I became aware of Jews in my early teens, as I started to pick up the signals from the Christian church. Not that I was Christian — I’d been an atheist since I was five. But my father, a Congregational minister, had some sympathy with the idea that the Jews had killed Christ. But any indoctrination was offset by my discovery of the concentration camps, of the Final Solution. Whilst the term 'Holocaust' had yet to enter the vocabulary I was overwhelmed by my realisation of what Germany had perpetrated on Jews. It became a major factor in my movement towards the political left. I’d already read 'The Grapes of Wrath' by John Steinbeck, the Penguin paperback that would change my life. The story of the gas chambers completed the process of radicalisation and would, just three years later, lead me to join the Communist Party. Phillip Adams
About This Quote

Growing up in the 1950s I was aware of Jews, but I didn't know anything about their background. My parents were not Jewish, so I had no idea of what they had done to get themselves into trouble. It wasn't till I was fifteen that I came across the phrase 'Holocaust' and the camps. It was then that my world turned upside down.

History had caught up with me, and I had to think about what it meant. An enormous number of people had been killed in concentration camps throughout Europe, and at Auschwitz-Birkenau alone, 1 million Jews had been murdered. It was a terrible crime which shocked the world when it was revealed.

At this point I became aware of Jews in my early teens, as I started to pick up the signals from the Christian church. Not that I was Christian – I’d been an atheist since I was five. But my father, a Congregational minister, had some sympathy with the idea that the Jews had killed Christ.

But any indoctrination was offset by my discovery of the concentration camps, of the Final Solution. Whilst the term 'Holocaust' had yet to enter the vocabulary I was overwhelmed by my realisation of what Germany had perpetrated on Jews. It became a major factor in my movement towards the political left.

I’d already read 'The Grapes of Wrath' by John Steinbeck, the Penguin paperback that would change my life. The story of the gas chambers completed the process of radicalisation and would, just three years later, lead me to join the Communist Party

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