Tag: Holocaust

Sir Martin Gilbert on Churchill and the Holocaust

Sir Martin Gilbert on Churchill and the Holocaust

Why so little of the Holocaust in Churchill's war memoirs? There were many reasons. Intelligence restrictions were still in place, war crimes trials were occurring. Churchill had an understandable reluctance to criticize American officials who had blocked his order to bomb the railway lines to Auschwitz. Churchill was never never one to open a quarrel with allies over the past. Also, as Lady Gilbert pointed out that it wasn't actually known as the Holocaust for years later.

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The Polish and the Holocaust: What Churchill Knew

The Polish and the Holocaust: What Churchill Knew

Polish firing squad of one

Mr. Paul Bonow­icz staged a one-man protest against Churchill in South Ruis­lip, Mid­dle­sex. He denounced “the lies in British books about Win­ston Churchill. I am Pol­ish and we know he betrayed Pol­ish peo­ple.” He added: Churchill “knew about the Holo­caust. He knew Jew­ish peo­ple were dying, but he didn’t help. After the war there was a deal between Churchill and Stal­in, and the price was Poland. Part of my coun­try went to the Sovi­ets. It was Churchill who decid­ed which part, not the Poles.” —Uxbridge Gazette.

Churchill did know about the Holo­caust, and alone among allied lead­ers, he tried to do some­thing about it.

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Witold Pilecki: A Brave Pole Who Did His Best for Liberty

Witold Pilecki: A Brave Pole Who Did His Best for Liberty

Excerpt­ed from Richard Cohen and Richard Lang­worth: “Witold Pilec­ki: A Deserv­ing Addi­tion to “The Right­eous Among the Nations,” for the Hills­dale Col­lege Churchill Project. Mr. Cohen is a real estate lawyer based in Lon­don and head of the Essex Branch of the Jew­ish His­tor­i­cal Soci­ety of Eng­land. For the full text and illus­tra­tions please click here.

War aim or by-product?

Jack Fair­weath­er, The Vol­un­teer: One Man, an Under­ground Army, and the Secret Mis­sion to Destroy Auschwitz. (The sto­ry of Witold Pilec­ki.) New York: Harper­Collins, 2019, $28.99, Ama­zon $20.49, Kin­dle $13.99.

By 1 August 1946 the world knew the full truth of the Holo­caust.…

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Bombing Auschwitz: “Get everything out of the air force you can.” -WSC

Bombing Auschwitz: “Get everything out of the air force you can.” -WSC

Bomb­ing Auschwitz” is Chap­ter 31 in my book, Win­ston Churchill, Myth and Real­i­ty: What he Actu­al­ly Did and Said. Avail­able in Kin­dle or paper­back from Ama­zon.

The Auschwitz myth

“War is main­ly a cat­a­logue of blun­ders,” Churchill wrote. [1] A war leader is “the slave of unfore­see­able and uncon­trol­lable events. Anti­quat­ed War Offices, weak, incom­pe­tent or arro­gant Com­man­ders, untrust­wor­thy allies, hos­tile neu­trals, malig­nant For­tune, ugly sur­pris­es, awful miscalculations—all take their seat at the Coun­cil Board….” [2]

Churchill’s most fla­grant inac­tion, accord­ing to many crit­ics, was fail­ing to bomb Auschwitz, the noto­ri­ous Nazi death camp, or the rail lines lead­ing to it.…

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Winston Churchill: Myth and Reality

Winston Churchill: Myth and Reality

Per the pre­vi­ous post, I append for read­er com­ment the con­tents of my next book, Win­ston Churchill, Myth and Real­i­ty: What Churchill Stood For.

I have writ­ten on most of these mat­ters in the past; the book recasts it afresh. I also acknowl­edge and cross-ref­er­ence the work of experts who know far more than I, par­tic­u­lar­ly in the fields of geneal­o­gy and med­i­cine. I would be glad to hear your thoughts; please use the “con­tact” page.

The his­to­ri­an David Stafford wrote: “Myth only devel­ops and takes hold when the time is right, and the cli­mate has long been ripe for the emer­gence of myths about a wartime hero who stood firm against a total­i­tar­i­an foe and smote an evil empire.”…

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