El Alamein victory stopped the Nazis from M-E invasion
Melbourne’s Jewish community leaders have heard how the Allied victory Battle of El Alamein played a major role in preventing the Nazis from invading the Middle East.
Kelvin Crombie and Nina Bassat
The Montgomery Bible
Kelvin Crombie, historian and author of ‘El Alamein: Halting a Possible Holocaust in the Middle East’, spoke at a Jewish Community Council of Victoria (JCCV) event at the Beth Weizmann Community Centre.
Crombie spoke about the pivotal roles that Tobruk and especially the Battle of El Alamein, which included Allied troops from across the Commonwealth, played in thwarting the Nazi invasion of the Middle East. He explained the fragile security of the 700,000 Jews in Palestine, Egypt, Syria and surrounds at the time of the North African campaign of World War II.
Hitler had established an Einsatzkommando, which was to be deployed as the Nazi forces reached Palestine. With the Allied success in the Battle of El Alamein, this group was never deployed and the Jews of the region were saved from being destroyed by the same Holocaust which devastated European Jewry.
Crombie displayed the ‘Montgomery Bible’, a small but beautiful Tanach which was presented to Field Marshal Montgomery by the National Council of Palestine Jewry – Jewish Government’ prior to the formal establishment of Israel. It was to demonstrate gratitude for Montgomery’s role in saving the Jewish community in the region from the impending conquest by the German-led forces commanded by General Rommel.
