Photo: The 5 atlases donated and scooped up Five of Sir Martin’s atlases were donated for auction to ArtsPlace, a vibrant visual and musical venue in Canmore, Alberta. Going well over the suggested starting bid, the group added to the success of the annual auction and will help to ensure…
Photo: The Partition Plan decided by the July 1937 Peel Commission for two separate states, one Jewish, one Arab. The Jews reluctantly accepted the plan; the Arabs rejected it. 510 words / 2 ½ minute read The October 7th savage attack on Israel by Hamas that caused the brutal murder…
Photo: Martin “in the field” describing the events that happened there. 285 words / 2 minute read It was November, damp, foggy, grey seeping in to every corner. I followed Martin along a straight path cut between green fields which stretched off into the fog. No idea where we are…
Photo: Britain and the Jewish National Home: Pledges and Border Changes, 1917-1923, from Sir Martin’s Atlas of the Arab-Israel Conflict 510 words / 2 ½ minute read Negotiations with the Arab leaders beyond Palestine were being carried out by T. E. Lawrence, who informed Churchill on 17 January that he…
Photo: Martin “in the field” describing the events that happened there. 285 words / 2 minute read It was November, damp, foggy, grey seeping in to every corner. I followed Martin along a straight path cut between green fields which stretched off into the fog. No idea where we are…
Photo: Page 1 of the previous, 4th edition index of places which I used as a base – yellow highlights mean the map listing is correct; orange highlights mean I ran out of yellow highlight ink; red checks are against the publisher’s proof copy, and the barely legible notes are…
500 words / 2 ½ minute read Photo: With Nechama Tec, Museum of Jewish Heritage, New York, October 2005. In her 1982 memoir, Dry Tears, the Story of a Lost Childhood, Nechama Tec describes antisemitism’s lasting appeal and how unconnected hatreds can be toward the hated. She was a child…
Photo: Lord and Lady Williams, at Martin’s memorial, November 2015 425 words / 2 minute read It seems that these pages these days have focussed on people we have recently lost. I have been fortunate to have met, for the most part through Martin, individuals who have made a difference…
Photo: The 1921 travels of Dr Issac Ochberg to collect 181 Jewish orphan children from an area that is now northwest Ukraine and southern Belarus, and bring them to safety in South Africa. One of the new maps added to the Jewish History Atlas. 700 words / 3 ½ minute…
Photo: Ann Shore, Founder and President, Hidden Child Foundation 600 words / 3 minute read In 1991, an ad ran in New York newspapers for an upcoming event for “Hidden Children”. In the years I was growing up, those considered “Holocaust survivors” were the ones who had survived Auschwitz. But then…
Photo: Left to right, Helen Singer, Inge Hamilton, Debbie Singer, photo published in the Daily Mail, 4 July 2023 525 words / 3 minute read – 27 minute audio recording In April I wrote about the researching skills of Jane Downs and Joanna Lonsdale from BBC Radio Newcastle whose curiosity was…
Photo: Sir Ben Helfgott at the 1956 Melbourne Olympics officially representing Britain, unofficially representing the Jewish people who had experienced its near-total European destruction the decade before. 650 words / 3 minute read Sir Ben Helfgott didn’t just lift weights, he moved mountains. He represented Great Britain in the 1956 and…
Photo: Winston Churchill (left) with his literary agent, Hungarian-born Jew, Emery Reves, Le Bourget airport, Paris, 1938. 300 words/ 1 ½ minute read From an email sent to Randolph Churchill from Gerry Grunsfeld, 5 June 2023, which Randolph very kindly sent on to me: Mr Churchill. I have just finished reading…
Photo: The Iron Dome intercepting rockets from Gaza 600 words / 3 minute read As I write this I am in Jerusalem. The day this text came in from my daughter, I had just begun the intensive work of indexing the new edition of Martin’s Atlas of Jewish History. I am…
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…
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…
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…
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. …
Photo: Chaim Topol as Tevye the Dairyman, in Fiddler on the Roof, 1971 500 words / 2 ½ minute read As he used to explain, after his wife Myra died, the warm and generous Greville Janner (Lord Janner of Braunstone) would entertain his guests in the House of Lords dining room. …
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…