window into the community for the country at large.
We hope you agree all this is worth preserving.
