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Archives:
The source material from which
true history is recorded
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Sir Martin's October Books
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The Holocaust
The graphic history of a near-annihilation of a people, their communities and culture
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The Routledge Atlas of Jerusalem
The pictorial and geographic history of a capital city – soon to have more embassies opening there?
For ebook discount, enter DC 360
at checkout.
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“To perish, but with honour”
excerpt from The Holocaust
485 words / 2 minute read
In the Vilna Ghetto, a resistance organization had been growing, led by Yitzhak Wittenberg. Among its actions was the sabotage of German troop trains in the area around Vilna, using explosives smuggled out of the ghetto to partisans in the neighbourhood. On 8 July 1943, a Jewess, Vitka Kempner, managed to leave the ghetto, together with two colleagues, carrying a landmine. Their objective was to blow up a German military train five miles south-east of the city. They planted the mine, and nobody noticed them.
Within a week of this “triumph”, one of the members of a Lithuanian Communist group captured by the Gestapo, revealed under torture the name of the resistance commander. On the night of 16 July 1943, Wittenberg and other members of the United Partisan Organization were at a meeting with the head of the Jewish Council, Jacob Gens, when armed Lithuanian policemen burst into the room and Wittenberg, in fetters, was led away. (Continue Reading)
Jewish partisans from Vilna return to the city from the Rudnicka forest immediately after liberation, 14 July 1944, while fighting is still going on just outside the city. From left to right (standing): Elchanon Magid, Jacob Prener, Bluma Markowicz (she was killed in a bombardment a few days after this photograph was taken), Abba Kovner, Ruszka Korczak, Leib Sapistein and Vitka Kempner (who later married Abba Kovner). Kneeling, left to right: Gerozan Griner, Pesach Mizerec and Moti Szames.
(Photo and Caption from Martin's book Never Again, photo, Yad Vashem Film and Photo Department Archives, Jerusalem)
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 From Esther Gilbert
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Jewels in Martin's Archive
“To perish, but with honour”
in draft
580 words / 3 minute read
In those ancient pre-computer days, Martin wrote his books with “pen and ink”. He used legal pads, turned lengthwise so he could write across the page, ignoring what then became vertical lines. Each chapter had its own pad of paper, with many having pages taped along the left side. In this way he had space to make corrections, add sections, cross out lines, and tape quotations that had been typed and cut to size. Martin's “cut and paste” was really cut and tape.
The photo below is the beginning of his Chapter 24 “To perish, but with honour” excerpted from his book The Holocaust, where we can see his creative process in action. In the book it becomes Chapter 30, and tells the extraordinary story of resistance, both the limited armed resistance Jewish partisans in German-occupied Lithuania were able to attempt, and that of “spiritual” resistance, of a surrender to certain death to save a community, and to prevent a community from being reduced to infighting. (Continue Reading)
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The Sir Martin Gilbert History Prize
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325 words / 1 ½ minute read
A pilot project involving more than 15 schools in the UK has presented pupils an opportunity to compete for the first Sir Martin Gilbert History Prize based on Winston Churchill’s life and times. Allen Packwood, the Director of the Churchill Archives Centre in Cambridge describes the connection with Sir Martin:
It is a great pleasure to be asked to write a few lines about the connection between the Churchill Archives Centre and Sir Martin Gilbert. The Archives Centre, which is located in the grounds of Churchill College, Cambridge, houses Churchill’s personal papers which were used by Martin as the foundation for his monumental eight-volume biography of Sir Winston. Indeed, as official biographer he was one of the very few people who had access to the collection prior to the building of the Centre and played a key role in ensuring that the archive was properly preserved after the death of Winston’s son Randolph. It is entirely right therefore that his volumes have pride of place in the reading room library. They, along with their accompanying Companion Volumes, will remain the go-to reference work for all those interested in working on Sir Winston’s papers. (Continue Reading)
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Please share, connect, keep well
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Sir Martin Gilbert Learning Centre
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 Come Zoom with us!
Upcoming Events:
October 7, evening lecture: Displaced Jews: Renewal in the Shadow of the Holocaust
October 15, 22, 2 evening lectures: Facing Difficult Pasts: Reflecting on History in the Present
October 20 – November 24, 6 evening lectures, in partnership with University College, London (UCL)
November/December evening lecture series: Modern Jewish History: A Deeper Look, focussing on Europe
November/December daytime lecture series: Modern Jewish History: A Deeper Look, focussing on the non-European Jewish experience
November 9, evening lecture: Reflections on Kristallnacht: Remembering the November pogroms
For more information or to register:
https://www.smglc.org.uk
Contact: info@smglc.org.uk |
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