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:  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: 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: 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…

Photo:  Taken from a video by Joanne Orezi, from inside the bus, of one of the attackers. 850 words / 4 minute read Another attack on a synagogue in the States during Saturday Shabbat morning services.  An attack on a busload of Jews in central London.  Radical imams preaching hate, not…

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…

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: 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: 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: 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…