BBC broadcasts marking Holocaust Remembrance Day sparked a sharp controversy this week after several segments referred to the murder of six million people by the Nazi regime without stating that the victims were Jews or explaining the antisemitic motive at the core of Nazi crimes.
In a central segment of the BBC’s morning program, aired for several minutes and read by news presenter Jon Kay, Holocaust Remembrance Day was described as marking “for remembering the six million people murdered by the Nazi regime over 80 years ago.” The wording was repeated in additional news bulletins, on radio and on the corporation’s rolling news channel.
In an interview with a Holocaust survivor, no reference was made to her Jewish background. Only later in one of the broadcasts was a partial clarification added, stating that the victims were “six million, mainly Jews.”
The phrasing drew anger from senior figures in the Jewish community and from organizations involved in Holocaust remembrance. They said the issue was not a slip of the tongue but a substantive failure. “a new low point for the national broadcaster,” said Danny Cohen, a former president of BBC Television. “It is surely the bare minimum to expect the BBC to correctly identify that it was six million Jews killed during the Holocaust. To say anything else is an insult to their memory and plays into the hands of extremists.”
In addition to Cohen, critics stressed that while the Nazis carried out large-scale crimes against other groups, including Roma, people with disabilities and prisoners of war, the term “the Holocaust” refers unambiguously to the destruction of the Jews. They said such errors are particularly dangerous against the backdrop of rising antisemitism.
According to The Telegraph, Karen Pollock, chief executive of the Holocaust Educational Trust, said that “The Holocaust was the murder of six million Jewish men, women, and children. Any attempt to dilute the Holocaust, strip it of its Jewish specificity, or compare it to contemporary events is unacceptable on any day. On Holocaust Memorial Day, it is especially hurtful, disrespectful, and wrong.”
Following the outcry, the BBC issued an official response acknowledging that some of the wording in its broadcasts was incorrect. “In the news bulletins on Today and in the introduction to the story on BBC Breakfast there were references to Holocaust Memorial Day which were incorrectly worded, and for which we apologise. Both should have referred to ‘six million Jewish people’, and we will be issuing a correction on our website.”