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Victor Gollancz

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This article is about the person. For the company he founded, seeVictor Gollancz Ltd.

Sir
Victor Gollancz
Gollancz in the late 1940s
Born(1893-04-09)9 April 1893
Maida Vale,London,England
Died8 February 1967(1967-02-08)(aged 73)
London, England
NationalityBritish
EducationSt Paul's School, London
Alma materNew College, Oxford
Occupation(s)Publisher and humanitarian
OrganisationVictor Gollancz Ltd
Spouse
​
(m.1919)​
Children5, includingLiviaandVita
RelativesHermann Gollancz(uncle)
Israel Gollancz(uncle)

Sir Victor Gollancz(/ɡəˈlænts/;9 April 1893 – 8 February 1967) was a British publisher and humanitarian. Gollancz was known as a supporter ofleft-wing politics.His loyalties shifted betweenliberalismandcommunism;he defined himself as aChristian socialistand an internationalist. He used his publishing house chiefly to promotepacifistandsocialistnon-fiction, and also launched theLeft Book Club.

In the postwar era, he focused his attention on Germany and became known for his promotion of friendship and reconciliation based on his internationalism and his ethic of brotherly love. He founded the organisationSave Europe Now(SEN) in 1945 to campaign for humane treatment of German civilians, and drew attention to their suffering, especially children, and atrocities committed against German civilians. He received an honorary doctorate at theUniversity of Frankfurtin 1949, theGroßes Bundesverdienstkreuzof Germany in 1953 and thePeace Prize of the German Book Tradein 1960, and several streets in Germany, including theGollanczstraßeinWest Berlin,and two schools, the Victor Gollancz Elementary School[1]and the Victor-Gollancz-Volkshochschule Steglitz-Zehlendorf,[2]were named in his honour. He also campaigned for friendship withSoviet Russia.Gollancz once said: "I hate everything that is pro and anti (different peoples). I am only one thing: I am pro-humanity." Since 2000, theSociety for Threatened Peopleshas awarded theVictor Gollancz Prize.

Early life

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Born inMaida Vale,London, to a family ofGerman JewishandPolish Jewishbackgrounds, Gollancz was the son of a wholesale jeweller and the nephew of Rabbi Professor SirHermann Gollanczand Professor SirIsrael Gollancz.His grandfather, Rabbi Samuel Marcus Gollancz, had migrated to the United Kingdom in the mid-19th century fromWitkowo,nearGniezno(then Gnesen inPrussia) to becomecantorof theHambro' Synagoguein London.

After being educated atSt Paul's School, Londonand taking a degree in classics atNew College, Oxford,he became a schoolteacher. Gollancz was commissioned into theNorthumberland Fusiliersin October 1915, although he did not see active service. In March 1916, he transferred toRepton SchoolJunior Officers' Training Corps.Gollancz proved to be an innovative and inspiring teacher; he introduced the firstcivicsclass to be taught at an English public school and many of his students went on to become teachers themselves, includingJames HarfordandJames Darling.[3]

In 1917, he became involved in theReconstruction Committee,which was planning for post-war Britain. There he metErnest Benn,who hired him to work in hispublishingcompany,Ernest Benn Limited.Starting with magazines, Gollancz then brought out a series of art books, after which he started signing novelists.

As a publisher

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Cover ofThe 4-Dimensional NightmarebyJ. G. Ballardin the characteristic bright yellow design of Victor Gollancz

