Britain’s mistreatment of holocaust survivors inspires WW2 book

It’s perhaps a less well known episode of the Second World War – the internment of Jews into British camps in Cyprus. Neil McKay speaks to one man about how his own involvement inspired him to write his first work of fiction.

As a 20-year-old Army sergeant he watched speechless as thousands of skeletal Jewish figures were frogmarched off ships at the point of guns and bayonets and led to internment camps – by British soldiers.

The year was 1946 and news of Nazi atrocities in camps such as Auschwitz and Belsen had not reached public consciousness. David, from Murton, County Durham, saw at first hand the effect on the survivors from those, and other concentration camps. And he unwittingly found himself taking part in an episode which still shames Britain.

Internment camps were set up by Britain on the Mediterranean island of Cyprus for Jewish immigrants who attempted to travel to Palestine in violation of immigration quotas set for Jews.

Tens of thousands of Jewish Holocaust survivors escaping to flee Europe for Palestine on transport ships were intercepted on the high seas by the Royal Navy and escorted to Cyprus.

From 1946 until the establishment of the State of Israel in 1948, the British confined 50,000 Jewish refugees on the island. Sgt Hughes was stationed with the Royal Army Ordnance Corps on Cyprus and found himself working in the stores supplying one of the internment camps near Famagusta. But the sight of the Holocaust survivors being transferred to British camps still haunts him more than 60 years later.

“It is the sight of the hatred in the eyes of those survivors directed at us which I will never forget. I had never witnessed such hatred either before or since,” he said.

“None of us knew at that time of the horrors the survivors from the Nazi concentration camps had experienced and witnessed, but here we were putting them in another internment camp at the point of the gun and bayonet, with searchlights and barbed wire.”

David, now 84 and living in Houghton- le-Spring is a respected author and charity fundraiser.

Journal Live

BNP to allow non whites, well here’s a preview.

INTERNET RACISM PAIR LOSE APPEAL

Simon Sheppard, 51, was sentenced to four years and 10 months, and Stephen Whittle, 42, to two years and four months at Leeds Crown Court in July.
However, the Court of Appeal has reduced Sheppard's sentence by one year and Whittle's jail term by six months.
Sheppard, from Selby, North Yorks, and Whittle, of Preston, Lancs, controlled US websites featuring racist material.

During their first trial in 2008, they skipped bail and fled to California, where they sought asylum claiming they were being persecuted for their right-wing views, but were deported.

The police investigation began after a complaint about a leaflet called "Tales of the Holohoax", which was pushed through the door of a Blackpool synagogue and traced back to a post office box in Hull registered to Sheppard.
'Abusive and insulting'
Published material found later included images of murdered Jews alongside cartoons and articles ridiculing ethnic groups.
The pair were charged under the Public Order Act with publishing racially inflammatory material, distributing racially inflammatory material and possessing racially inflammatory material with a view to distribution.
Sheppard, of Brook Street, Selby, was found guilty of 16 offences and Whittle, of Avenham Lane, Preston, was found guilty of five.
Sentencing them, Judge Rodney Grant said he had rarely seen material which was so abusive and insulting.

Sheppard's counsel Adrian Davies told the Appeal Court the sites were "entirely lawful" in the US.
He said that there was no evidence that anyone in England and Wales - except for the police officer in the case - had ever seen any of them.

Excessive sentences
Giving the Court of Appeal ruling, Lord Justice Scott Baker said the material had been available to the public despite the fact that the evidence went no further than establishing that one police officer downloaded it.
He said the trial judge had been right to hold that he had jurisdiction to try the pair because much of the activities constituting the crime took place in England.
However, although the Appeal Court judges agreed that "this was truly pernicious material", the sentences handed down had been excessive.

From hope not hate
Sheppard's website, to which Whittle contributed, featured grotesque images of murdered Jews alongside cartoons and posters ridiculing ethnic groups. Sheppard, who had been expelled from the British National Party, was even caught delivering racist pamphlets door to door in North Yorkshire. Shepherd and Whittle are believed to be the first UK citizens to be convicted of publishing racist material online.

Hope Not Hate Original Story

BBC

WILDERS' PARTY IS 'NEW RADICAL RIGHT' (Netherlands)

Geert Wilders' political movement PVV is not an extreme right wing party but contains some radical right wing elements, according to a report into radicalisation in the Netherlands by Tilburg University research group IVA. PVV statements on 'islamisation' and non-western immigrants appear to be discriminatory and the party organisation is authoritarian rather than democratic, the researchers say. The researchers, who were looking into polarisation and radicalism across the Netherlands, describe the PVV as 'new radical right', a party with a national democratic ideology but without extreme right wing roots. In particular, the party's pro-Israel stance shows it is not neo Nazi, the report states. Nevertheless, the PVV has a preference for 'the familiar' and turns against things which are 'foreign' and its political opponents, the report said. This, coupled with an authoritarian tendency show it leans towards a national democratic ideology. And on the internet, for example, the party is a magnet for extreme views, the researchers point out.

