Photo: From The Somme, The Heroism and Horror of War 650 words / 3 minute read In January 2020, I asked whether we would have 20:20 – perfect vision. Then, within the span of two months the world changed. We watched as the streets of Wuhan became empty, thinking – well,…
Photo: HRH The Prince of Wales greets Israeli President Isaac Herzog, 22 November 2021,. Photo © GPO/ Kobi Gideon 320 words / 1 ½ minutes What gift does the President of Israel present to the Prince of Wales on his first visit to the UK as President? What to give…
The list of countries presented by Eichmann to the Wannsee Conference, with the number of Jews whom it was intended to be deported to their deaths. When genocide became mechanised 460 words / 2 minute read On 20 January 1942 thirteen senior Nazi and German officials met at a secluded…
Photo: President Roosevelt addressing Congress to ask that a state of war be declared between the United States and Japan, 8 December 1941. 820 words / 4 minute read On the morning of December 6 – the day on which Hitler was forced to accept that Moscow was not about to…
Photo: Clarissa Eden : From The Times obituary, 16 November 2021 450 words – 2 minute read It was a Friday, the 30th of January, on the 50th anniversary of Winston Churchill’s funeral and I was invited to Parliament for a rededication of the Oscar Nemon statue of Churchill in the Members’ Lobby…
Photo : The Nazi racial policy that defined the physical characteristics of those worthy to be considered Aryans or members of the German “Master Race”, and those considered “Untermenschen” believed to be racially and socially inferior beings. 975 words / 4 ½ minute read Who has not heard a child complain: …
Martin was always very proud of his foreign editions – Italian, Portuguese, Spanish, Czech, Polish, Russian and Chinese to name a few. He was surprised and honoured to find in Shanghai his three volume history of the Twentieth Century in a handsome five-volume edition, surprised because it was done without…
Photo: James Brokenshire and Sir David Amess 685 words / 3 minute read In my computer files is a quote from one of The Boys, the child survivors who came to Britain after the Second World War about whom Martin has written. Moshe Nurtman asks a basic question about the…
Photo: Sir Martin interviewing the late Yogi Mayer, a friend and mentor to many of The Boys as they acclimated to life in Britain after the war. Used by permission from the ’45 Aid Society Martin’s message as President ’45 Aid Society Journal, Number 30, 2006 275 words / 2 minute read It…
Photo: Churchill and Alexander, 24 August 1944, from In Search of Churchill 500 words/ 2 ½ minute read The list of Churchill’s reform measures is impressive. The Tory Democrat who became an active Liberal and then a Conservative again (at the age of fifty-six) could look with pride at the legislation…
Photo: Hitler Youth at a Nazi Party convention rally in Nuremberg, c. 1934; Photo, Encyclopedia of the Holocaust 1760 words/8 ½ minute read Through the years, in thinking and teaching about the Holocaust, I have viewed it as a way to see what human beings are capable of in regard…
Photo: The Canadian Rockies, February 2021, E Gilbert photo 515 words/ 2 ½ minute read Geography was so important to Martin. It was not only the history of a particular moment in time that counted, but that moment was inextricably linked to the place where it happened. This formed the basis…
Photo: Steve McCurry’s 1984 photograph of young Sharbat Gula in an Afghan refugee camp in Pakistan, published in 1985. 630 words / 3 minute read The face of then twelve-year old Sharbat Gula that adorned the cover of the June 1985 edition of National Geographic was the face of the refugee.…
Photo: Is he facing the truth, or filtering it? The dark shadow of this biography. Image from intheblack.com 430 words / 2 minute read Andrew Roberts wrote a review in The Spectator of a new Churchill biography. It seems that the author of the book uses his journalism background to present…
Photo: Gordon Brown, Sir Martin, Rabbi Sacks, 11 June 2011, Hendon Synagogue; Sir Martin holding the pages with his questions. Photo by Sandra Meyer, with thanks to Rabbi Mordechai Ginsbury. 575 words / 3 min read On 15 June 2011, at Hendon Synagogue, Sir Martin moderated a conversation between The…
Photo: Hunger in Russia, 1920, from Sir Martin’s Twentieth Century, credited to Novosti, Moscow. The 1932-33 state-imposed famine in Ukraine became known as the Holodomor, “death inflicted by starvation”. 1250 words / 6 minute read In Bavaria, Hitler was building up a small National Socialist (Nazi) Workers’ Party. Denunciation of the…
Photo: Sketch of the planned Ian Wolter memorial to the Kindertransport at Harwich. 600 words / 3 minute read In the ten months leading up to the outbreak of the Second World War, 10,000 children left their parents and families, their homes and countries of birth in Germany, Austria and…
Photo: Churchill in Tel Aviv with the city’s mayor, Meir Dizengoff, March 1921; Central Zionist Archives, from Churchill and the Jews 525 words / 2 ½ minute read This year marks the centenary of Winston’s Churchill’s visit, as Colonial Secretary, to the Middle East, which included an eight-day visit to…
Photo: Summer 1941; battle-weary German troops rest at the side of the tank 1050 words/5 minute read On the night of July1, a train made up of twenty-two goods wagons and two passenger cars left Leningrad for the east; on board, under the vigilant eye of the art scholar Vladimir Levinson-Lessing,…
Photo: Sir Martin’s map of the First World War Sites in Britain Visit the museums, birthplaces, cemeteries and memorials – locations with a First World War connection. Sir Martin’s Atlas is an historical guide to any tour through Britain. Read: British History Atlas Subscribe to Sir Martin’s Newsletter & Book…