Churchill and the Jews: A Lifelong Friendship by Martin Gilbert

Author:Martin Gilbert [Gilbert, Martin]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Publisher: Henry Holt and Co.
Published: 2008-09-01T22:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

‘THESE VILE CRIMES’

On 21 June 1941 the armed might of Germany turned against the Soviet Union. As the German Army advanced, SS killing squads began the systematic mass murder of Jews in every captured town and village. Top-secret German police radio messages about this, and about the mass murder of non-Jewish Soviet citizens, were intercepted by British Intelligence, and shown to Churchill. He had to be careful not to reveal his source, for fear of alerting the Germans to the fact that their most secret communications – including many of their daily military, naval and air force instructions – were being read by the code-breakers at Bletchley Park. Although he could not therefore mention Jews directly, Churchill, in his broadcast on 24 August when speaking about German atrocities in Russia, stated without prevarication that ‘whole districts are being exterminated.’ He added, ‘We are in the presence of a crime without a name.’1

That crime continued. On 27 August Churchill was shown a German police decrypt reporting the execution of 367 Jews in South Russia; on 1 September a report of the shooting of 1,246 Jews; on 6 September of the shooting of 3,000 Jews; on 11 September, more than five thousand Jews near Kamenets-Podolsk. Churchill was informed that day by Bletchley Park: ‘The fact that the Police are killing all Jews that fall into their hands should by now be sufficiently well appreciated. It is not therefore proposed to continue reporting these butcheries specially, unless so requested.’2 In fact, the murder later that month of more than 33,000 Jews at Babi Yar near Kiev was not known at Bletchley Park, as the German police units in Russia had been warned from Berlin not to compromise their ciphers. But within two months of Churchill’s broadcast, sufficient details of the mass killing of Jews had become known through sources other than Germany’s own top-secret radio signals. Churchill took advantage of this on 14 November, when he sent a personal and signed message to the Jewish Chronicle, which the weekly newspaper printed in full.

‘None has suffered more cruelly than the Jew,’ Churchill wrote, ‘the unspeakable evils wrought on the bodies and spirits of men by Hitler and his vile regime. The Jew bore the brunt of the Nazi’s first onslaught upon the citadels of freedom and human dignity. He has borne and continues to bear a burden that might have seemed to be beyond endurance. He has not allowed it to break his spirit; he has never lost the will to resist. Assuredly in the day of victory the Jew’s sufferings and his part in the struggle will not be forgotten. Once again, at the appointed time, he will see vindicated those principles of righteousness which it was the glory of his fathers to proclaim to the world.’3

* * *

On 7 December 1941 the Japanese attacked both United States and British possessions in the Far East and the Pacific Ocean. Four days later, as the United States faced formidable setbacks in the Pacific,

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.