a historian uncovered a pre-World War Two article by churchill.
in said article the British wartime leader disapproved of the treatment they experienced but did say of the Jews: "They have been partly responsible for the antagonism from which they suffer."

Cambridge University lecturer Richard Toye, reflecting on his find, said: "While most people would accept that Churchill was no anti-Semite, this sheds fascinating new light on his views about Jews which were very inconsistent."


"How The Jews Can Combat Persecution," originally written in 1937 when it failed to find a publisher, was finally picked up in 1940 for publication by the Sunday Depatch newspaper.

But when the paper's editor formally asked for permission to use the piece, Churchill's office wrote back and refused, saying publication was "inadvisable."

Within weeks, Churchill became prime minister, leading the fight against the Nazi regime which murdered six million Jews in the Holocaust.

"He may well have had second thoughts. When he looked at it again, he may well have thought it wasn't the most intelligent thing to say," Toye told Reuters in an interview.

He uncovered the article while researching for a book he was writing on "Lloyd George and Churchill: Rivals For Greatness."

In the piece, Churchill argued that "the wickedness of the persecutors" was not the only reason for the ill-treatment of Jews down the ages.

He called Jews sober, industrious and law-abiding and praised their readiness to fight and die for the country they lived in.

But he added: "Yet there are times when one feels instinctively that all this is only another manifestation of the difference, the separateness of the Jew."

Echoing modern-day debates about multi-culturalism, Churchill criticised what he called the "aloofness" of Jewish people from wider society and urged them to make the effort to integrate.

He criticized Jewish employers in the clothing trade for exploiting the readiness of Jewish refugees from Nazi Germany to work for lower wages. He also criticized the refugees themselves for their readiness to accept rock-bottom salaries.

Toye said "I do find it perverse to blame persecuted people for their own persecution. There is a lot of contorted logic there."

Speculating on why the article never saw the light of day, he concluded: "In terms of its potential impact on public opinion, it was one thing to say these things in 1937 but quite different to say them in 1940 when Britain was at war."

what are your thoughts?


source (http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/835660.html)

We knew that. He condoned nazism but not German expansion.

I'm waiting for verification that these are Churchill's own words.

But when The Observer contacted Sir Martin Gilbert, the eminent historian and Churchill biographer, the implication of anti-Semitism began to unravel. Gilbert, who also has a book out this summer, said the article was not written by Churchill at all, but rather his ghost writer, Adam Marshall Diston. He added that Churchill's instructions for the article were different in both tone and content from what Diston eventually wrote, and pointed out that Diston was a supporter of Oswald Mosley, the notorious fascist and anti-Semite. Churchill had stopped its publication in a newspaper.

Source (http://education.guardian.co.uk/higher/news/story/0,,2031314,00.html)

It's always the Jews fault.

Hating Jews was all the rage back in the day. Everyone did it, it was pretty much the norm. Just that a few select people (Hitler and friends) had to go overboard and ruin the fun for everyone, cause everyone had to distance themselves from Hitler now.

Sir Winston is always right. Always.

If you isolate yourself, you make yourself a target. Therefore, jews had some small part of the blame for the antagonism, but Hitler and Co. took it way, way, way too far.

If you isolate yourself, you make yourself a target. Therefore, jews had some small part of the blame for the antagonism, but Hitler and Co. took it way, way, way too far.

They were more isolated by christians than themselves...

Damn I see results of poll - horrible results...

Damn I see results of poll - horrible results...

I doubt that anyone is saying that the Jews deserved the holocaust to happen, but that they had some small influence in the eventual decision to try and wipe them out, which Hitler and Co. blew way out of proportion and mislead the rest of the public to convince them that all jews are evil, we must exterminate every last one.

I doubt this thread has long once the moderators wake up.

Is there anything unreasonable about what Churchill supposedly said?: that the Jews would not have faced the Holocaust had they fully integrated into society, that is, had they ceased being Jewish (assuming Europeans would have even let them integrate). It's not anti-Semitic or pro-Holocaust to say so. But I can see why he wouldn't want something like this to be published; some idiots would latch onto his words to support their hatered.

