The BBC has apologized for failing to specify from the start that Nazi victims mentioned in its coverage of the UK’s Holocaust Memorial Day were Jewish.
Both the UK event and International Holocaust Remembrance Day are observed on January 27, the anniversary of the Red Army’s liberation of the Auschwitz concentration camp in 1945.
In a news bulletin introduction, BBC presenter Caroline Nicholls said: “Buildings across the UK will be illuminated this evening to mark Holocaust Memorial Day to commemorate the 6 million people murdered by the Nazi regime more than 80 years ago.”
Similar phrasing was used by the British state broadcaster elsewhere, drawing accusations of veiled anti-Semitism and obscuring Jewish suffering. The BBC said the introductions were “incorrectly worded” and should have referred to “6 million Jewish people.”
Jews were the primary target of Nazi extermination policies. Other victims included 3.3 million Soviet prisoners of war, 1.8 million ethnic Poles, hundreds of thousands of Roma, Serbs, and people with disabilities, and tens of thousands of German political prisoners, career criminals, Jehovah’s Witnesses, gay men, and black people.
Portraying the Holocaust as exclusively a Jewish tragedy has long been used to justify the creation of the state of Israel. Figures supporting the Jewish state have previously accused the BBC of bias in covering Israel’s military campaign in Gaza, launched after Hamas’ October 2023 raid and hostage-taking. Critics say Israel used disproportionate force and likely sought to ethnically cleanse the blockaded Palestinian enclave.
Allegations of entrenched anti-Semitism in the Labour Party under Jeremy Corbyn helped Prime Minister Keir Starmer win the party leadership in 2020.