Remember

Wandering through social media, I occasionally find a photograph which affects me deeply. Great photographs are not always just in the purview of trained photographers. Sometimes the moment, the subject and the circumstances are of such emotional importance they transcend the skills or otherwise of the photographer. Such was this photo taken by Major Clarence Benjamin, which shows a train of Jewish prisoners after it was intercepted by Allied forces. In this moment the realisation of their liberation on the captive Jewish prisoners’ faces is a mixture of confusion, joy, relief and exhaustion. As they run up the embankment towards Major Benjamin and his troops a moment in history is captured on film forever. And that is just about as long as we should remember: forever.

The industrial-scale slaughter of Jewish people by the Nazis was one of the nadirs of humanity. Yes, there have been other slaughters of a similar scale, such Pol Pot’s slaughter of three million people between 1975 and 1979, the million Tutsis killed by Hutu soldiers in Rwanda in 1994, the half a million killed in Darfur in 2003, a genocide which continues to this day. Then there is the Belgian genocide in the Congo, for which there are various estimates of between three and eight million dead up to 1924. All provide reminders of the inhumanity of humanity. Let’s not forget any of them.

Let’s also not forget that Jews have been blamed for everything since the year dot. There’s a word for it: “Pogrom”. It’s a Russian verb, which literally means “to wreak havoc”, that has become a noun to describe the officially mandated slaughter of Jews.

The term came into common use around 1881, after anti-Semitic violence erupted following the assassination of Czar Alexander II, but the reality of Jews being victimised goes back much further. In 1189 and 1190, in England, Jews were subjected to murder and violence on an unprecedented scale. They were victims of Christian hostility, which resulted from their special status granted to them by King Henry I, which allowed them to travel freely without the burden of tolls or customs, the right to be tried by their peers in a court of law and to swear on the Torah. This was largely because they were brought into England to serve the Crown as tax collectors by William the Conqueror.

The religious fervour of the Crusades probably ramped up anti-alien hostility and the Jews were an easy target for English violence. Subsequently, excuses were sought, and the first blood-libel cases were reported in the 12th century.

During the reign of Henry II, some English Jews had prospered and became prominent citizens, much to the ire of the aristocracy, who saw their inherited privileges being supplanted by Jewish mercantile skills and the aristo’s sense of entitlement peaked when Richard I ascended to the throne. His coronation at Westminster Abbey was seen by the aristocracy as a solely Christian affair, so when many prominent Jewish citizens arrived to pay homage to the new king, they were thrown out of the subsequent banquet and some actually flogged. A rumour spread that Richard had ordered the English to kill the Jews and riots erupted. The central London area of Old Jewry was attacked by gangs of Christians, houses were burnt down and many Jews killed. Richard was outraged by the attacks, but only succeeded in punishing a few of the rioters, because of their large numbers. His outrage was not shared by the English population at large and when he left for the Third Crusade anti-Jewish riots broke out in King’s Lynn, Colchester, Thetford, Ospringe and Lincoln. Houses were ransacked and in Lincoln, the city’s Jews were only saved from death by hiding in Lincoln Castle.

This anti-Jewish fervour built up a head of steam and attacks took place in Stamford and Bury St Edmunds in March 1190 when large numbers of Jews were killed, but the bloodiest of the pogroms were yet to come.

On the 16th and 17th of March, in York, a pogrom began which would surpass all the others. The initial causes were mainly Christian anti-Semitic sentiments fuelled by religious fervour caused by the Crusades. This was cynically exploited by a group of local noblemen: Richard Malebisse, William Percy, Marmaduke Darell and Philip de Fauconberg. They saw the pogrom as an opportunity to rid themselves of the large debts they had incurred to Jewish financiers.

The York pogrom began when rioters burned down the house of Benedict of York, a Jewish financier – he along with his wife and children died in the fire. Following the lead of the Lincoln Jews, the York Jewish community sought refuge in the town’s castle. The castle was surrounded by the mob and demanded the Jews inside convert to Christianity. Rabbi Yom Tov, the religious leader of the community, decreed that they should kill themselves rather than accede to the Christians’ demands. The political leader of the community, Josce, began the process by killing his wife and children. Then the father of every family followed suit by killing their wives and children before killing themselves. Josce was killed by Rabbi Tov, who then committed suicide. Those who did not follow Rabbi Tov’s orders tried to surrender to the Christians the following morning, but they were promptly massacred. In all, around one hundred and fifty Jews were killed and York’s Jewish community eradicated.

Since the twelfth century, Jewish communities around the world have suffered at the hands of irate religious and political groups seeking scapegoats. Anti-Semitism rears its ugly head every few years in one form or another. The Jews of Russia were the victims of three large-scale waves of pogroms, each of which intensified the level of savagery visited upon Jewish communities. These occurred between the years 1881 and 1884, 1903 and 1906, and 1917 and 1921. There were outbreaks in Poland after it regained independence in 1918, and in Romania from 1921.

The Jews have been the whipping boys of Europe for nine hundred years. Yet even now, we see marches in the USA and the UK with standard-bearers proudly displaying Nazi symbols. The British Labour Party has been riven by anti-Semitic attacks disguised as a pro-Palestinian sentiment. There are attacks on Jews in Hungary. There have been violent incidents against Jews in places as far apart as Mumbai, Toulouse, Brussels, Paris, Pittsburgh and Copenhagen. Swastikas painted on graves, verbal abuse and violence are commonplace. In 2018, France reported a 74 per cent spike over the previous year in anti-Semitic incidents, with more than 500 incidents, including the murder of a Holocaust survivor in her own home.

It is never-ending. But it must, or we will end up mopping Jewish blood off the streets of London. Again. Don’t think it can’t happen. It can, and that only goes to one place – trains carrying Jews to concentration camps to be gassed. Look at the picture and find your humanity. It’s there somewhere.