Churchill and the Holocaust
In the January 2009 issue of Commentary, Hillel Halkin penned an interesting piece, “The Jewish State & Its Arabs,” which resulted in a flurry of reader comment on the Commentary website.
One reader had the impression that Churchill “overreacted” to the 1944 assassination of Lord Moyne by members of the Jewish Lehi (Stern Gang). Another wrote something I just could not let pass without rejoinder:
…had Churchill given an order to bomb Auschwitz, rather than simply recommend that it be bombed, it would have been bombed. He did not do so, presumably, because he was loath to quarrel with his general staff and did not wish to stand accused of risking British pilots and air crews in order to save Jewish lives that had no military value.…