Notwithstanding the heroic efforts of the Royal Air Force in repelling the German air assault throughout the summer and autumn of 1940, the British public, after the fierce battering of the Blitz, remained deeply anxious lest Hitler, having subjugated Denmark and Norway, Belgium, Luxembourg, Holland and France to Nazi rule, would invade Britain in the spring of 1941. In a broadcast on 9 February 1941, Churchill spoke with confidence and conviction:
“You will have seen that Sir John Dill, our principal military adviser, the Chief of the Imperial General Staff, has warned us all that Hitler may be forced by the strategic, economic and political stresses in Europe, to try to invade these islands in the near future. That is a warning which no one should disregard.
Churchill addressing the crew of the HMS Exeter READ: Power of Words
From Esther Gilbert
January 20th
On January 20th, a burial took place at a Jewish cemetery in London that was attended by members of the government, clergy, and 1200 Jews of varying degrees of religiosity. Who was this individual whose death had brought together so many, and from such a wide spectrum of society? No one knew.
In fact it was the partial remains of six people, five adults, one child, all of them Jews who had been murdered in Auschwitz. The remains, ashes and bone fragments, had been found at the Imperial War Museum among artefacts donated to them. In the process of preparing the Museum's new Holocaust exhibit, the items had surfaced and so the ashes had been returned to the Jewish community for burial.
January 20th is remembered as the day of the Wannsee Conference in which the “Final Solution” was planned. The journey the Jews buried in London had taken from their homes to the crematoria, and the millions like them who found their end in Chelmno, Belzec, Sobibor, Treblinka, Maly Trostenets or Auschwitz-Birkenau, that journey began with the Wannsee Conference on 20 January 1942.
Tens of thousands of events across the UK were supported by the Holocaust Memorial Day Trust, from speakers to exhibitions, from memorial programmes to projects, in schools, civic centres, churches and care homes. This year's theme was “Torn from Home” a tragedy shared by Cambodian, Rwandan, Bosnian and Darfuri survivors, along with Jews who experienced it during the Holocaust.
Photo: Rabbi Nicky Liss, Chairman of the Rabbinical Council of the United Synagogue, at the gravesite. Courtesy HMDT
Lady Esther Gilbert attended the UK funeral for six victims of the Holocaust who were murdered at Auschwitz-Birkenau. The funeral was held on 20 January, which is also the anniversary of the Wannsee Conference.
The HMD website kindly allowed me to add a piece in response to the burial described above.
“Jonathan went to Sir Martin Gilbert, the official Churchill historian—and the greatest—to test Jonathan’s conclusions that there was much more there than had been covered. Gilbert 'encouraged me to press on,' and said there was ‘loads of information on the topic that others had not considered in depth.'
“'Martin made me promise the same promise that was exacted from him in the 1950s that if I’m going to write about my great-grandfather, then I must stick to the letter of the law when it comes to history; I must not embellish anything; I must tell the absolute truth about Churchill, warts and all.'”
READ: Churchill, A Life The American Interest, https://www.the-american-interest.com/2019/01/22/churchill-in-all-his-complexity/, “Churchill in All His Complexity”, a review on Andrew Roberts' book Churchill: Walking with Destiny, by Jeffrey Herf, posted 22 January 2019:
“The basic story and its many details have been superbly presented before, most extensively in Martin Gilbert's eight volumes (several with two or three parts), published from 1966 to 1988.”Clarification: Sir Martin wrote six volumes of the Churchill biography, the earlier two were written by Churchill's son Randolph. To date 21 volumes of documents have been published as complements to the volumes of Churchill's life. Some of those appeared in an earlier edition as “parts” or “companions”.
"Martin Gilbert is virtually error-free, but he takes an entirely different approach: a chronological, day by day account, which puts you at Churchill's shoulder as events unfold. Gilbert refrains from expressing his opinion, but reviewers ... make too much of this. His opinion is clear through his selection of material. It is mainly positive, but he does not overlook Churchill's faults As a literary work it is thought by some to be almost too thorough. As a reference - particularly with the accompanying document volumes (up to twenty-one now, with two more until Hillsdale finishes the job next year) - it is unsurpassed."
What's Happening at the
Sir Martin Gilbert Learning Centre
The Sir Martin Gilbert Learning Centre recognised Holocaust Memorial Day by presenting a talk by Agnes Grunwald-Spier, who was born in Budapest in 1944, came to the UK and has been recognised by her dedication to Holocaust education. She met Sir Martin when both of them were writing books on Righteous Gentiles, and he wrote the introduction to her book. She has since published two more,
and is working on her memoirs.
Esther Gilbert and Agnes Grunwald-Spier, holding her most recent books; Photo by Jon Benjamin. Calling all post-card recipients!
One of our upcoming projects is to have an exhibit of Sir Martin's postcards highlighting the (ancient?) practice of writing, stamping, and mailing post cards.
We are currently collecting information on what might be available, so if you were fortunate to be on Sir Martin's postcard list, please let me know the time and place he sent them from, and your connection to him.
