Abstract
This chapter focuses on the British response to the Holocaust, by drawing on Foreign Office documents from the time of the Eichmann trial. These documents contain internal discussions by Foreign Office officials of Britain’s wartime records, and therefore constitute a unique and important perspective on this matter. Contrary to the more polarized scholarship on this question, it will be argued here that these sources show that during the Second World War, Britain’s response to the persecution of the Jews was deeply ambivalent. In responding to various proposals to save European Jews, the British government was motivated not by humanitarianism, but considerations of self-interest, international reputation, and political realism. This was to an extent that the Foreign Office even chose to avoid defending this response when the proceedings of the Eichmann trial brought it to public attention.
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Notes
- 1.
This chapter is based upon research conducted for a Holocaust Studies MA dissertation, completed in September 2016. When students for the course enrolled the year before, it was expected that David Cesarani would teach the core courses, and we were all shocked and saddened by his untimely death in October that year. It is a measure of the breadth and quality of his work as a historian that it often formed the basis of our reading and research on the Holocaust and related fields.
- 2.
Tony Kushner, “Britain, the United States and the Holocaust: In Search of a Historiography,” in The Historiography of the Holocaust, ed. Dan Stone (London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2004), 259.
- 3.
Tony Kushner, The Holocaust and the Liberal Imagination: A Social and Cultural History (Oxford: Blackwell, 1994).
- 4.
William D. Rubinstein, The Myth of Rescue: Why the Democracies Could Not Have Saved More Jews from the Nazis (Routledge, 1997), x.
- 5.
Tony Kushner “The Meaning of Auschwitz: Anglo-American Responses to the Hungarian Jewish Tragedy,” in Genocide and Rescue: The Holocaust in Hungary 1944, ed. David Cesarani (Oxford: Berg, 1997).
- 6.
Yehuda Bauer “Conclusion: The Holocaust in Hungary: Was Rescue Possible?,” in Genocide and Rescue: The Holocaust in Hungary 1944, ed. David Cesarani (Oxford: Berg, 1997), 201.
- 7.
“The Eichmann Case as Seen by Ben-Gurion,” New York Times, 18 December 1960.
- 8.
Kushner, “Britain, the United States and the Holocaust,” 258.
- 9.
Ibid.
- 10.
This is not to make the claim—comprehensively disproved by Cesarani and others in the collection of essays, After the Holocaust: Challenging the Myth of Silence (2011)—that for decades after the war there was a ‘silence’ on the subject of the Nazi persecution of the Jews. As Cesarani points out, even during the war various individuals and organizations made prodigious efforts to record the fate of European Jewry, and an abundance of material was later published by survivors and early historians. Nevertheless, this work was not assimilated into the popular, if imperfect, understanding of the Holocaust that was to develop decades later. See David Cesarani and Eric J. Sundquist, eds., After the Holocaust: Challenging the Myth of Silence (London: Routledge, 2012).
- 11.
David Cesarani, “Great Britain,” in The World Reacts to the Holocaust, edited by David S. Wyman (London: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1996), 609–921.
- 12.
The British government’s response was briefly mentioned in the testimony of Pinchas Freudiger the previous day.
- 13.
The Trial of Adolf Eichmann: Record of Proceedings, Volume III (Jerusalem: State of Israel Ministry of Justice, 1993), 1040.
- 14.
Ibid., 1032.
- 15.
Ibid.
- 16.
Ibid., 1033.
- 17.
Ibid.
- 18.
Al Hamishmar (Mapam) article quoted in AJR Information, July 1961.
- 19.
As one of the few available general works on the Holocaust at the time, Poliakov’s history became one of the key resources for the prosecution’s research in preparation for the Eichmann trial. As Cesarani notes in his biography of Eichmann, this was to affect the nature of the trial, as ‘these books exemplified the early historiography of the genocide and tended to replicate the Nuremberg view of a top-down, smoothly evolving process of destruction. And they gave a misleading impression of where Eichmann fitted into the murderous hierarchy.’ David Cesarani, Eichmann: His Life and Crimes (London: Vintage, 2005), 246. See Leon Poliakov Harvest of Hate: The Nazi Program for the Destruction of the Jews of Europe (London: Bestseller Library, 1960).
- 20.
Leon Poliakov, “The Proceedings,” American Jewish Year Book.
- 21.
Daily Mail, 31 May 1961, The Times, 31 May 1961, The Guardian, 2 April 1961.
- 22.
