"London - like a great rhinoceros ...."

London -
like a great rhinoceros, a great hippopotamus,
saying "Let them do their worst -
London can take it"
London could take anything

9 May 1945, Winston Churchill

22 March 2017

Thank You to Sadiq Khan, Mayor of London,
the Metropolitan Police and the National Security Services, the NHS, National Health Service,
Members of the Houses of Parliament,
Leaders of Britain's religious communities,
and the thousands who gathered, for standing together to combat hatred and terror.
Prayers and healing to those wounded and the
families of those murdered.

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Churchill and the Jews

In a recent article on the History News Network, the historian Daniel Mandel weighs in on the subject of Churchill's support for Jews and Zionism, in which Mandel reviews the facts, as presented in Sir Martin's book. But don't take Mandel's word for it: read the book for yourself!

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Atlas of British History

As the British Government contemplates how to widen the English Channel and extricate itself from the European Union, it seems a good time to remind ourselves of British history. What better way than with Sir Martin's Atlas of British History.

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“Churchill and Zionism”
Extract from a lecture delivered
13 March 1974, London
©Martin Gilbert

On 8 May 1945 the war in Europe came to an end. Six million Jews had been murdered; hundreds of thousands of pitiful survivors craved to be allowed to go at once to Palestine, and to rebuild their shattered lives in the Jewish National Home – a refuge which had been in existence for more than twenty-five years. But the British restrictions remained in force, and on 14 May Weizmann wrote to Churchill, urging that, with the end of the war, the time had come to abandon these restrictions, and to open Palestine to the remnant of Hitler's Holocaust. "The White Paper still stands," Weizmann wrote. "It is prolonging the agony of the Jewish survivors. Will you not say the word which is to right wrongs and set the captives free?"

But Churchill did nothing. "There can, I fear, be no possibility of the question being effectively considered," he wrote to Weizmann on 9 June 1945, "until the victorious Allies are definitely seated at the Peace table.

Read More..........

Winston Churchill with Clementine Churchill outside Government House in Jerusalem, March 1921. To Churchill's immediate right is Sir Herbert Samuel, and to his right, the Emir Abdullah.

Moral Dilemmas of Those Under Siege,
Three Examples From the Holocaust

In February I was invited to Hillsdale College in Michigan where work on the Official Churchill Biography is continuing. Upon Randolph Churchill's death in 1968, Sir Martin was asked to finish the biography of his father that Randolph had begun. Randolph, with his team of researchers – Sir Martin among them, had written two volumes of Churchill's life's story and put together five volumes of documents, source material for the “narrative” volumes. In the succeeding twenty years, Sir Martin wrote six more volumes of Churchill's life, taking the story from 1914, where Randolph's volumes had ended, to Churchill's death in 1965. Sir Martin also complied an additional twelve volumes of documents, coming near to completing the volume on 1942 when he became ill.

In 2005, Hillsdale College Press took on the task of keeping in print the complete biography, from Randolph's volumes, through Sir Martin's, and in completing and publishing the document volumes that will accompany the narrative volumes of Churchill's life, through to his death. “Watch this space” for more information on the new volumes.

While in Hillsdale, I gave a talk on the Holocaust to a lecture hall of students and faculty. Students at Hillsdale are trained in the Martin Gilbert approach to History: they understand the value of archival research, they appreciate what can be learned from eyewitnesses and they are keen to know more about Sir Martin, having read many of his books in their coursework. The Holocaust is a topic that is familiar and yet new territory. I tried to do well by them. I am grateful to Hillsdale College for making this video available.

I am grateful to Hillsdale College for inviting me, and for making this video available.

Lady Gilbert at Hillsdale College

History News Network, "Yes, Churchill Really Was a Friend of the Jews" by Daniel Mandel, posted 7 March 2017:

"Revisionism is a long-standing cottage industry where Winston Churchill is concerned .... which clashes with much that is presented in the late Sir Martin Gilbert's Churchill and the Jews: A Lifelong Friendship ...."

To read more about Sir Martin’s inspiration
and interest in Churchill, his blogs, films and book talks:
Click Here

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