All posts by Martin Gilbert

Mufti & Hitler

The Farhud Baghdad, 1 June 1941

Photo:  The Mufti of Jerusalem, Hajj Amin Al-Husaini and Hitler, the Reich Chancellery, Berlin, 28 November 1941 560 words / 3 minute read … the British forces allowed the defeated Iraqi troops to return to their barracks without surrendering their weapons.  Stung by their humiliating defeat, and already fuelled with

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“God save the King”

Photo: Former Prime Ministers along with members of the Privy Council at the Accession Council ceremony, 10 September 2022.  Photo AP: Kirsty O’Connor/Pool 725 words / 3 ½ minute read When Martin was asked to become a member of the Iraq Inquiry in 2009, in order to have the security level

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Israel Joins the “Comity of Nations”

Photo: The Palestine Post, later to become the Jerusalem Post, front page on the declaration of statehood.  (Note article on Egyptian attack.) 1075 words / 5 minute read  At five o’clock in the afternoon of 14 May 1948, in the main hall of the Tel Aviv Museum, a ceremony took place

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When children were “exterminated”

Photo: Martin’s map “Children under four deported to Auschwitz, 17 August 1942”, Routledge Atlas of the Holocaust 585 words / 2 ½ minute read Updated editions of three of Martin’s atlases will be making their appearances in the months ahead.  (Watch this space.)  I am at the moment indexing his Holocaust

July 1939:  Three Jewish refugee children from Germany and Austria, the 'Kindertransport', waiting to be collected by their relatives or sponsors at Liverpool Street Station, London, after arriving by special train.  (Photo by Stephenson/Topical Press Agency/Getty Images)

“The story behind the photo”

Photo: Published in Never Again.  Left to right, Ruth Adamecz, Inge Adamecz (now Hamilton), Hanna Singer at Liverpool Street Station, 7 July 1939. 750 words / 3 ½ minute read Martin’s name on the cover of one of his books does not indicate that he only had his hand in the text. 

Feng Shan Ho

Is Historical Fiction an Oxymoron?

Photo:  Feng Shan Ho, Consul General in Vienna, 1938, Manli Ho Collection 650 words / 3 ½ minute read Martin loved watching old war films and would get together with his friend the military historian Max Arthur, the two of them offering a running commentary with and over the characters in

Churchill in Tel Aviv

Churchill’s 1921 visit to Jerusalem

Photo:  Churchill with Tel Aviv’s mayor Meir Dizengoff, 30 March 1921 800 words / 4 minute read At midnight on 23 March 1921, Churchill left Egypt for Palestine by overnight train.  Sir Herbert Samuel and T. E. Lawrence accompanied him.  At that time 83,000 Jews and 600,000 Arabs lived between the

In Ishmael's House, LA

And now for something completely different

Photo:  In Ishmael’s House makes a cameo appearance in Small Apartments, directed by Jonas Äkerlund, 2012, near James Marsden, playing Bernard 390 words / 2 minute read Literally one of those if-you-blink-you-missed-it moments, Martin made a cameo appearance.  Well, not really Martin, but rather one of his productions. Spotted in a

Lodz Judaica find

Survivors in their own right

Photo:  Krzysztof Hejmanowski, left, the building inspector for the construction company, with Bartlomiej Gwozdz, left, the archaeologist, and some of the artefacts unearthed in Lodz. Photo by AP photographer Rafal Niedzielski 560 words / 3 minute read In January came the news that in December, during a building renovation in the

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Iran What’s going on? Where did it come from?

Photo:  Ayatollah Khomeini on the Iran 2000 Rial banknote (in November 2022, worth £.04 or $.047) 635 words / 3 minute read 1953:  Not only Communism, but Islam, was offering an alternative political system to parliamentary democracy.  On November 2 the Constituent Assembly in Pakistan declared the country a republic and

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The Abraham Accords Bear Fruit

Photo: Rabbi Ephraim Mirvis with museum founder Sheikh Ahmed Al Mansoori at the Crossroads of Civilisation Museum’s Holocaust exhibit in Dubai, November 2022. 360 words / 2 minute read You might have missed it.  But tucked away between the struggle of the brave women of Iran to be allowed to choose