Photo: Churchill with his literary agent Emery Reves, 1937 1500 words / 7 ½ minute read Based on a piece published in the Spectator on 17 March 2007 “Churchill was too fond of the Jews, It’s a nonsense to allege that the war leader was anti-Semitic” the following was republished…
Photo: The field of stone memorials representing places from which Jews had been deported to their deaths at the Treblinka Death Camp 750 words / 4 minute read In the late summer of 1959, accompanied by a Polish friend, a non-Jew, I travelled by car to the River Bug near Malkinia…
Photo: Places mentioned in Samuel Pisar’s memoir, from Holocaust Memoir Digest, Volume I 750 words / 4 minute read In 2000, Martin and I attended the Remembering for the Future Conference in Oxford, organised by the late Elisabeth Maxwell. Martin gave an opening address; Samuel Pisar’s talk followed. Pisar, an…
Photo: Martin with the owner of Burnt Out Farm, Joël Wgeux, and his son, Ploegsteert, 1970, where Churchill had made his frontline observation post in 1915. 570 words/2 ½ minute read From the Preface, In Search of Churchill, 25 November 1993 This book traces some of my travels and discoveries…
Photo: Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert with Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas and US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, 19 February 2007, Jerusalem, photo by Matty Stern 775 words/3 ½ minute read “You never know what’s happening behind the scenes.” This was Martin’s view of how political leaders manage – or…
Photo: Winston Churchill gives his ‘Iron Curtain’ speech in Fulton, MO . 5th March, 1946. winstonchurchill.org Martin’s intro to the speech: In the immediate aftermath of the war, Churchill contemplated with alarm a Europe divided between East and West, by what he called an “Iron Curtain”. The dominance of the Soviet…
Photo: The mob in the Capitol, 6 January 2021 President Joe Biden, Inaugural Address, 20 January 2021 850 word count / 4 minute read In August 2013 I was invited by the Churchill Centre to attend the dedication of an Oscar Nemon bust of Winston Churchill at the Capitol building…
From Helen McCord, Senior Teaching Fellow, the UCL Centre for Holocaust Education: At the UCL Centre for Holocaust Education we are working with the author Tom Palmer to produce free lesson materials and resources to support teachers using his novel ‘After the War’ with their students. ‘After the War’ is…
Photo: Churchill, A Life photobombing from the middle shelf, BBC interview with Michael J Gerhardt, Burton Craige Distinguished Professor of Jurisprudence, University of North Carolina School of Law, 11 January 2021 870 words / 4 minute read It is my aim in these pages to give a full and rounded picture…
Photo: Martin, working on the Churchill biography, 26 March 1991. Photo by Edward Hamilton West for The Guardian 1120 words / 5 ½ minutes read In the spring of 1967, Randolph Churchill, who was then far from well, was making plans for the future of the Official Biography. One evening after…
Photo: At 31 volumes, eight narrative and 23 of documents, The Official Biography, “Winston S Churchill”, is the longest on the planet. Photo: Hillsdale College 720 words / 3 ½ minute read Martin called it his “life’s work”. He worked on it throughout a 50 year span, devoting many years…
Photo: The cover of the 1988 book Murderous Science by the late German Professor of Genetics Benno Muller-Hill, a pioneer in the examination of the scientific experiments undertaken by Nazi German scientists and doctors. 950 words / 5 minute read In my January 2020 newsletter, I posed the question whether the…
Photo: Peter Mansbridge photo & CBC logo “Mansbridge One on One” A CBC Interview by Peter Mansbridge 1800 words/6 minute read Peter Mansbridge is a British-born Canadian journalist, for twenty years the chief correspondent and anchor of The National, CBC Television’s premier nightly newscast. This November 2006 interview is published…
Photo: Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu 700 words/3 ½ minute read In November, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu flew to Saudi Arabia and met with Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman and U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo. Although there have been low…
Photo: Information to join the memorial for the late Rabbi Jonathan Sacks I was sitting by the window which overlooks the Rocky Mountains above Canmore, Alberta when I received a call from a friend that Jonathan Sacks had died. Former Chief Rabbi of the United Hebrew Congregations of Great Britain…
Photo: Churchill, in his constituency, electioneering with his wife, 26 May 1945. For the reasons why Churchill lost the election, and his response, see The Will of the People In December 1944, when democracy was under grave threat in liberated Greece in the form of a civil war, Churchill flew personally to…
Photo: Witold Pilecki in a colourised pre-1939 photo. (T.Bor komorowski “Armia podziemna” Warsaw,1990, Wikimedia Commons, public domain) 600 words/3 minute read Jack Fairweather’s book The Volunteer, the story of Witold Pilecki, has what may be to many readers a confusing twist. Pilecki, a fighter with the Polish Resistance during the Second…
Photo: Churchill meets Roosevelt at Quebec before the start of the first Quebec conference, 16 August 1943. Imperial War Museum photograph 525 words/2 1/2 minute read In 1944, as victory came closer, Churchill saw a bolder and brighter future for the Anglo-American relationship than victory alone. In a speech in London…
Photo: 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…
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…