Photo: From the left, Gerda, my late Mom Helen Goldberg, Martin, and Gerda’s granddaughter Alysa Ullman on my left, 14 March 2006 450 words/2 ½ minute read On February 27, the Sandra Day O’Connor Institute hosted siblings Jennie and Randolph Churchill at the Arizona Biltmore in Phoenix, to speak about…
Photo: Mahmoud Abbas and Benjamin Netanyahu at the United Nations, 23 September 2011 345 words/1 ½ minute read In 1973, five years into my work as Winston Churchill’s biographer, I obtained a grant to do two weeks research in Israel followed by two weeks in Jordan. I was to explore Churchill’s Middle…
Photo: A poster which appeared in the Strand, London, the last week of July 1939. The Daily Mirror asked: “The writing on the wall? This giant poster is causing considerable comment.” From The Wilderness Years 670 words/3 ½ minute read This anxiety increased considerably as Nazi pressure mounted on the…
Photo: News of a new film, A Holocaust Journey: Lessons from the Past, by American filmmaker Lisa Reznik Among the many thousands of Holocaust Memorial Day events taking place across the UK and elsewhere are these: Echo Eternal, a programme of the UK CORE Education Trust Schools to create art inspired by…
Photo: “The Suitcase of Past and Future” created by pupils at Parkgate Primary School in Coventry, based on Judith Kerr’s testimony and the difficult decision of what to take when leaving home. Photograph by Jon Mullis Why is this night different from all other nights? The Holocaust – what we need…
Photo: Churchill in Carthage, from Winston S Churchill, Volume VII, Road to Victory, 1941 – 1945 Editor’s Note: February 3rd marks the fifth anniversary of Sir Martin’s death and an opportunity to salute Hillsdale College Press who have now completed the Official Churchill with the final Biography Document Volumes. When he…
Photo: Churchill inspects bomb damage in London during the early stages of the Blitz, 10 September 1940 18 June 1940, Churchill to the House of Commons 330 words/1 ½ minute read We have to think of the future and not of the past. This also applies in a small way to…
Photo: Ivor Lunzer with Esther; photo by Edwin Shuker The Holocaust – what we need to know and what we can learn from it. From a talk delivered at Limmud UK, Part 1: What happened?* 2000 words/10 minute read Welcome! I am Esther Gilbert. I was married to the historian Martin…
Photo: August 2019 participants. 50 participants from Slovakia, Czech Republic, Poland, Hungary, Great Britain and Israel. The youngest was 9 years old, the oldest was 74. 200 words/1 minute read ICEJ, the International Christian Embassy, Jerusalem lead their memorial walk, dedicated to Rudolf Vrba and Alfred Wetzler, along the Vrba-Wetzler escape…
Photo: The Berlin Wall comes down, 1989 670 words / 3 minute read 1909: Official figures released in St Petersburg in 1909 revealed that 782 political offenders had been executed in the previous year, an increase of more than a hundred from the year before that. The number in exile…
Photo: The Boys in Prague before their journey to the UK Filmmaker Herb Krosney on The Boys. Letter to the Editor, Jerusalem Post,10 November 2019 “Regarding ‘World War II pilot’s heroic Holocaust secret revealed’ (November 6) about the flight to England of 732 Holocaust orphans, your readers might be interested in…
Photo:“The shooter’s rampage” 555 words/2 ½ minute read Stephan Balliet has proven what most Jews already know: Anti-Semitism is not about Jews. Rather, it is about those who are filled with hate. And basically that means hate for anyone – Jews are just the “miner’s canaries”: when Jews are targetted,…
To watch the Memorial Lecture CLICK HERE (You need not be on Facebook to watch this) Welcome by Rabbi Nicky Liss Preface by Sir Harry Solomon, Chairman of the Board of Trustees Introduction by Esther, Lady Gilbert Thanked by James Libson Read the text of the talk: CLICK HERE Read the Press…
Photo: Martin, speaking at Hillsdale College 2950 words/15 minute read It is an honour to be asked to speak today, at the first Yossi Harel annual lecture. I thank Sir Ronald Cohen for inviting me to reflect on political leadership from an historical perspective. I have been fortunate to have had…
Photo: Esther presenting Churchill and America to David Miliband on behalf of the Sir Martin Gilbert Learning Centre 480 words/2 1/2 minute read During David Miliband’s time as Foreign Secretary under Gordon Brown, Martin had occasion to meet him, and held high regard for him. Since leaving the Foreign Ministry,…
Photo: A child from Ruthenian ghetto of Berehovo in Hungarian-occupied Czechoslovakia, being held in a birch grove with other deportees before being killed in a gas chamber in Birkenau; photo taken in early June or July 1944 by SS Sergeant Ernst Hoffman; in collection of Beate Klarsfeld Foundation. 775 words/4 minute…
Photo: Crematorium IV at Birkenau, shortly before it was ready to be put into operation in the spring of 1943. Photo from Auschwitz and the Allies 700 words/3 minute read At Birkenau the Jews of the Sonderkommando were preparing to revolt. It was an enterprise of supreme hazard, and of supreme…
475 words/2 ½ minute read Martin’s interest in maps began in his early years. He told me that he had wanted to study geography but his teachers had told him that wasn’t a “real” study so he went on to do history. But his love of geography continued throughout his…
Photo: Polish prisoners-of-war, captured by the Germans in September 1939. 1530 words/8 minute read The Second World War, the first phase of which broke out on 1 September 1939 when Germany attacked Poland, had its origins twenty-one years earlier, when the First World War – then known as the Great War…
Photo: Randolph Churchill addressing the dinner 1500 words/8 minute read Editor’s Note: On June 14, Hillsdale College, the publishers of the official multi-volume Churchill biography, announced, at a gala dinner in London, the completion of the final document volumes, bringing the biography to 8 volumes of Churchill’s life, and 23…