On this day: Eden condemns Nazi exterminations of Jews

Embroiled in a war with the Axis powers since September 1939, in 1942 Britain’s Foreign Secretary made a statement in Parliament condemning "Hitler's oft repeated intention to exterminate the Jewish people in Europe".

For Anglo-Jewry it was a welcome statement at a time when reports of the extent of the Nazi genocide were beginning to emerge in the British media. Six months earlier in June 1942 the Daily Telegraph had written of the murder of 700,000 Polish Jews through methods including gas chambers.

In his address to the House of Commons, which was followed by a minute of commemorative silence, Eden also quoted a declaration from several govermnments including the USA, USSR and the Netherlands, which condemned the Nazis’ “bestial policy of cold-blooded extermination ".

Eden told the House that the Jews had been stripped of their civil rights, of the sick or injured being left to die and of entire communities being systematically deported and never heard from again. He described the “conditions of appalling horror and brutality" and added the British government’s "solemn resolution to ensure that those responsible for these crimes shall not escape retribution".