If you isolate yourself, you make yourself a target. Therefore, jews had some small part of the blame for the antagonism, but Hitler and Co. took it way, way, way too far.
They were consciously MADE a target, to allow the Nazis to take things where they wanted.

There was no way for Jews to be allowed to assimilate into western European societies, as Jews, before the French revolution. Literally. They were prohibited from engaging in the professions of Christians and of owning land.

As it happened, once they started assimilating into the liberal societies set up through the revolutions in the 19th c., antisemitism immediately morphed to get them from another angle. This time it wasn't religions that was the problem, but "biology" and "race".

So whatever the Jews did, they found themselves caught coming and going: Don't assimilate. You're an alien danger living in our midst! Assimilate: You're a fith column of aliens trying to take over, and you're so much scarier for actually not having fangs or talking crazy so you can't be easily identified.

Even Jews who converted to Christianity and stopped being Jews in the 19th c. found that this didn't really help. They were simply regarded as sneaky and underhand for it.

Still the German Jews were a particularily fine example of successful 19th c. assimilation, and they were living right alongside ordinary Germans, doing what ordinary Germans did, having ordinary German names even.

This didn't matter a jot to the antisemites. If anything it caused the Nazis problems because they had to invent policies that would MAKE the German Jews visible again; forcibly renaming them Abraham and Sarah, the Yellow Star, prescribed "Jewish culture" as defined by the Nazis.

The Nazis didn't start the killing until they had successfully de-assimilated their own Jewish population, turning them into aliens in the eyes of the rest of the Germans. But they had to put some real work into this process, ecause the German Jews were first and foremost Germans.

Is there anything unreasonable about what Churchill supposedly said?: that the Jews would not have faced the Holocaust had they fully integrated into society, that is, had they ceased being Jewish (assuming Europeans would have even let them integrate). It's not anti-Semitic or pro-Holocaust to say so. But I can see why he wouldn't want something like this to be published; some idiots would latch onto his words to support their hatered.
It's daft because the German Jews were fully integrated. Any level of "integration" above what they had achieved would have entailed total disintegration as a group. The one thing they still retained was their religion as a personal and domestic matter.

By the late 19th c. mostly they weren't hated so much for being Jews in the religious sense, as for being liberals and modernists. Since liberalism and modernisation was what had allowed them to integrate in society at all in the first place, asking them to somehow find a way of integrating without resource to these processes would again be just daft.

Is there anything unreasonable about what Churchill supposedly said?: that the Jews would not have faced the Holocaust had they fully integrated into society, that is, had they ceased being Jewish (assuming Europeans would have even let them integrate). It's not anti-Semitic or pro-Holocaust to say so. But I can see why he wouldn't want something like this to be published; some idiots would latch onto his words to support their hatered.

:lol:

"Being Jewish"?

Had the abandoned their religion, customs, and way of life, perhaps they might not have been the victim of extermination attempts, yes. If they stopped "being Jewish" I'm sure things would have been just dandy.

But I think we can all agree that people have the right to adhere to any given religion without expecting genocide in return.

What is wrong with you?

Warned for flaming. Pls be nice. Thanks. - KD

:lol:

"Being Jewish"?

Had the abandoned their religion, customs, and way of life, perhaps they might not have been the victim of extermination attempts, yes. If they stopped "being Jewish" I'm sure things would have been just dandy.

But I think we can all agree that people have the right to adhere to any given religion without expecting genocide in return.

What is wrong with you?

Did I ever say that the Jews should abandon their Jewishness? Do I need to spell this out for you? THE ONLY WAY THE JEWS COULD HAVE AVOIDED GENOCIDE FROM THE MASS MURDERING NAZI F***HEADS WOULD HAVE BEEN TO CEASE BEING JEWISH, AND THEY ARE 0% TO BLAME FOR WHAT HAPPENED TO THEM. No one should face violence for holding certain religious beliefs, believing in certain philosophies, or practicing his customs. But when people do assimilate religiously and ethnically, they are less likely to be singled out for persecution.