Gollancz formedhis own publishing companyin 1927, publishing works by writers such asFord Madox FordandGeorge Orwell,who wrote that "Gollancz is of course part of the Communism-racket," toRayner Heppenstallin July 1937 (Orwell went toSecker and WarburgfromHomage to Cataloniaonwards). Orwell had initially proposed to Gollancz to publishAnimal Farm,but the latter had refused, according to Orwell, due to the fear of spoiling relations with a fundamental ally in the war against Nazism: "I must tell you that it is I think completely unacceptable politically from your point of view (it is anti-Stalin) ". Gollancz became very angry at this insinuation, but on 4 April 1944, he recognized his error of judgment:" You were right and I was wrong. I am so sorry. I have returned the manuscript ".[4]The firm, Gollancz Ltd., published pacifist and socialist nonfiction as well as, by the mid-1930s, a solid selection of contemporary fiction, including authors such asElizabeth Bowen,Daphne du Maurier,andFranz Kafka.[5]While Gollancz publishedThe Red Army MovesbyGeoffrey Coxon theWinter Warin 1941, he omitted some criticisms of the USSR.[citation needed]

Gollancz was one of the founders of theLeft Book Club,the firstbook clubin the UK. He had a knack formarketing,sometimes taking out full-page newspaper advertisements for the books he published, a novelty at the time. He also used eye-catching typography and book designs, and used yellow dust-covers on books. Starting in 1948, Gollancz made yearly scouting trips to the USA; by 1951 American books made up half of his publications.[6]

Gollancz's politics started as those of theLiberal PartyandGuild Socialism.By 1931 he had joined the Labour Party,[7]and by the early 1930s he had started publishing left-wing political works, in addition to his more popular titles. Although he never joined the CPGB, Gollancz was closely allied to theCommunist Partyduring the second half of the 1930s. He finally broke with the party after the signing of theMolotov–Ribbentrop pactin 1939, and pledged himself toChristian socialism.In the early 1940s, Gollancz was sympathetic toRichard Acland's socialistCommon Wealth Partyand gave talks for the group before the general election of 1945. Although he never thought the party would win an election, he believed it represented a useful, socialist pressure group.[8]

Religious faith was important part of Gollancz's life. His father was an Orthodox Jew with a very literal interpretation of his faith; Gollancz's dislike of this attitude coloured his approach to organised Judaism for much of his life, but he continued to practise many Jewish rituals at home.[9]Gollancz often claimed to be a Christian, although he was never baptised and his understanding of the religion was highly idiosyncratic. Overall his personal syncretic faith drew onPelagianChristianity, Judaism, and wide-ranging reading across religious traditions.[10]

His faith manifested itself in a consciousness of bliss and his lifelong political and social campaigning. He compiled a number of books of religious writings, includingA Year of Grace,From Darkness to Light,God of a Hundred NamesandThe New Year of Grace.Gollancz was also a keen music lover, an enthusiasm he explained in his final book,Journey Towards Music.[citation needed]

Gollancz wasknightedin the1965 Queen's Birthday Honours List.

As a campaigner

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In addition to his highly successful publishing business, Gollancz was a prolific writer on a variety of subjects, and put his ideas into action by establishing campaigning groups. The Left Book Club was not only a book club run along commercial lines, but also a campaigning group that aimed to propagate left-wing ideas in Britain. The founding of the club marked the end of his career solely as a publisher, after which he devoted much of his energy to campaigning.

His first few pamphlets addressed what he saw as the communist betrayal of left wing ideals, although after theSoviet Union was invaded by Nazi Germanyin 1941 he founded the Anglo-Soviet Public Relations Association (ASPRA) to promote cordial relations between the Britain and the Soviet Union. This was followed by refutation of the anti-German (as opposed to anti-Nazi) doctrine ofSir Robert Vansittartin the pamphletShall Our Children Live or Diepublished in late 1941.

After World War II, Gollancz criticized the rise of what he saw as excessive nationalism in the Allied countries (both Czechoslovakia and the UK), describing nationalism "partly an invention of ambitious and unscrupulous politicians, and partly a drug from which the populace derives [...] a kind of bogus and vicarious satisfaction".[11]

1943 publication of description of the Holocaust

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Gollancz publicised the anti-Semitism of the Nazi regime early on; in 1933 he had published the compilation volumeThe Little Brown Book of the Hitler Terror[12]and Fritz Seidler's book on the Nazi persecution of the JewsThe Bloodless Pogromin 1934.

