PHOTO: Israeli Ambassador Mark Regev (on the right) speaks to Lavi Melman (on the left) and Roy Van-Gelder (centre), both of whom are related to Jewish Brigade soldiers who were killed in North Italy in 1945, at the Westminster Field of Remembrance, 8 November 2018. In response to a piece…
PHOTO : Martin with the Nemon bust of Churchill, photo courtesy Lady Young. It is now nearly four years since Martin died, and six and a half since he published a word. But I am continually amazed at how his work and his reputation for being, in Dennis Prager’s words,…
PHOTO: Adolph Hitler salutes, while two SS men hold back an excited crowd. Circa 1932, Fox Photos Ltd August 1932: … as part of the research for his Marlborough biography, Churchill left England for Germany, and for a visit to the battlefields of Blenheim. With him on this expedition went…
Photo: The Jewish fallen in the British Forces with their list of regiments, represented by their Stars of David, next to the fallen who fought with the Jewish Brigade in the Second World War. On Thursday, November 8, will be the official opening of the Westminster Abbey Field of Remembrance,…
Photo: The Baden Baden Synagogue burns on Kristallnacht I remember the look on Martin’s face when he told me. It was pure astonishment on his part, and he had been the detective, unaware of what he was to uncover. Amanda Foreman (who had known Martin since her childhood) and Lisa Jardine…
Photo: The revamped Metropole Hotel, which had been requisitioned during both the First and Second World Wars as the Metropole Building, redone in 2007 as the Corinthia Hotel, Northumberland Avenue, London Note: While preparing a “Churchill-lite” tour of London for a former Hillsdale Churchill Fellow, Lillian Quinones, I found this…
Sir Martin’s map in the Center for Holocaust, Human Rights & Genocide Education, Brookdale Community College, Lincroft, New Jersey, chhange.org (Below) Sam Freiman recently visited his cousins Elfriede Schlesinger (on Sam’s right) and Adrienne Aldermeshian (on Sam’s left) at the Museum in New Jersey. Sam is holding a copy of Sir…
Winston Churchill had a way with words. So may I be forgiven for quoting Churchill to speak for me in honouring my dear husband who would be celebrating his birthday this month? Martin and I were married for ten years. On September 12, 1918, Churchill wrote to his wife Clementine…
I was born on 25 October 1936, three weeks after the Battle of Cable Street, and therefore have no recollections of it. I have prepared an account of it from contemporary documents, the newspapers of the time, and the recollections of some of those who took part in it for…
Photo: Jack Brauns, Martin, Avraham Tory, in Israel, 1980s (Jack Brauns, a survivor of Kovno, was the son of Dr Moshe Brauns, Director of the Jewish Hospital and Head of Infectious Diseases in the Ghetto) Like all the captive peoples – Poles, Czechs, Serbs, Greeks, Dutch, Danes, and many more…
Photo: One of the Russian-built pits as fuel depots, used by the Germans as a mass murder site, into which the Jews of Vilna were shot, in the Paneriai Forest. In September 2001, Martin and I were in Lithuania. Still reeling from the shock of 9/11, we were on the…
Facebook’s Peter Stern who is on Facebook’s Community Standards team recently wrote to Holocaust educators in response to Facebook’s decision to allow “inaccuracies”. He wrote that “Facebook rejects hate” though allows “things that are wrong or untrue”. But, as my late father would say: “One thing leads to another.” How…
The Sir Martin Gilbert Learning Centre is delighted to introduce its Friday morning learning series, “Topics in Modern Jewish History”, to begin on Friday 5th October. The series, like the Centre, aims to make historical learning accessible and engaging, particularly on the subjects close to Sir Martin’s heart: the Holocaust,…
Photo: Claude Lanzmann in his study Holocaust Survivor, French Resistance Fighter, Filmmaker I never met Claude Lanzmann, and I am ashamed to admit that I never watched the whole of his 9 ½ hour film Shoah. I did however have correspondence with him and through the impetus for that, and…
A vital part of the success of the RAF was played by Bomber Command. Sir Martin was involved in an attempt to see those who took part in Bomber Command awarded with a campaign medal, an honour that has still sadly eluded them. In 2008 he wrote this dedication: My…
Also in the June mailbag came this email from Janice Harris in New Zealand, who found her great-uncle listed in one of Sir Martin’s Indexes on the website: “I’m researching my genealogy, and my great uncle, Samuel Howes, was chauffeur to Sir Winston Churchill during the Wilderness Years. I found…
Photo: Sir Martin’s books, 1 to 88, in various editions I was quite overwhelmed by the responses from my last piece (in the June newsletter), not only from those who have followed me through the many ups and downs (or downs and downs) of the last few years, but also from…
On Armistice Day, November 11, 1918, Winston Churchill was Minister of Munitions. As Big Ben struck 11, and the guns fell silent on the Western Front, he was looking out of his ministerial window over Northumberland Avenue. The broad street was deserted. Suddenly, as he wrote, he saw “the slight…
The new data protection laws coming into effect offer an opportunity for many of us to take a look at the newsletters we receive, and those we send. Because the readers of the Sir Martin Gilbert Newsletters have personally subscribed, and with our double opt-in, you need not resubscribe. But…
Photo: Winston Churchill with his son Randolph and daughter Mary at an American military cemetery near Namur, 15th July 1946, from Churchill, A Life. 6 June 1968 found Sir Martin on the beach in Portugal where he received word that his former boss Randolph Churchill, Sir Winston’s son, had died. Martin…