What is wrong with your reading comprehension?

Warned for language. Pls keep it polite. Thanks. - KD

Churchill was already an old man in the 1930s. Nuff said.

Is there anything unreasonable about what Churchill supposedly said?: that the Jews would not have faced the Holocaust had they fully integrated into society, that is, had they ceased being Jewish (assuming Europeans would have even let them integrate). It's not anti-Semitic or pro-Holocaust to say so. But I can see why he wouldn't want something like this to be published; some idiots would latch onto his words to support their hatered.

The problem is that it wasn't their choice to be isolated. They were forcibly isolated by the Christian governments of most European nations.

Did I ever say that the Jews should abandon their Jewishness? Do I need to spell this out for you? THE ONLY WAY THE JEWS COULD HAVE AVOIDED GENOCIDE FROM THE MASS MURDERING NAZI F***HEADS WOULD HAVE BEEN TO CEASE BEING JEWISH, AND THEY ARE 0% TO BLAME FOR WHAT HAPPENED TO THEM. No one should face violence for holding certain religious beliefs, believing in certain philosophies, or practicing his customs. But when people do assimilate religiously and ethnically, they are less likely to be singled out for persecution.

What is wrong with your reading comprehension?


It's not anti-Semitic or pro-Holocaust to say so. But I can see why he wouldn't want something like this to be published; some idiots would latch onto his words to support their hatered.

That there tipped me off.

Ever tried decaf?

The part that always got me was how so many Jews in Europe 1) knew that the Nazis were coming or 2) if the Nazis were already there, they knew at least about the systematic rounding up of Jews and their shipment somewhere else, even if they didn't directly know about the concentration camps themselves, and yet, they chose to stay where they were instead of fleeing. I'm not saying there weren't many Jews who fled, but there were many more who stayed right where they were, rather than helping themselves.

It's easy to see why the Jews were so easy to blame for Germany's problems back then, though. You've got a group of people who live amongst themselves in enclaves, speak their own language, practice a different religion, and, when the depression hit, didn't lose all their money. it's hard to find an easier scapegoat for you country's problems than that.

It is neither the Jews fault nor the Germans fault, it's the Nazis' and their sympathisers' fault.

I didn't pick "tis the germans fault", because it was either the Nazi's fault or the whole European mindsets fault, or rather human nature to find anyone outside your group suspicious and then enlarge it out of "proportion".
The Nazis just went ape **** with it...

Many people, it seems, don't understand the difference between a reason and an excuse. A reason why Jews have been persecuted is because of their "separateness" but is not an excuse for the persecution.

It is just like when a person gets mugged while walking through a bad neighborhood. The reason why he got mugged was that he (perhaps stupidly) decided to take the shortcut through the bad neighborhood but that does not excuse the mugging.

A good point, but what neighbourhood were the Jews supposed to walk in (metaphorically speaking)?

well i am sorry, i am going with the radioactive monkey

It is neither the Jews fault nor the Germans fault, it's the Nazis' and their sympathisers' fault.
QFT, because most of Europe was involved in the Holocaust at some level.

A good point, but what neighbourhood were the Jews supposed to walk in (metaphorically speaking)?

Well metaphorically, the Jews are supposed to walk through the bad neighborhood except that they are supposed to wear a reversed baseball cap instead of a yomaka(sp?).

Many people, it seems, don't understand the difference between a reason and an excuse. A reason why Jews have been persecuted is because of their "separateness" but is not an excuse for the persecution.

It is just like when a person gets mugged while walking through a bad neighborhood. The reason why he got mugged was that he (perhaps stupidly) decided to take the shortcut through the bad neighborhood but that does not excuse the mugging.

If someone gets mugged and loses their wallet cause they were in the wrong place at the wrong time... so be it, he should've been more careful.

