Anti-semitism, it is often said, never completely disappears. It only sleeps. And to our national shame, it is wide awake again in this green and pleasant land. I fear there is some way yet to go before the hobgoblin of anti-Jewish prejudice in Britain is tamed and subdued. There will be more terrorist attacks, more threats and abuse in the street, more vile chants during marches and rallies thinly disguised as pro-Palestinian events.
A personal perspective from Golders Green
More of my lovely Jewish neighbours in the part of Golders Green where Judy and I have lived for 30 years will consider quitting Britain for good, preferring the risk of rockets and drones in Israel to living under the shadow of thuggish, murderous prejudice here. Some have already gone. British-born, British people forced out of the country they love by bullying, racist thugs. It's heartbreaking.
It's also baffling because we have, in living memory, all the evidence required to demonstrate where the path of antisemitism leads.
A memorial in Vence as a warning
I write this at a pavement cafe in the charming Provencal market town Vence, down here on the sunny Cote d'Azur. Little more than 80 years ago, Vence was part of so-called Vichy France, the southern half of the country Hitler had reluctantly agreed not to occupy. But there were strings attached. And one of them was in the shape of a noose, the Nazis insisted that the puppet Vichy authorities place around the necks of any Jews living in their midst.
You can see two photographs here, I have just taken of a quiet stone memorial just across the road from where I'm sitting. It bears the names of the Jewish men, women and children who were arrested in Vence and subsequently murdered in Nazi concentration camps. Dozens and dozens of them, from two-year-olds to pensioners. But here's what makes this memorial especially haunting, and, for Vence, shaming.
The main inscription on the cool white marble lays the blame for these blameless families' deaths squarely on the Nazis. 'In memory of the Jews of Vence arrested by the gestapo in 1943-44 and transported to the death camps.' By this stage of the war, Germany had occupied all of France. So, grimly to be expected.
But what's this on the reverse side of the stone, low down and invisible to passing pedestrians who don't crane their necks to find it? It's a confession, all but hiding its face in shame. 'In memory of the Jews of Vence arrested 28 August 1942 BY THE AUTHORITY OF THE VICHY GOVERNMENT (the capitals are mine), delivered to the Nazis and taken to Auschwitz.'
The French had turned on, and turned in, their own. Because they happened to be Jewish. And the betrayers would have needed little encouragement. Vichy was riddled with antisemitism from top to bottom. This is a warning from history carved in stone. It tells us there is only one kind of purging to be done today in our own country: that of the vile antisemites. Because we are only ever a few steps away from the evil that once visited Vence.
