The Imperial War Museum - London

Reflecting on the Holocaust

In H.G. Wells’ The Time Machine the Time Traveller (he has no name) discovers an old, forgotten, crumbling edifice – the Palace of Green Porcelain - that obviously was once a museum, full of artifacts from earlier times and technologically superior to the cultures of the Eloi and the Morlocks. The Time Traveller takes simple tools – a box of matches - for use later in the story.

Wells wrote The Time Machine in 1895 at a time when museums were well known but one is drawn to a particular museum in the story, even although to do so is to delve into anachronism.

Was the Time Traveller’s museum a form of Imperial War Museum? Who knows. Yet it is interesting that Wells imagined a museum that focussed upon the tools and weapons of war.

The Imperial War Museum was founded in 1917 and was intended to record the civil and military war effort and sacrifice of the United Kingdom and its Empire during the First World War.

The museum's remit has since expanded to include all conflicts in which British or Commonwealth forces have been involved since 1914. As of 2012, the museum aims

"to provide for, and to encourage, the study and understanding of the history of modern war and 'wartime experience.'“

Originally housed in the Crystal Palace at Sydenham Hill, the museum opened to the public in 1920. In 1924, it moved to space in the Imperial Institute in South Kensington and in 1936 it acquired a permanent home at the former Bethlem Royal Hospital in Southwark, which serves as its headquarters. The outbreak of the Second World War saw the museum expand both its collections and its terms of reference, but in the post-war period it entered a period of decline. It has, however, recovered.

There are now five Imperial War Museums, each with a different focus. There is the London Museum which is situated on Lambeth Road, the Churchill War Rooms at Clive Steps, King Charles Street, London, the IWM at Duxford, Cambridgeshire which focusses on aircraft and other large scale technologies , the IWM North in Manchester which focusses upon the way that war affects peoples’ lives and HMS Belfast moored in London on the Thames.

The museum is funded by government grants, charitable donations, and revenue generation through commercial activity such as retailing, licensing, and publishing. General admission is free to IWM London (although specific exhibitions require the purchase of a ticket) and IWM North, but an admission fee is levied at the other branches.

This is by no means a museum that glorifies war as we found out when we went to visit.

I don’t intend to detail everything that we saw. Rather I should like to focus on one exhibition which conveyed a number of messages.

The Holocaust Galleries are a permanent exhibition at the IWM. Individual stories from some of the six million Jewish people murdered in the Holocaust are told through over 2,000 photos, books, artworks, letters and personal objects ranging from jewellery and clothing to toys and musical instruments.

Dedicated to conserving, displaying and interpreting stories of the most devastating conflict in human history, IWM London is the first museum in the world to house Second World War Galleries and The Holocaust Galleries under the same roof. These new, award-winning galleries will change the way we understand the past for generations to come.

Spanning two floors, these vast new galleries bring together the stories of real people from diverse communities to examine the complex relationship between the Holocaust and the course and consequences of the Second World War.

The effect is stunning because it traces the history of the Holocaust from its anti-semitic roots which had been present in Europe for centuries but which were adopted by the Nazis and magnified in Germany in the post-Word War One environment. One realises how the evil of Nazi anti-Semitism was developed and normalised. This was not something that happened overnight. It was a gradual process that infect almost every part of life in 1920’s and 1930’s Germany as Hitler and the Nazis rose to power.

Our view of the Holocaust is characterised by the horrors of the death camps and the Final Solution without really understanding the depth and insidiousness of Nazi anti-semitism and the way that it percolated through all aspects of society.

One area that should have been obvious and about which I had given little thought was that of the legal system. Yet there in the displays was a judicial robe and pinned to it was the Nazi eagle-swastika badge. The Judges wore their loyalties openly. They were tools of the State. The Nazis did not believe in an impartial judiciary nor an impartial judicial system.

The judicial robe is symbolic of impartiality or it should be. It hasn’t always been black. In the United States it has long been that neutral colour. Colourful robes have characterised the British judicial garb although workaday judicial garb has been black.

Judges must be careful to present an impartial approach to the decision of cases. No room for personal feelings. Judges directing juries tell the jurors to put aside feelings of sympathy or prejudice and be entirely impartial, focussing upon the evidence. There is no place for personal preference in the exercise of the judicial office. Judges have to do justice and impartiality is part of that. And by the same token Judges must be seen to be impartial.

There are accounts of some Judges giving up their right to vote so that there could be no appearance of political partiality. During my time on the Bench Judges would be nominated to preside over judicial recounts at election time, should any be required. My view was that should I have been rostered I would have to forgo exercising my rights to franchise.

Outward displays are critical. The Nazi Judges displayed their loyalty to the State and to the regime with the eagle-swastika badge. No badges – in my view not even war medals – should adorn the judicial robe. It should be free of any device that may hint of partiality. Symbols of sympathy for or support of a cause should not appear against the black of impartiality. Such symbols compromise that impartiality and demonstrate the support of the Judge for a particular cause.