If someone gets mugged and thrown in an oven with his family... I'm just saying I don't think your analogy holds up.

The part that always got me was how so many Jews in Europe 1) knew that the Nazis were coming or 2) if the Nazis were already there, they knew at least about the systematic rounding up of Jews and their shipment somewhere else, even if they didn't directly know about the concentration camps themselves, and yet, they chose to stay where they were instead of fleeing. I'm not saying there weren't many Jews who fled, but there were many more who stayed right where they were, rather than helping themselves.


Where could they go? America actually reduced the quota they would allow in during that time. You'd think they could have had some spare room for them in all those homes left over from putting the Japanese in concentration camps, or at least they could have set aside some reservations and provided them with free blankets.

Not to mention most of the Jews killed were from Poland and Eastern European countries, so you are saying that, assuming they can find somewhere to go, they are supposed to abandon their homeland based on their predictions of politics in a completely different country?

If someone gets mugged and loses their wallet cause they were in the wrong place at the wrong time... so be it, he should've been more careful.

If someone gets mugged and thrown in an oven with his family... I'm just saying I don't think your analogy holds up.
Well, his basic point is true, "reason" and "blame" are different, and even using the word "blame" for the Jews is ridiculous.

Maybe a better analogy would be that a man (living in a time or place without a banking system) who is known to be rich has his house broken into, and he and his family are murdered to steal his money. The reason he is murdered is because he is rich, but you don't blame him for being murdered because of that, nor excuse the murderers.

Anti-semitism in Europe only ends in 1948 when 1) the state of Israel is formed and many European Jews migrated there, 2) the full extent of Nazi crimes are known and 3) European countries realised the potential of Israel to keep newly independent Arab countries at bay. I'm not surprised by Churchill's article, because that sort of attitude is prevailing at the time (not to mention a ridiculous one too).

- Churchill cannot be commenting on the Holocaust in this article, as the death camps had not got up and running at the time he wrote it. He is referring to persecution of Jews which was by then well-known (and undeniably wrong and evil) but not extraordinary by historic standards. We must be careful in judging Churchill unfairly, since we view these comments through the lens of knowing what would happen next.
- The distinction between reason and responsibility is important, and Churchill draws it himself - by emphasising separateness some jewish groups make themselves easy targets, indeed this still happens today amongst a number of ethnic and religious groups. Unfortunately our society was not mature enough then, and is still not mature enough now, to allow differences to flourish without some people de-humanising those who are 'different'. Hence the valid point that lack of integration puts individuals and groups at risk - this is not right but it is true.

I don't think there is anything in the piece to suggest that Churchill was in favour of anti-semitism, let alone the awful treatment meted out to German jews, simply that he was pointing out an uncomfortable and regrettable reality.
BFR

a historian uncovered a pre-World War Two article by churchill.
in said article the British wartime leader disapproved of the treatment they experienced but did say of the Jews: "They have been partly responsible for the antagonism from which they suffer."

It's hard to believe Churchill was an anti-semite considering he once tried to get the RAF to bomb concentration camp supply routes in order to disrupt them, even though his own generals advised against it.

Assuming that Churchill did write that, you have to take into account that the Nazi policy on Jews wasn't as harsh as one imagines when you think of the Nazis. (I almost wrote Narzis...that'd be interesting!)

There was most certainly repression, but not the extrajudicial killings and deportations that would take place in the forties.

The two camps' survivors I know idolize Churchill. I will ask them how they feel about this. My guess: as long as Churchill went to bat for them at the end of the day, they won't care for a second that he had doubts at some point.

Moved to History.

