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Articles by Henry Elkins

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About Henry Elkins

A keen researcher of family ancestors, Henry will be reporting on the centenary of World War One. More Posts

Chaim Rumkowski

I suspect that the name Chaim Rumkowski will mean little to readers of The Rust but, in his own controversial way, he epitomised many of the historical difficulties of World War Two. A Jew, he made his name in Poland as an orphanage administrator before World War Two. After the invasion of Poland [...]

May 14, 2025 // 0 Comments

VE Day: 80 years on

Broadly I was in favour of an 80th anniversary remembrance of VE Day. There are only some 50 veterans left and it’s right that a new generation knows of the incredible sacrifices made. I say ‘Broadly’ as I thought it wrong that the Poles were not invited. They smuggled out the machine that [...]

May 7, 2025 // 0 Comments

Judgment at Tokyo/Gary Bass

Gary Bass, a Princeton historian, has written a magisterial and definitive work on the tribunal constituted by Supreme Commander Douglas MacArthur to try the main forces behind Japan’s war crimes during World War Two. The tribunal problems – one might even say flaws – were threefold: [...]

March 21, 2025 // 0 Comments

On podcasts & history

Podcasts are all the rage now and seem to conform with the addiction to mobile phones. A friend of mine likened them to being caught by bores in the pub. The format is generally a duet who either agree with one another sycophantically or indeed disagree from different viewpoints. The dominant [...]

February 28, 2025 // 0 Comments

Sir Keith Park

On Monday I walked from Victoria Station to my club The Reform in Pall Mall. As a London park I prefer Regents Park, not just because of its greater amenities (the boating lake, Rose Garden, Open Air Theatre and Zoo), but because you can get lost there – whereas at St James, you are more or [...]

January 21, 2025 // 0 Comments

An Officer And A Spy/Robert Harris

This book came heavily recommended by the podcast The Rest is History as a novel about the Dreyfus affaire that you could read in one sitting. In fact it took me a week, largely because the detail of the various trials were so copious. The scandal is seen – not through the eyes of Alfred [...]

January 4, 2025 // 0 Comments

(WW2) Arctic convoys & opening a Second Front.

It did not take Hitler long to repudiate the Molotov/Ribbentrop pact and invade the Soviet Union. It was also not that long after – with Stalin’s ‘not one step back’ and ‘scorched earth’ strategy – that the Wehrmacht was in trouble. Stalin implored the Allies to open a [...]

December 25, 2024 // 0 Comments

The Crusades/PBS

I was taught history to a high level at my school, so much so that a fellow pupil who later achieved a first at Oxford said he was able to rely upon his school tuition in the first year of university. However, in the teaching of the Crusades, I do not believe we had an accurate assessment. The [...]

July 26, 2024 // 0 Comments

WW2: War in Crete/PBS

Pursuing my interest in the less well-known theatres of World War Two, I followed with much interest and no little enjoyment the PBS documentary of the Crete Campaign. Crete was in 1941 the largest airborne invasion ever by the elite Wehrmacht paratroops known as the Fallschirmjager. The Allied [...]

July 7, 2024 // 0 Comments

Berlin/PBS documentary

My TV channel of choice for evening viewing is PBS America for its outstanding documentaries. This was the second part of a documentary on Berlin the city. In World War Two the Red Army was the first to Berlin and subjected what citizens were left – mainly children and women – to [...]

June 4, 2024 // 0 Comments

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