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The 43 Group Battling with Mosley's Blackshirts
By Morris Beckman The History Press
Copyright © 2013 Morris Beckman
All rights reserved.
ISBN: 978-0-7524-9979-6
CHAPTER 1
Maccabi House. A large, many-roomed Victorian mansion in West Hampstead, home of the London branch of Jewry's premier sports organisation. It witnessed the return of members who years earlier had gone off to war. These returnees included prisoners of Nazi and Japanese internment, RAF crew relishing their luck at having survived, navy and merchant navy men like myself, and veterans who had served in most branches of the Army. There were Jews who had served in the Allied forces; a dozen Poles formed the largest group of these and, with no families left alive, they had no intention of returning to Poland. I befriended a pair who had participated in the storming and capture of the Nazi fortress of Monte Casino. They had found anti-Semitism so endemic amongst their erstwhile comrades-in-arms that to them Poland was anathema. Twelve Maccabis never came back.
Maccabi's pre-war ebullient friendliness had gone; in its place was a subdued ambience reflecting the weariness and uncertainties of the times. Tolerance levels of the ex-servicemen were low, and an uncomfortable tension existed between them and the teenage members who had missed the war. The ex-servicemen, in their ill-fitting demob suits awkwardly adjusting to the vacuum of peace, had little in common with the extrovert noisy youths dressed in 'zoot suits', an ugly fashion current then. Thigh-length jackets embellished with looped silver chains dangling from breast pocket to knee level; the trousers, baggy from waist to knee, narrowed to 14 inch bottoms. By tacit agreement, the ex-servicemen occupied the two lounge areas outside the canteen, while the zootsuiters congregated elsewhere.
Jewish ex-servicemen were beginning to talk about the outdoor meetings and the anti-Semitic posters appearing in Jewish districts like Hackney, Edgware and Stamford Hill. They regarded the new growth of fascism with a weary sense of deja vu. Ill at ease in civvy street, and sensitive about the arising conflict in Palestine between their old comrades, the British forces, and the Palestinian Jews, they wondered whether anything had changed for the better. Going from a cinema showing newsreel of piles of Jewish men, women and children being bulldozed into limepits in the concentration camps, and then passing an outdoor fascist meeting or seeing swastikas whitewashed on Jewish homes and synagogues affected these ex-servicemen with emotion ranging from choleric anger to a cold hard desire to kill the perpetrators. Among them, this anger was rising and spreading. Dominating the conversations was Palestine; the flood of Jewish survivors trying to reach there, and the efforts of the British armed forces to reduce the flood. There were continuous heated arguments between those who were more conscious of being British than Jewish, and those whose solidarity was wholly with the Jewish survivors. It was a painful dual loyalty. But all, no matter what their views, were painfully sensitive to the knowledge that too many Jews had perished during the previous six years. When the Labour Foreign Secretary, Ernest Bevin, asserted, 'Jews must not try to get to the head of the queue', Jews themselves could only think of the queues outside the gas chambers. Bevin touched a raw nerve that caused two days of rioting in Tel Aviv during which six Jewish civilians were shot dead by British soldiers. At Maccabi this incident swung several of the more-British-than-Jewish ex-servicemen over to the other side. Reports too were coming through of the first Jews serving in the British army in Palestine refusing to take action against their co-religionists. The army passed lenient sentences and the accused were posted elsewhere. These were straws in the new wind blowing through world Jewry that affected all of us.
Above all, it was the unfolding extent of the concentration camp horrors that really unhinged us all. It imbued every ex-servicemen with a sick sense of shame that no action had ever been taken to try to save the camp inmates. Air crews had no doubt that specialised attacks could have taken out gas chambers, furnaces and SS barracks. Ex-paratroopers and Special Forces veterans argued that drops into and around the camps could have saved many, but nothing was ever attempted; battle-hardened men, unable to stomach the newsreels, walked out of cinemas. Watching the Royal Navy stop Greek and Turkish bucket ships crammed with the sick and broken survivors of the camps, and the Pathé Gazette and Movietone films of these same derelicts being incarcerated behind barbed wire in Cyprus, seemed to plumb the very depths of inhumanity. And, while all this was taking place, we were sipping coffee in Maccabi House and wondering whether to go up to the West End for a night out. We felt useless.
It came almost as a relief when Ernest Bevin ordered the internment of Jewish leaders in Palestine against opposition from both sides of the House, and some sections of the British press. The result was a protest march beginning in Commercial Road, by Gardiners Corner, that stretched to over 100 yards, and ended with speeches in Trafalgar Square. In the front ranks were Sam Klampf, a sergeant paratrooper who had fought at Arnhem; Gerry Flamberg, another paratrooper who had won the Military Medal and was wounded at Arnhem; Professor Brodetsky; the ex-submariner, Tommy Gould, holder of the Victoria Cross; and an American infantryman waiting to be shipped home. All along the way others joined the march: men, women, zoot-suiters and workmen, Jews and non-Jews, and innumerable Allied, British and Commonwealth servicemen and women. There was the occasional jeering catcall, but mostly we were watched by crowds in a silence that was far from hostile.