Indeed, one must wonder whether any decoration over the black is appropriate. Of late a gold and red motif adorns the robes of senior court Judges on formal or ceremonial occasions and a blue, purple and silver motif is worn by some Judges in the District Court who preside in the Courts where the Te Ao Marama processes hold sway.

What messages do these adornments convey or are they simply a form of symbolic decoration? But for what is meant to be an impartial body and arm of Government there must, in my view, for such a public-facing body, be more.

Perception is everything and that perception must be of complete impartiality. The only beacon for a Judge must be the law.

And what must be remembered is that there is always a “public facing” role for the Judge. A judge can have a private life but in any situation where there may be a public facing the Judge must be careful.

Even an animated discussion about an over-priced item at the supermarket can attract attention as the phones come out and the incident is over social media within minutes of its being over. Heaven help the Judge who arrogantly asks “don’t you know who I am”.

Any behaviour that goes beyond the bounds of reasonable behaviour rapidly becomes public knowledge and the detrimental impact upon public trust and confidence in the judiciary as an arm of Government is obvious. In many cases to continue as a Judge in such circumstances may be untenable, not only for the individual Judge but for the good of the Judiciary.

But these thoughts went to one side as we progressed through the galleries and past the displays where the discriminatory acts became murder and the murders became mechanised and wholesale – from the mass graves of Babi Yar to the ovens of Auschwitz as the full horror of genocide became apparent.

And that caused me to reflect upon the way we throw words around, often to get a response or to challenge but in throwing words – powerful words – around without seriously reflecting on their meaning cheapens the language and debases the currency of the word.

And one word that has been debased of late is genocide. Perhaps those who fling the word about with such gay abandon need to reflect upon it and it use and meaning. Perhaps if they are in the vicinity of the IWM in London they should pay a visit to the Holocaust Galleries and reflect on the fact that genocide in the last hundred has been applied to the Jewish and Armenian people.

Why do I say that?

First, let us look at the concept of genocide.

“Genocide” refers to specific acts committed with the intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnic, racial, or religious group. The most distinctive feature of genocide is its intent—to destroy a group—in whole or in part. And it is not just any group. That group must be a national, ethnic, racial, or religious group. It can't be a political group. If individuals or entities seek to destroy members of a political party or a group holding a particular political position, it would not be genocide.

Acts of mass murder may be crimes against humanity but unless all the elements of genocide are present, especially that of intent, such mass murder may not amount to genocide.

For this reason the Israeli efforts to eliminate Hamas have a political context. There is not intention to destroy the group to which they belong – the Palestinians. Genocide may be a convenient or emotive word to describe what has happened in Gaza but it is incorrect and inaccurate.

Secondly, how is that termemployed. A more egregious use of the term has been deployed by commentators such as Sanjana Hattutawa and Shaneel Lal in describing the attitudes of those who suggest that trans people are other than whom they assert to be, and that they are governed by biology. Such assertions maybe offensive or hurtful but are not evidence of any genocidal intent nor of any genocidal action. Clearly the use of the word is emotive, designed to evoke horror or outrage on the part of listeners who may not be attuned to the nature of the debate.

But hysterical hyperbole is often deployed when sweet reason does not afford an answer.

The term genocide has been used by a sector of New Zealand society – led especially by people like Chloe Swarbrick and John Minto – in expressing support for Palestine and condemning the actions of Israel of Gaza. However, the chant “from the river to the sea, Palestine shall be free” is an expression of genocidal intent because it advocates the elimination of Israel and its Jewish inhabitants.

Lest the Swarbricks and Mintos of this world have forgotten their history (and they seem to be selective in that regard, remembering only that which is convenient to their argument) perhaps they would do well to reflect on the Arab atrocities against the people of the newly formed State of Israel in 1948 – atrocities which have continued and have been characterised only by a change in focus as nation-states have become involved, although the atrocities of 7 October 2023 are reminiscent of those of 1948.

Those atrocities are conveniently forgotten as members of the Green Party ritualistically don their black and white keffiyehs in support of a terrorist regime. And again, lest we forget, Hamas came to power in Gaza with the will of the Gazans. And Hamas (and Hezbollah) have been clear in their objectives – the elimination of the Israeli state (a political objective) and its Jewish inhabitants (a genocidal objective). And that latter objective is based purely and simply upon anti-Semitism.

Memories are short if indeed there are those who want to remember. My view is that we should never be allowed to forget the Holocaust and the unspeakable horrors that accompanied it and despite my support for freedom of expression, those who speak the language of anti-Semitism either directly or inferentially (and I place those who chant “From the River to the Sea” in that latter category) at least have revealed their prejudices and having done so are not worthy of any interaction on my part. They stand condemned and despised from their own mouths. By their words ye shall know them.

Perhaps they need to understand exactly what it is that they are supporting. Perhaps they need to understand how it is that anti-Semitism insidiously inserts itself into so many different levels of society. Perhaps they should benefit from a close study of the exhibits and materials on display in the Holocaust galleries of the Imperial War Museum.