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…
Photo: The visa signed by the Ecuadorean diplomat Ernesto Fuchs in Prague on 8 February 1939 for Mr Tibor Friedmann. Photo courtesy of Alberto Dorfzaun. 950 words/5 minute read Some names are known; some lie buried in forgotten archives. Many, knowing they were operating against their government’s orders destroyed evidence…
Photo: Egyptian Prime Minister Anwar Sadat, centre, Israeli Foreign Minister Moshe Dayan to his right, Prime Minister Menachem Begin, standing, Jerusalem, 22 November 1977 925 words / 5 minute read In the immediate aftermath of the Six Day War, a debate began inside Israel that was to continue: how to rule,…
Photo: Martin “on location” 575 words / 3 minute read Martin’s first geographic adventure was when he was only three years old, crossing the ocean, without his parents, evacuated to Canada during the Second World War. It must have sparked a wanderlust in him because he loved discovering new places…
275 words – 1 minute read Photo: A Jewish official in the Ottoman Empire, before 1914, photo from Israel Museum Mirna Abdulaal, writing in Egyptian Streets about “Four Myths About Israel and Palestine” quotes Martin in debunking the myth that Muslims and Jews never got along and lived in peace…
Photo: Prince Philip planting a tree at Yad Vashem, Israel’s Holocaust Memorial, in 1994 to honour his mother Princess Alice of Greece who saved a Jewish family. 560 words/3 minute read In his talks about “Righteous” individuals who helped their fellow human beings, Martin has spoken about Prince Philip, the…
Photo: Czeslaw Mordowicz & Arnost Rosin 815 words/4 minute read Following on from the successful escape from Auschwitz of Rudolf Vrba and Alfred Wetzler in April 1944 … On May 27 a further escape took place from Auschwitz itself. The escapees were a young Polish Jew, Czeslaw Morodowicz, and…
Photo: 23 June 1967. The scene outside the Al Aksa mosque, after the first Friday prayer meeting since 1948 at which Arabs from the Israeli side of the Armistice line could be present. The Jordanians had for 19 years refused to allow Israeli Arabs, as well as Israeli Jews, entry…
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…