Monaco agrees to Holocaust investigation
PEERS are stepping up to the plate after toasties and custom-made sandwiches were banned from a House of Lords bar.
Lord Naseby, the former Conservative MP for Northampton South, said he’d “lost count of the numbers of colleagues complaining”. Pre-packaged sandwiches now on offer at the Bishops’
Bar are “certainly nowhere near as good as M&S sandwiches in BP petrol stations”, he added, while salads come in a “sort of dog bowl plastic container”. He fielded seven
MONACO has finally agreed to open up its state archives to historians investigating the scale of Jewish persecution during the Holocaust.
Campaign group the Simon Wiesenthal Centre wrote to authorities in Monaco, along with other relevant countries, in 1997 asking for access to official records detailing the deportation of Jews to the Nazi death camps during the Second World War.
While nations such as Russia accepted the request, the principality of Monaco was among those not to respond to the letter.
Now Serge Telle, State Minister for the microstate ruled by Prince Albert, has given permission for the Centre’s Dr Shimon Samuels to next month begin exploring the official records.
“When I had my first meeting with Mr Telle in Jerusalem, he said something that really shook me,” Dr Samuels said.
“He confirmed to me that he was aware Monaco had not done the job of protecting Jewish people and hiding these people from the Nazis like they had promised they would do.
“He looked at me across parliamentary questions about the food, saying: “I am president of the Northamptonshire County Cricket Club where all the catering is done ‘in-house’, much of it in confined spaces but still to a very high standard with no reported food poisoning.
“I also reflected that on the way to cricket I often stop at one of the mobile food vans to have a bacon sandwich or a toastie or whatever.”
Lord Laming, who chairs the House’s services committee, told him the table and said: ‘For beg forgiveness.’
“That showed a certain amount of good will.”
He said historical records elsewhere point to the persecution of Monaco’s Jewish community during the Holocaust, including the seizure of money, blocking Jewish bank accounts and looting artworks.
Invaded and taken over by Italy’s fascists in 1943, the administration of Monaco was then handed to Germany, which deported Monaco’s Jewish population to Nazi camps where they were murdered.
Under the current this,
I that members “did not introduce the changes lightly”. He said they were brought in because of a “duty of care towards staff working in the outlet” and that the “current conditions for food preparation were unsuitable”.
Latest accounts show the Bishops’ Bar ran at a loss of £77,034 in 2018/19. It is open only to peers, who can claim a daily attendance allowance of £313.
Duncan Simpson, of thetaxpayers’ Alliance, said: “While many families are struggling to put food on the table, they’ll be perplexed that they’re paying to subsidise politicians’ lunches.” reign of Prince Albert II, Monaco has slowly moved toward recognising its role in the Holocaust.
In 2015 the Prince unveiled a statue in respect to the 92 Jews accepted to have been deported to the concentration camps.
But Dr Samuels believes the figure is far higher.
“We have documents secured from the Holocaust Memorial in Washington, and from Paris, which show the number is far greater.
“We have found the names of many Jews who should have been saved but were not.” The number, he said, “almost certainly amounts to hundreds”.
Speaking at the 2015 Monaco ceremony during the unveiling of a monument to those who perished in the Holocaust, Prince Albert noted that French Jews fleeing the Nazis, “came specifically to take shelter with us, thinking they would find neutrality”.
Instead, Monaco had handed over to the neighbouring authorities “women, men and a child who had taken refuge with us to escape the persecutions they had suffered in France”.
Dr Samuels said he is appealing to anyone who feels they had family in Monte Carlo or who were deported from Monaco to come forward.
“We will be asking for some sort of indemnification.we are not talking about a large amount of money. But if we get it, at least there will be some kind of closure,” he said.