Yet, torn as we were by events overseas, the undeniable signs of a fascist revival in our own country loomed larger in our sights. A collection of fascist literature had been brought into Maccabi House. We had all witnessed the outdoor meetings where speakers shouted blatantly, 'Get rid of the Jews!' and 'Burn the synagogues!', and we each had seen the white painted swastikas and the letters 'PJ', with the lightning-flash between on the walls of synagogues and other Jewish institutions. Incidents were now being noted.
In early January 1946, after Dame Sybil Thorndyke had visited the New Yiddish Theatre in Adler Street, East London, the walls were daubed with anti-Jewish slogans and the fascist lightning-flash. We passed around the January 4th 1946 issue of The Truth, edited by Colin Brooks, one-time secretary to Lord Rothermere. Brooks urged Jews to quit the country and leave their homes to returning British ex-servicemen. The deputy editor of The Truth was A.K. Chesterton who before the war had edited Action, the official organ of the BUF.
I recollect standing on the corner of Star Street in Kilburn on a cold and wet January evening in 1946 with my cousin, Harry Rose, who had just been demobilised. Harry had been a sergeant in General Wingate's chindit force that had operated behind the Japanese lines in Burma. He'd had a hard war. Harry listened open-mouthed to the fascist speaker on the platform, then exclaimed,
'I'm going to shut that bastard up!'
'You can't', I held his arm, 'cause a disturbance and those police over there could arrest you; heckle, fight, push over the platform and you could go inside'.
'Bloody worth it', growled Harry, adding, 'Isn't anybody doing anything about it?'
'That', I replied, 'Is what we're all asking ourselves. What to do, and how to set about it'.
During those early days, the fascists enjoyed a heyday; they knew they were immune from prosecution and had police protection. Opposition barely existed. Yet, without realising it, they were raising a whirlwind. British Jewry in 1946, especially the ex-servicemen amongst them, were of a different metal to the community of the pre-war days. The keep-your-head-down and get-indoors-quickly mentality had gone for good. The emotive slogan, 'Never again', spread through Jewish communities worldwide and caught precisely the new mood. In Maccabi House, members brought in reports of fascist meetings in new areas: Brockwell Park, Clapham Common, Church Hill, Walthamstow and Chapel Market in Islington. Frustration built up and there was a disturbing restlessness in the air. Then, on the last Sunday evening in February 1946 the inevitable happened. Bored with Maccabi coffee and desultory chat, four of us piled into my Ford Prefect and set out to have a drink and change of scene at Jack Straw's Castle on top of Hampstead Heath. There was Gerry Flamberg, Alec Carson an ex-RAF flight lieutenant and winner of the DFC, Len Sherman, ex-Welsh Guards and trained wrestler and judo expert, and myself. I had served at sea. As we climbed up towards Whitestone Pond, the highest point geographically in London, we saw a meeting taking place on a patch of grass adjacent to the pond. A large Union Jack fluttering above the platform alerted us to the fact that the fascists had arrived.
'Aye, aye', said Alec, 'The 18b Regulation Fusiliers are here!' The platform bore the legend, 'The British League of Ex-Servicemen and Women', and in front of it four muscular young men were selling copies of Britain Awake. The crowd numbered about sixty. We parked the car and strolled over to the edge of the meeting.
The speaker was Jeffrey Hamm, a pre-war member of the BUF and 18b detainee. He was a tall, lean, rancorous man with slicked-back, thinning blond hair and taut-skinned face. His sole target was the 'aliens in our midst', those who had 'waxed fat in the black market' while 'our boys' died fighting overseas. An elderly German Jew next to me gripped my arm.
'Has nothing changed after all that has happened?'
'Sod the drinks', muttered Gerry, 'Let's go!'
Abruptly, he pushed through the crowd and we went with him, in ragged line abreast. We reached the front of the audience, men and women, Jew and Gentile, young and old, all looking more bemused than anything else. We confronted the stewards.
'The platform's mine', whispered Gerry.
'I'll take the two on the left', Len responded. Alec and I picked a target each. Len walked up to his pair and pretended to fumble in his pocket for coins, saying, 'I'll take two of those Britain Awake'. Then, with the lightning speed of the trained, he grabbed the heads of his two targets and banged them together. I heard the thud and saw them drop. Gerry toppled the platform and I saw Hamm falling backwards into the grass. A woman shrieked. I kicked my target between the legs and he crumpled in pain. Alec struggled with his opponent who broke away and sped downhill through the trees and bushes in the direction of West Heath Road.