Scandalous

Wilders told news agency ANP the report is 'scandalous' - in particular the link between defending the national interest and the radical right. And he attacked the decision to publish it now, just as he is on trial for discrimination and inciting hatred. An earlier version of the report, leaked to the Volkskrant in November, said Wilders' party is an extreme right wing grouping and a threat to social cohesion and democracy. The paper claimed at the time the researchers were under pressure to water down the conclusions because of their political sensitivity. Home affairs minister Guus ter Horst, who commissioned the research, has denied exerting any influence on the report.

IS ANTI-FASCISM A CRIME? (Austria)

This is a user email post to the I CARE website which we found so interesting we decided to repost it here in its entirety

Police and City of Vienna criminalize protest against the extreme-right WKR-Ball (dancing event of the 'Wiener Korporationsring'/Vienna umbrella organization of German-nationalist student's organizations)! Above all, the Vienna police banned an anti-fascist demonstration on the day of the 65th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz concentration camp. On January 29th the ball of the 'Wiener Korporationsring' (WKR) is taking place in the Viennese 'Hofburg', the former imperial palace. Like in the past years numerous proponents of the extreme right will rendezvous there ­ from german-nationalists to virulent anti-Semites, no one wants to miss that chance for right-wing networking. While these activities are not hindered by the authorities in any way, the anti-fascist counter- demonstration was now banned.

At the WKR-ball the 'Who is Who' of the European extreme-right is shaking hands, which is easily revealed by a look on the list of participants: former and current guests at the ball include(d): Jean-Marie Le Pen from the French Front National, the fascist Enrique Ravello, anti-Semites like Alexander Dugin and representatives of the German extreme-right DVU, as well as spokespersons of the Austrian extreme-right parties, among them Martin Graf, third president of the National Council with a tendency to anti-semitic tirades, Barbara Rosenkranz, exponent of a home-stove-'mother's cross' policy and fighter against the 'gender-delusion' and John Gudenus, who has already been sentenced to one year on parole because of Holocaust-denial. It seems to go without saying that there are protests against this gathering. In the last years sizeable demonstrations have already been taking place ­ typically for Austria these have been accompanied by a repressively huge contingent of police and a ban from the premises of the WKR-gathering. But even that seems to be too much disturbance now. The demonstration, which this year had been planned by the alliance

nowkr, queer-feminists, the criticalmass, feminist womenlesbian groups, a number of students' representatives and many other groups, was now completely banned. The reason given by the police is telling: because of the group of people expected to attend the demonstration 'public security' would be endangered ­ an argument, which equals a total negation of the right to demonstrate.

In that the authorities in scandalous manner follow the 'arguments' from German-nationalist students' associations, the FPí ('Freedom Party') and neo-Nazis, who for years have been lobbying for a complete ban of anti-fascist demonstrations or would rather like to take self-administered justice. A notorious neo-Nazi website stated in an entry called 'Tips for House and Home ­ This Time Weapons' that it would be on time to 'question the state's monopoly on violence', just to dedicate their next entry to agitate against 'Entartete' - a nazi-term meaning 'degenerated', in this context denouncing queer-feminists ­ and the 'sub-human filth'. Above all it is the city of Vienna, which ­ personified by its mayor Michael Haupl ­ likes to present itself as an anti-fascist stronghold against the rise of the extreme right, that now together with the police serves in fulfilling right-wing extremists' dreams. This fact tells more about the state of this country than any number of leaflets could. It is only fitting that the ban was announced right on the Holocaust Memorial Day when official representatives of the republic show themselves to be deeply moved. While the importance of anti-fascist engagement is stressed in official settings, actual antifascist activism is banned and neo-Nazis, right wing extremists and anti-Semites are offered room at the 'Hofburg', which after all is also the official residence of the Austrian president.

Even if these developments show their face more clearly in Austria than in other countries, they do follow a disastrous international trend. Anti-fascism is criminalized all over Europe: Only recently the demonstration against the largest neo-Nazi march in Europe has been criminalized in Germany, posters were confiscated, websites blocked and more repression against the organizers of the anti-fascist demonstration followed. All these developments have to be countered resolutely. We won't let

anti-fascism be banned! Therefore: Everyone to the demonstration against the extreme-right WKR-ball!

Origianly posted by Rosa Antifa Wien