In the summer of 1942, Gollancz came to realise that he and the rest of the world had been seriously underestimating the horrific extent of theNazi persecution of the Jews.He explained in his 16,000-word pamphletLet My People Go,written over Christmas 1942, that between one and two million Jews had already been murdered in Nazi-controlled Europe and "unless something effective is done, within a very few months these six million Jews will all be dead.".[13][14]

Gollancz proposed a series of practical responses, centred around a rescue plan, and undertook a lecture and fundraising tour; he was also made vice-president ofEleanor Rathbone'sNational Committee for Rescue from Nazi Terror.Published early in the new year of 1943, the pamphlet sold a quarter of a million copies within three months[15]and was quoted in theParliament of Canadain 1943,[16]and inThe Adelaide Advertiseron Saturday 15 May 1943.[17]

Along with Rathbone, Gollancz was the foremost British campaigner during the Second World War on the issue of the Nazi extermination of European Jewry.

Towards the end of June 1943, Gollancz suffered a serious nervous breakdown, believed to have been brought on by overwork (he had cut out holidays and reduced his social and cultural life) and his identification with the Nazis' victims. After his recovery he started work on a book to be calledThe Necessity for Zionism;although the book was never written, he did publish a number of books on Jewish topics.[18]His work forZionismat this time led to him being appointed as a governor of theHebrew University of Jerusalem.In May 1945, he wrote his last major contribution to Jewish refugees, the pamphletNowhere to Lay Their Heads: The Jewish tragedy in Europe and its solution,a personal appeal for the opening up of Palestine for large-scale Jewish immigration from Europe, which he distributed for free and was a great success.[19]

Occupation of Germany after World War II

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In April 1945, Gollancz addressed the issue ofGerman collective guiltin a pamphlet,What Buchenwald Really Meansthat explained that not all Germans were guilty. He maintained that hundreds of thousands of gentiles had been persecuted by the Nazis and many more had been terrorized into silence. He also argued that British citizens who had allegedly done nothing to save the Jews despite living in a democracy were not free of guilt. This marked a shift of Gollancz's attention towards the people of Germany. In September 1945, he started an organisationSave Europe Now (SEN)to campaign for the support of Germans,[20]and over the next four years he wrote another eight pamphlets and books addressing the issue and visited the country several times.

Gollancz's campaign for the humane treatment of German civilians involved efforts to persuade the British government to end the ban on sending provisions to Germany and ask that it pursue a policy of reconciliation, as well as organising an airlift to provide Germany and other war-torn European countries with provisions and books. He wrote regular critical articles for, and letters to, British newspapers, and after a visit to theBritish Zone of Occupationin October and November 1946, he published these along with photographs of malnourished German children he took there inIn Darkest Germany[21]in January 1947.

On theexpulsion of Germans after World War IIhe said: "So far as the conscience of humanity should ever again become sensitive, will this expulsion be an undying disgrace for all those who remember it, who caused it or who put up with it. The Germans have been driven out, but not simply with an imperfection of excessive consideration, but with the highest imaginable degree of brutality." In his 1946 bookOur Threatened Values,Gollancz described the conditionsSudeten Germanprisoners faced in a Czechinternment camp:"They live crammed together in shacks without consideration for gender and age... They ranged in age from 4 to 80. Everyone looked emaciated... the most shocking sights were the babies... nearby stood another mother with a shrivelled bundle of skin and bones in her arms... Two old women lay as if dead on two cots. Only upon closer inspection, did one discover that they were still lightly breathing. They were, like those babies, nearly dead from hunger".

When Field MarshalBernard Montgomerywanted to allot each German citizen a guaranteed diet of only 1,000 calories a day and justified this by referring to the fact that the prisoners of theBergen-Belsen concentration camphad received only 800, Gollancz wrote in response about food shortages in Germany before the end of World War II, pointing out that many prisoners in Nazi concentration camps never even received 800 calories. "There is really only one method of re-educating people", explained Gollancz, "namely the example that one lives oneself."