The crowd were shouting and scattering to all points of the compass; a stooped Hamm was dragging his platform and flag towards a small grey van. The steward I had kicked was scuttling away towards the trees where he stopped and yelled at us. 'Jew bastards! We'll get you -wait and see!' Gerry let out an exultant roar and ran at him; the steward disappeared into the vegetation. We called Gerry back. Only the elderly German Jew had stayed and insisted on shaking each of us by the hand, then pleaded urgently.
'Go, boys – leave everything. Just go before the police get here. Go on!'
He literally pushed us towards the car. The journey back to Maccabi House was almost festive; we were on a high and all talking at once.
'Piece of cake', said Len, 'What happened to you, Alec?'
'All right for you fit sods', replied Alec, 'Flying planes was a sedentary occupation'.
'We could be arrested for what we did'.
'Then it's about time they changed the laws'.
'I've heard they're having meetings all over the place'.
'Then we've plenty of work to do!'.
The sheer malevolence of the speaker had moved us to action; this was the first post-war Mosleyite meeting to be closed down by a physical assault. Back at Maccabi House we regaled others with our experience, to the envy of those who wished they had been with us. Hitherto, brave individuals who had protested vigorously at fascist meetings had received injury and the occasional arrest for their pains, but that evening at Maccabi there was a new mood of excitement. Inadvertently, we had shown the way ahead: the fascists could and had to be attacked, but in an organised and disciplined manner.
We convened a meeting to be held the first week in March on a weekday evening at Maccabi, choosing an out of the way room. We did not advise the management of our purpose, we did not advertise the meeting. It was left for those present to bring along like-minded friends. Thirty-eight ex-servicemen and five women turned up. These included Joe Zilliacus, a friend of Gerry's, who had been an officer in the Royal Marine Commandoes and whose father was a Labour MP for a Glasgow constituency. Joe was not Jewish. But he would lead many attacks on both indoor and outdoor fascist meetings.
That initial meeting was subdued and expectant; everyone present understood that the organisation could lead them into very stormy seas. Gerry gave a rousing account of the incident at Whitestone Pond and then general discussion ensued. A legal student pointed out that the four who had closed down the meeting could have been arrested and charged with causing a breach of the peace, breaking the Public Order Act, grievous bodily harm and God knows what else. They could have been sent to prison and saddled with a criminal record – would everyone be prepared to risk that?
'Would you?', someone shouted.
'After serving three years with the Eighth Army in Africa, Sicily and Italy, the answer is yes – not too happily, but yes, I bloody well would!'
He was cheered. This set the tone for others who spoke. Some pointed out that the Jewish Defence Committee of the Board of Deputies were well aware of the fascist resurgence and must be taking measures to curb it. Also, AJEX were holding their own outdoor meetings to put the Jewish case.
'Defend, defend – always bloody well defending!', protested Jackie Graham, a stocky ex-soldier with the hardest punch outside a boxing ring, 'I'm sick of defending. To finish them off they've got to be attacked'.
Alec Black, an infantry officer who had landed on D-Day and survived the heavy fighting at La Falaise and Caen onwards, took the floor. He spoke quietly and lucidly, pointing out that the Jews had always been an integrated and law abiding community, and that therefore the Jewish establishment could not condone any activity that might break the law.
'In short', said Alec soberly, 'The Defence Committee can only defend; it has to stay within the law and therefore cannot even condone attacking the fascists if it means breaking the law. So, it is up to us to do what they cannot'.
All present were in their twenties, unmarried and not settled. A taxi driver put his cab at the disposal of anyone needing it, day or night, adding that a few of his mates would do likewise. A printer offered the facilities of his workshop, at cost. A doctor, chartered surveyor, electricians, a radio engineer and two garage owners offered their skills and services. This led to a compilation of the skills and resources of members who offered them free of charge and at any unsocial hour. After an hour and a half the meeting was called to a halt and Alec Black summed up.
'It is agreed that we set up an organisation to fight the fascists. This organisation will be apolitical – anyone who wants to fight fascism and anti-Semitism, regardless of their political views, will be welcome. It is also understood that members will run the risk of being injured, perhaps badly, during what could be violent confrontations, or be arrested. So, if anyone here doesn't want to participate, would they kindly leave the room and no one will think any the worse of them'.
No one moved. Alec repeated the offer, but still nobody left.
'So', he continued, 'Everyone here wants to get on with the task ahead?'
'Of course we bloody well do!', yelled a burly young man, 'That's why we're bloody well here, isn't it?'
Laughter relieved the tension, and then the provisional committee put forward the two aims pencilled in earlier: to go on the attack against the emergent fascists with a view to destroying them; to lobby Parliament to illegalise racial incitement and make it an offence punishable by imprisonment.
(Continues...)
Excerpted from The 43 Group Battling with Mosley's Blackshirts by Morris Beckman. Copyright © 2013 Morris Beckman. Excerpted by permission of The History Press.
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