Karen Pollock

Pollock was director of the All-Party Parliamentary Group against Antisemitism.

She later joined the Holocaust Educational Trust (HET) in 1998 as Director of Communications. Pollock was promoted to chief executive of the organisation in 2000.^[2] One campaign led by Pollock was asking the government to recognise British people who had saved Jewish lives during the Holocaust.^[4] Pollock was praised by politicians across the spectrum for 'Lessons from Auschwitz', a programme that has enabled thousands of sixth form and university students to visit Auschwitz concentration camp.^[5][6]

Alongside HET, she is involved with the anti-fascist organisation Searchlight and the London Jewish Forum, as well as the Holocaust Memorial Day Trust of which she was a founding trustee.^[2][5]

She represented The Board of Deputies of British Jews at the United Nations World Conference against Racism in 2001 and 2009.^[2]

She is a vice-president of the Jewish Leadership Council.^[7]

She was appointed Member of the Order of the British Empire (MBE) in the 2012 New Year Honours for services to education, specifically about the Holocaust,^[8] and Commander of the Order of the British Empire (CBE) in the 2020 Birthday Honours for services to Holocaust education.^[9][10]

In an opinion piece in The Guardian, entitled "Of course the Holocaust is relevant to Israel now", Pollock compared the Holocaust and the 7 October Hamas-led attack on Israel, writing that "Jews will inevitably connect the trauma of an attack that murdered more than a thousand innocent civilians with the trauma of Nazi massacres." She also wrote that "The world turned its back" on Jews, "after Hitler came to power", and, now, regarding 7 October, "there are many who once again looked on, many who justified it and a distressing number who even celebrated it."^[11]