The royals, the Jews, the Holocaust

Dave, thank you for daring to say out loud what many of us had been thinking.
Your examples of “the lies Britain tells itself about the Holocaust” reminded me of my parents’ conviction that Britain would have resisted Nazi antisemitism if Hitler had succeeded in invading (they were children during the war, so were brought up to think this). The experience of the Channel Islands – the only “British” territory that was occupied – shows that British officials and “respectable” society were just as much prone to collaboration with the Nazis as anywhere else.
Indeed, the current UK government’s obsession with criminalising and deporting refugees relies on just the same narrow, mean-spirited prejudice that was in evidence on Jersey in the 1940s. The difference is that the vicious racism is no longer being imposed by an occupying power, it’s the policy of “our own” government.

Thank you, David, for this important article. I felt oppressed, coerced and outraged at the hypocrisy of Britain. As I grew up I was constantly made aware of the scorn and hatred towards the Soviet Union, accused of brainwashing and oppressing its people. But of course, the British people were as brainwashed as the Soviets were but they are brainwashed to believe they are not brainwashed! As a child in the 1950s, I was brainwashed daily at primary school. I knew this because my mother’s view(s) of the World was almost the opposite of those of the school. Gradually over the years, schools/Education Departments have made room for different religious views, and sexual preferences, and the UK broadcasts proudly about its democracy and ‘freedom’. Even I, with my alternative views, was shocked and outraged by the enforcement of the entire nation to the obeisance of royalty and its symbol, the queen. True, nobody would have been hanged for expressing an alternative view, but the enforcement meant that our Health Service had to stop in its tracks so for instance, Cancer patients in the fast pipeline had to wait and the queue inevitably build-up unnecessarily. That was wicked! My anger has no real outlet. And I fear too, that this is the slippery path to worse to come.