Photo: Lenin, still presiding over the Finland Railway Station, St Petersburg, 2007 775 words / 3 ½ minute read On August 5, in a moment of much needed relaxation, Gorbachev flew to the Crimea (to the very Simferopol in which the Crimean Tartars had demanded sovereignty less than two months earlier)…
Photo: The Boys, new edition, coming August 4th 750 words / 3 ½ minute read Fewer than 100,000 Jews survived the death camps, slave labour camps and death marches of Hitler’s Reich. This book is about 732 of those survivors; most of them boys, about eighty of them girls. What these…
Photo: Randolph and Catherine Churchill, on board the Queen Mary off Long Beach, California, 26 May 2016 Those in the Churchill world were saddened to hear of the passing of Catherine Churchill, Randolph’s wife, companion and helpmate. I really only got to know Randolph after Martin became ill, and saw Catherine…
Photo: John Gielgud as Aaron Jastrow, in Herman Wouk’s War and Remembrance 600 words/3 minute read How do we comprehend senseless evil? How do we respond when words lead to violence and to murder? (And with all the advances mankind has created to make life better, why is there even still…
Photo: Wing Commander Jim Wright DFC. 2275 words / 11 minute read 10 January 2008 Wing Commander A J Wright DFC RAF(Ret) to Sir Martin Gilbert via his website: With support from many in Canada, OZ, NZ and UK, but lacking the official help needed from the Bomber Command Association (BCA)…
Photo: The Vrba-Wetzler escape route from Auschwitz to Jewish leaders in Slovakia, to bring the news of the death camp to the Jews of Hungary 770 words / 3 minute read “I couldn’t believe my eyes,” was how Caroline Edwards described to the Congressional Committee the January 6th “war scene” she,…
Photo: “Kasztner at the trial in Israel in 1953 in which a judge condemned him for selling his soul to the devil.” 885 words/4 ½ minute read Was Rudolf Kasztner a traitor to the Jewish people, who saved a few friends while allowing more than 400,000 Jews to be deported…
Photo: The Styr River, Lutsk, just near the synagogue (built in 1626), August 2011 An excerpt from The Righteous 950 words / 5 minute read 1943, in the Lutsk region of Western Ukraine, David Prital tried to find sanctuary from the German extermination campaign of the Jews, their willing collaborators and those…
Photo: 1 November 2015, with Alan Palmer, Oxford 720 words/ 3 ½ minute read One of the early inspirations in Martin’s life and subsequent historical work was his Highgate School History Master, his mentor, his friend, Alan Palmer who sadly died this spring in his 96th year. In 2005, with the 90th anniversary…
Photo: 14 March 2006, with Gerda Klein, Phoenix, Arizona 550 words/ 2 ½ minute read “Shaking my head, I stared at this man who was to me the embodiment of all heroism and liberty. He greeted me. I must tell him from the start, I resolved, so that he has…
Photo: Wendy Higgins with Ben Helfgott, one of the Loughton Boys, and Sir Martin’s book. Maurice Helfgott, Ben’s son, stands behind Wendy. Photo from video. 250 words / 2 minute read A short film, launched on International Holocaust Memorial Day on 27 January, shows a reunion and return of some of…
Photo: Soviet War Memorial, 1941-1945, Rivne, Ukraine, August 2011 (figures looking to the west) 800 words / 4 minute read On April 1, in Berlin, Hitler moved his headquarters from the Chancellery building to a bunker system behind the Chancellery, and deep below it. That same day, in Moscow, Stalin asked…
Photo: Jewish refugees from Muslim lands who came to Israel, 1947 to 1957, map from In Ishmael’s House 925 words / 4 ½ minute read A little knowledge never stopped anyone from making assumptions. The assumption becomes accepted, then entrenched. I was reminded of this in an article in The Times…
Photo: “Averell Harriman with Churchill at a naval dockyard establishment in Plymouth, 2 May 1941, shortly after a severe German air raid (hence the steel helmet worn by the dockyard worker).” 685 words – 3 ½ minute read “These two gentleman were apparently longing for Germany to commit some overt…
Photo: Entering Volhynia, Ukraine, August 2011 465 words / 2 minute read My mother was born in Poland. Outside of her home and her close circle of friends, she spoke Polish. She attended a Polish gymnasium. She could recite Pan Tadeusz, the classic epic national poem of Poland by Adam Mickiewicz. …
Photo: Churchill, A Life, Ukrainian edition, Churchill, A Life, Russian edition 335 words / 2 ½ minute read I am reminded of Yertle the Turtle, Dr Seuss’s classic tale of Yertle, a turtle in the swamp of Sala-ma-Sond who decides he wanted to be “ruler of all that I see”. Being somewhat…
Photo: Martin at the Arc de Triomphe, Paris, 5 March 2009. 350 words / 1 ½ minute read Martin and I held hands. Wherever we went. We were in a restaurant in Jerusalem, sitting across from each other, and he reached over to take my hands. As we were leaving…
Photo: Vladek and Anya Spiegelman as depicted by their son Art, from the cover of his book Maus 820 words / 4 minute read An American school district has banned the use of the graphic memoir Maus in schools because it shows nudity. Maus is the story of Vladek Spiegelman…
Photo: Martin at his desk, March 2009, from the film The Rescuers 800 words / 4 minute read From my first days as Churchill’s biographer in 1968 I began to receive letters from people who wanted to tap my imagined expertise. Sometimes I get as many as a dozen such letters…
Photo: The Jewish cemetery in Hordok, Volyn Oblast, Ukraine, photo taken in 2011. 470 words / 2 minute read Russia and Ukraine – there’s history there. And it probably goes back to the beginning, though the 20th Century has been particularly harsh on that relationship. In 2011 Martin and I went…