::UPDATE:: UPON RECEIVING THE CENTER'S PROTEST, THE MUSEUM REMOVED THE OFFENSIVE POSTER - SWC to Imperial War Museum: “The World War II Jewish Brigade was not “terrorist”

September 21, 2015

Read related Algemeiner article: Following Outcry, UK War Museum Removes Item Calling WWII Jewish Brigade ‘Terrorists’

 

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SIMON WIESENTHAL CENTRE-EUROPE

Tel: +33(0)1 47 23 76 37

Fax: +33(0)1 47 20 84 01

Mail: csweurope@gmail.com

 

This exhibition travesty will make the IWM complicit in Holocaust revisionism.

 

Paris

 

Following a large number of protests from the British public, the Simon Wiesenthal Centre Director for International Relations, Dr. Shimon Samuels, addressed a letter to Imperial War Museum (IWM) Director-General, Diane Lees, in regard to its current display on the British Mandate in Palestine 1917-1948, which describes the WWII Jewish Brigade as “terrorists.”

 

The letter noted that “the photo poster opens with the words “Terrorist activities: Men of the First Battalion Jewish Brigade during a march past”; adding, “The Jewish Brigade was formed in September 1944 and fought in Italy under the British Eighth Army”, then continuing, “Many of its members went on to join the Hagana and other illegal formations.”

 

Samuels remembered with pride in the city of his birth – London – as he watched in June 2000 “the Holocaust Exhibition red-ribbon cut by H.M. Queen Elizabeth herself.  The IWM had embarked on a path applauded by British and international Jewry”.

 

The Centre argued that “the above British Mandate travesty is redolent of the UK's closure of the gates of Mandatory Palestine, which consigned untold fugitives of Nazism to their deaths.  For British Jews, so many of whom served in H.M.'s forces, who later came to nascent Israel as volunteers to repel British-led Arab invaders bent on completing Hitler’s plan of extermination.  Would you malign these loyal British Jewish military with the stigma of “terrorism”?

 

The letter queried, “Did your recently consecrated Memorial to Indian Muslim recruits, who served in both World Wars, mention “the terrorists” among them who went on to fight for Pakistan against the British Imperial Raj of India – the Jewel in the Crown?”

 

The Centre urged the Director-General to “to withdraw this offensive poster, take disciplinary measures against the apparent anti-Semite responsible and make a public apology to the Jewish community.”

 

“The Jewish Brigade under British command were heroes who combated Fascist terrorists in Italy.  They were eye witnesses to the annihilation of their people as they joined the liberators of the camps.

 

To call them “terrorists” is the greatest Holocaust revisionism imaginable.  This has tarnished your Museum and betrays the cause of British integrity” concluded Samuels.

 

For further information, please contact Shimon Samuels at 00 33 6 09 77 01 58, join the Center on Facebook, www.facebook.com/simonwiesenthalcenter, or follow @simonwiesenthal for news updates sent direct to your Twitter feed.

 

The Simon Wiesenthal Center is one of the largest international Jewish human rights organizations with over 400,000 member families in the United States. It is an NGO at international agencies including the United Nations, UNESCO, the OSCE, the OAS, the Council of Europe and the Latin American Parliament (Parlatino).