Victor Gollancz, The Case of Adolf Eichmann (London: Gollancz, 1961).
- 23.
“Could it Have Been Done?,” The Times, 1 June 1961.
- 24.
The Guardian, 4 June 1961.
- 25.
The Sunday Telegraph, 4 June 1961.
- 26.
The Hague to Levant Dept., 31 December, 1960. FO 371/159104.
- 27.
639 Parl. Deb (3 May, 1961) c1373.
- 28.
G. F. Hiller to Lord Privy Seal., 18 April, 1961. FO 371/157812.
- 29.
FO Minute, July 14, 1960. FO 371/151272.
- 30.
Tel Aviv to Western Dept. 19 Dec. 1960. FO 371/151272.
- 31.
Smart to F.O.R.D., 17 March, 1961. FO 371/157812.
- 32.
Eden to Home, 2 June, 1961. FO 371/157813.
- 33.
“Could it Have been Done?,” The Times, 1 June, 1961.
- 34.
Edwards to Wilmhurst, 6 June 1961. FO 371/157813.
- 35.
G.F. Hiller minute, 7 June 1961. FO 371/157813.
- 36.
Memorandum. ‘Addition to Background note for Prime Minister.’ FO 371/157813.
- 37.
F.O. to Tel Aviv draft. FO 371/157813.
- 38.
F.O. to Tel Aviv. 28 June 1961. FO 371/157813.
- 39.
F.O. to Tel Aviv. 3 July 1961. FO 371/157813.
- 40.
F.O.R.D. Memorandum. 9 July. FO 371/157814.
- 41.
F.O.R.D. Memorandum. 10 July. FO 371/157814.
- 42.
Home to Eden. 29 August 1961. FO 371/157814.
- 43.
Macmillan to Henderson, 19 August 1961. FO 371/157813.
References
Archival Sources
The National Archives, UK.
FO 371/151272, Arrest of Adolf Eichmann on charges of war crimes.
FO 371/159104, Trial of Adolf Eichmann: preliminaries.
FO 371/157812, Trial of Adolf Eichmann.
FO 371/157813, Trial of Adolf Eichmann.
FO 371/157814, Trial of Adolf Eichmann.
FO 371/164372, Trial and execution of Adolf Eichmann.
Published Primary Sources
The Trial of Adolf Eichmann: Record of Proceedings, Volume III. Jerusalem: State of Israel Ministry of Justice, 1993.
Newspapers and Periodicals
American Jewish Year Book.
AJR Information.
Daily Mail.
The Guardian.
The New York Times.
The Sunday Telegraph.
The Times.
Secondary Sources
Bauer, Yehuda. “Conclusion: The Holocaust in Hungary: Was Rescue Possible?” In Genocide and Rescue: The Holocaust in Hungary 1944, edited by David Cesarani, 193–210. Oxford: Berg, 1997.
Cesarani, David. Eichmann: His Life and Crimes. London: Vintage, 2005.
Cesarani, David. “Great Britain.” In The World Reacts to the Holocaust, edited by David S. Wyman, 599–641. London: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1996.
Cesarani, David and Sundquist, Eric J, eds. After the Holocaust: Challenging the Myth of Silence. London; New York: Routledge, 2012.
Gollancz, Victor. The Case of Adolf Eichmann. London: Gollancz, 1961.
Kushner, Tony. The Holocaust and the Liberal Imagination: A Social and Cultural History. Oxford: Blackwell, 1994.
Kushner, Tony. “Britain, the United States and the Holocaust: In Search of a Historiography.” In The Historiography of the Holocaust, edited by Dan Stone, 253–275. London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2004.
Kushner, Tony. “The Meaning of Auschwitz: Anglo-American Responses to the Hungarian Jewish Tragedy.” In Genocide and Rescue: The Holocaust in Hungary 1944, edited by David Cesarani, 159–178. Oxford: Berg, 1997.
Poliakov, Leon. Harvest of hate: The Nazi Program for the Destruction of the Jews of Europe. London: Bestseller Library, 1960.
Rubinstein, William D. The Myth of Rescue: Why the Democracies Could Not Have Saved More Jews from the Nazis. London; New York: Routledge, 1997.
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Snee, J. (2019). Britain and the Eichmann Trial: An Unexamined Aspect in ‘Bystander’ Studies. In: Allwork, L., Pistol, R. (eds) The Jews, the Holocaust, and the Public. The Holocaust and its Contexts. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-28675-0_11
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