It is complete BS to say the Jews provoked or were even guilty to start the Holocaust. The Jews in Germany were mostly assimilated and antisemitism was in most parts not very common. In Prussia for example you could be everything, if you were an atheist, a protestant, a Jew or a muslim, no problem. Only being catholic was problematical. Indeed in ww1 the Jews had from all German population groups the highest number of fatalities.
Austria OTOH was partly strong antisemitic. The mayor of Vienna was, when Hitler lived there, such a bastard. He was influenced there much. He also got to read a pamphlet made by the Czarist secret service to blame the Jews. There he became an antisemite.
Later he joined a small political party in Munich with some crazy idiots, who were anything else than "normal". I mean Göring was a junkie, Goebbels and Himmler also insane. This party was a splinter party we would only knew in a footnote to a monography about political parties in Germany in the 20s, if there wasn't the crise of 1929. Hitler's party was elected despite the antisemitism not because. By harvesting the fruits others made he could start dehumanizing the Jews. As long as he kept it "small" no one, including many Jews, thought he could do the things he did. They only thought, it was a hard time for the Jews, but soon it would be over. Also the Führer does not know what his idiotic followers do.
There were no hints about the Holocaust. Indeed that was not planned until 1941/42, when the idea to resettle the Jews in Madagascar or anywhere else seemed impossible. Even then Hitler tried to keep it secret from publicity knowing very well the uproar causing a publication. And that worked quite well. Also the British did only once use the Holocaust as propaganda in a broadcast of Christmas 1942. One of the Germans hearing that broadcast (which was strongly forbidden) was a great enemy of Hitler but even that he could not believe. He thought about another British propaganda lie like slaughtering Belgish babies in ww1. However he made one thing most did not as they feared the Nazis or did not believe that. He made researches. He needed one year to find a proof. I do not know, how many Germans knew about that, who were not parts of the KZs or SS, but it was not as easy as you might think.
However most Jews living here understood themselves as Germans and some indeed ever believed the Holocaust as misunderstanding. One judge for example who was imprisoned, was later used to judge over people being in the NSDAP. Most of them he gave a so called Persilschein at once!
Anyway, the Jews were not guilty. The Nazis were. Churchill might have been an antisemit either who could have bombed the KZs, but that is indeed no causing this crime. However he could have done more.

Adler

The two camps' survivors I know idolize Churchill. I will ask them how they feel about this. My guess: as long as Churchill went to bat for them at the end of the day, they won't care for a second that he had doubts at some point.

But surely Britain didn't go to war with Germany because of their Jewish policy. If Hitler had been exactly the same as he really was, but without the antisemitism, there would still have been war, because it was about his aggressive expansionism. Similarly, if Hitler had not been at all expansionist but had had the same antisemitic policies, there would have been no war. In other words, if Churchill was "batting" for the Jews, it was purely a happy historical accident.

Churchill believed in victors' justice anyway. I'm sure we've all seen those notorious passages where he says that the Native Americans, Indians, and Australian Aborigines all deserved the treatment they suffered at the hands of Europeans, because they were inferior races. It would be entirely consistent for him to think something similar about Jews.

it is clearly an accident, but if that accident is responsible for their survival, and that survival is responsible for their respect for the man, it will not make an ounce of a difference wheter he really wanted to help them or not. At the end of the day, he did. I imagine that it is a bit like the WMD debate in Iraq: in n years, assuming things somehow redress for the coalition of the willing and the country doesn't descend in chaos, it won't really have made a difference that they went in with the WMD justification: if people are better off without Saddam, the "victor's justice" will erase the fact that there are no WMD.

I'm still interested how these two particular people will deal with it.

Hating Jews was all the rage back in the day. Everyone did it, it was pretty much the norm. Just that a few select people (Hitler and friends) had to go overboard and ruin the fun for everyone, cause everyone had to distance themselves from Hitler now.

That's a very stupid thing to say. But, just in case its true, Ill try to give a reason for 'hating jews' (Not that I believe its true).

In the new testament, when jesus is under trial, the jewish leaders say that they, and all their people, will take the blame for killing jesus.

That wasn't when Jesus was on trial, it was when Pilate offered to release him instead of Barabbas. And it wasn't the Jewish leaders who said they would take the blame, it was the crowd. Of course such a ludicrously improbable scene almost certainly never really happened (it is only the extremely anti-semitic Matthew who has the crowd say that they and their children will take the blame).