[1] On Mar 8, 1942, after visiting Eton College, Eden privately wrote: 'Watched the boys troop in. We were not impressed. Dirty and sloppy, with an ever increasing percentage of Jews, was our conclusion!' (Birmingham university, Avon papers, file 20/3/8.) See too his irritation with Henry Morgenthau and 'this German Jew's bitter hatred of his own land' (Ibid., Sep 15, 1944; file 20.1.22). 'These ex-Germans,' he wrote on an official minute on Nov 19, 1944, 'seem to wish to wash away their ancestry in a bath of hate' (PRO file FO.371/391228).

Winston Churchill on the Jews

HERE WERE, as shewn in our first volume, many honourable English men and women who supported the Zionists in their historic cause. What was remarkable was the zeal with which they continued to pursue this narrow aim at a time when the world as a whole was girding itself for war against the Axis powers. Until the spring of 1941 the alternatives which the Zionists had offered to Churchill had been more stick than carrot -- the threat that they could foment further unrest throughout the Middle East. In September 1941 however they began to sing a more alluring melody, promising to use their influence in Washington to drag the United States into the war. 'We did it before,' they said to Churchill, referring to the World War. 'We can do it again.'

   The British prime minister, to their enduring anger, continued however to dandle them along. He had no real alternative; he was beholden to public opinion, and nobody in authority could overlook the rising anti-Jewish sentiment in wartime England. There were few officers of his government who did not display in private some strains of this fashionable trait. The stereotype of the lazy, artful, racketeering Jew is to be found in many of their confidential writings, particularly those of Beaverbrook, Halifax, and Eden. [1]

[2] Bruce Lockhart, Jun 1943 and May 13, 1944 (Hoover Library, Sir R Bruce Lockhart papers). On Aug 15, 1944 the latter noted: 'The restaurant … was crowded with a revolting looking Jew with an Old Etonian tie and a still more revolting family.' And on Jan 4, 1946: 'Here the reason [for increasing anti-Semitism in Britain] is the ability of the Jewish émigré to enrich himsel even in exile.' And Aug 20, 1947: 'Hamish [Erskine] said … people were saying "Hitler was right" about our army of foreign Jews.'

[3] The diaries of Oliver Harvey, Jul 14, and Aug 7, 1941

[4] Cecil King diary, Sep 23, 1941.

   In part it was a cross-fertilisation from the Nazis' pernicious propaganda, in part it was the independent perception of the native English, who had seen the penniless refugees arrive, with their cunning eastern European ways, and rise rapidly to affluence. 'The growth of antisemitism in Britain is partly … the result of Jewish refugees,' Robert Bruce-Lockhart, the shrewd director of Britain's psychological warfare apparatus, would note, commenting on public reports of black-marketeering cases, and he would remark in one wartime diary entry on the large numbers of taxis 'filled with Jews' making for the horse races at Ascot. [2]

   In March 1941 he noted that Lord Beaverbrook had inquired whether Air Vice-Marshal John Slessor was 'a Jew' or 'a defeatist.' In July Eden's secretary observed: 'The war hasn't made people more pro-Jew,' to which he added three weeks later: 'The Jews are their own worst enemy by their conduct in cornering foodstuffs and evacuating themselves to the best billets.'[3] Newspaper proprietor Cecil King described finding himself sharing a first class rail-compartment from Euston in September 1941 ('in the third year of a war against Germany') with a German Jewess whose baggage tags showed her to be a Mrs Schumann, thus evidently married to 'one of her own kind.' 'She divided her attention between a couple of thrillers and a longhaired dachshund whom she fed on chocolate.'[4]

[5] British Postal Censorship Reports, Secret, Series A, Jul 25, 1941: Home Opinion No.19, pt.ii (endorsed in handwriting: 'PM to see.' Churchill handed it to Hopkins. (FDR Libr., Harry L Hopkins papers: Sherwood collection, box 307, folder 'Hopkins Returns to London.')

[6] Home Office Weekly Report, May 18 --26, 1942, sent by Bruce Lockhart to Lord Beaverbrook (House of Lords Records Office, Beaverbrook papers, file D.445).

   The insidious trickling feed of this anti-Jewish sentiment had not of course escaped Churchill. It was regularly reported on by his Intelligence authorities, who carried out systematic checks on the mails to determine how the His Majesty's subjects, and Churchill's electors, were thinking; this postal-censorship revealed much private bitterness toward the Jews, on whom the public willingly blamed their material sufferings. 'Publish the names of the racketeers,' demanded one letter-writer. 'Only the Jews' shops have them,' cursed another, complaining of the shortage of one particular item, 'and, damn 'em, they will not serve anybody but their own people.'

   Such remarks proliferated in the letters. 'It's time they rationed the Jews, we could do with less of them.' 'Our friend Churchill spoke well,' wrote one Londoner to Dublin after the prime minister's June 22 [1941] broadcast, 'but I wonder how the cash boys will react.' 'The curse of the country is the Yiddish control of finance,' wrote another Londoner. 'They exercise the control and unfortunately have no social responsibilities. Money first, and everything else also-ran.' True, the British people condemned Hitler for driving the Jews out, but only because 'they came here and damn them they control every jolly thing.'[5]

   A year later the Home Office would comment that the growth of anti-Semitism was being reported from all over the country. 'One thing Hitler has done,' was one typical reported comment, 'is to put those damned Jews in their places.'[6]