‘For some people, life was split in two on 22 June 1941, for some on 3 September 1939 and for others on 18 July 1936.’ So wrote Ilya Ehrenburg after the horrors of the Second World War, referring to the Nazi invasion of the Soviet Union in 1941 and to the declaration of war by Britain … Read more
STALIN’S APOSTLES: THE CAMBRIDGE FIVE AND THE MAKING OF THE SOVIET EMPIREBy Antonia SeniorPublished by PublicAffairs, 480 pages; $29 From the 1930s up until Stalin’s death in 1953, six million people were sent to the Soviet Gulag. A quarter did not survive. Another 16-17 million were transported to strict regime labor camps, where the death rate … Read more
■Review of WORLD ENEMY NO. 1NAZI GERMANY, SOVIET RUSSIA, AND THE FATE OF THE JEWSBy Jochen Hellbeck, Penguin Press, 560 pages; $22 Nazis called the Soviet Union “the most powerful Jewish organization in the world.” Hitler viewed the Jews as the guiding force behind Bolshevism, and the preponderance of Jews in its upper echelons – Trotsky, Zinoviev, … Read more
Forty years ago, as a member of a delegation to discuss the plight of Soviet Jewry, I met Margaret Thatcher prior to her 1987 visit to meet Soviet president Mikhail Gorbachev in Moscow – someone she said she “could do business with.” She was remarkably informed about the Soviet refuseniks – Ida Nudel, Vladimir Slepak, and Natan … Read more
Fifteen years ago, Don Heathfield and his wife, Ann Foley, took their two sons out to an Indian restaurant in Cambridge, Massachusetts, to celebrate their son Tim’s 20th birthday. They returned home and continued the celebrations – only to be disturbed by loud knocking at the door. The visitors, dressed in black, snapped handcuffs on … Read more
It has been said that the Weimar Republic of post-World War I Germany died twice. It was first murdered, and then committed suicide. This incisive comment refers to the moral, political, and economic decay of German society during the Great Depression – as well as to the politicians of various right-wing parties in Germany who … Read more
Goodbye to Russia: A Personal Reckoning from the Ruins of War By Sarah Rainsford, published by Bloomsbury 2024, pp.357 7 October 2023 has become a day of remembrance. On the anniversary on that day in a few weeks, some Russians will also remember Anna Politkovskaya – ‘a journalist who did not lie’. She was gunned … Read more
Orphans of the Holocaust: Ottó Komoly’s Diary, Budapest 1944 By Thomas Komoly Published by Austin Macauley (London 2024) pp.205 In the northern Negev of Israel, there is a moshav, Yad Natan which reclaims the Hebrew name of one of the unsung heroes of wartime Budapest, Ottó Komoly (Natan Ze’ev Kohn) whose diplomatic initiatives amongst the … Read more
Sky Warriors: British Airborne Forces in the Second World War Saul David, published by William Collins 2024, pp. 552 The Traitor of Arnhem: WWII’S Greatest Betrayal and the Moment that Changed History Forever Robert Verkaik, published by Headline Welbeck 2024 pp.400 Eighty years ago, thousands of Allied paratroopers jumped out of aircraft and gliders into … Read more
When Pinchas Rutenberg, one of the giants of the Zionist movement, died in 1942, his friend, the writer Moshe Smilansky described him as “a great engineer with the soul of a poet.” Nevertheless, Rutenberg is missing from the public consciousness, even among those who treasure Jewish history. He stipulated in his will that no funds should … Read more