Gollancz explained his rationale thus, "In the management of our helping actions should nothing, but absolutely nothing else, be decisive than the degree of need." For his biographer,Ruth Dudley Edwards,Gollancz's campaign was based in his concern for the moral underdog and his enjoyment in fighting for unpopular causes.[22]The campaign led Gollancz's friend, Rev.John Collins,to startChristian Actionin December 1946, an organisation with similar aims (which later became involved in the campaign against Apartheid).[23]In 1960, Gollancz was awarded thePeace Prize of the German Book Tradefor his work with SEN.

Other humanitarian issues

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During the fighting that marked the creation of the state of Israel, Gollancz became concerned for the plight of the Arabs and in October 1948 he founded the Jewish Society for Human Service (JSHS), with RabbiLeo Baeckas its president. This body was based on "the universalist ethic of Judaism" and aimed to work in the newly formed state of Israel "to relieve the suffering of Jews and Arabs indifferently."[24]

In February 1951, Victor Gollancz wrote a letter toThe Manchester Guardianasking people to join an international struggle against poverty. Gollancz's letter called for a negotiated end to theKorean Warand the creation of an international fund "to turn swords into ploughshares", readers were asked to send a postcard to Gollancz with the simple word 'yes'. He received 5,000 responses. This led to the founding of the Association for World Peace (AWP) with Gollancz as chairman and CanonCharles Raventhe vice-chairman. In May 1951, Gollancz invitedHarold Wilsonto chair an AWP committee and write a pamphlet which was eventually called 'War on Want – a Plan for World Development', published on 9 June 1952. This document led to the founding of the international anti-poverty charityWar on Want;its parent body, the AWP, waned after Gollancz stepped down from the chairmanship in 1952.

WithArthur Koestlerand John Collins, Gollancz set up the National Campaign for the Prevention of Legal Cruelty in 1955. This organisation was renamed The National Campaign for the Abolition of Capital Punishment (NCACP) and campaigned againstcapital punishment in the United Kingdom.This drive against capital punishment would later lead Gollancz to campaign against the execution of the Nazi war criminalAdolf Eichmann.He addressed the issue in a controversial pamphlet,The Case of Adolf Eichmann.[25]

Personal life and death

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In 1919, Victor marriedRuth Lowy,an artist who had studied at theSlade School of ArtunderHenry Tonks.The couple had five daughters[26]among themVita Gollancz,an artist;Livia Ruth Gollancz,musician and later head of Victor Gollancz Ltd; and Diana Gollancz, a confidante of poetPhilip Larkin.

Gollancz died in London on 8 February 1967.

Selected bibliography

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References

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  1. ^"Victor-Gollancz Grundschule".Victor-Gollancz Grundschule.2018.Retrieved22 March2018.
  2. ^"Volkshochschule Steglitz-Zehlendorf".www.berlin.de(in German). 16 March 2018.Retrieved22 March2018.
  3. ^Edwards, Ruth Dudley (1987),Victor Gollancz: A Biography(London: Victor Gollancz), pp. 106, 108 and 113.
  4. ^Alberge, Dalya (17 August 2024)."'It could disappear for ever': Anger over sale of George Orwell archive ".The Guardian.Retrieved26 September2024.
  5. ^Rachel Barrowman (1991).A Popular Vision: The Arts and the Left in New Zealand 1930–1950.Victoria University Press. p. 61.ISBN978-0-86473-217-0.
  6. ^Edwards (1987), pp. 529–530.
  7. ^Edwards (1987), p. 112 & pp. 207–209.
  8. ^Edwards, p. 396.
  9. ^Edwards, p. 201.
  10. ^Edwards (1987), pp. 466 & 550.
  11. ^Pynsent, Robert B.[in Czech](18 July 2013)."Conclusory Essay: Activists, Jews, The Little Czech Man, and Germans"(PDF).Central Europe.5(2): 214.doi:10.1179/174582107x190906.S2CID144749278.
  12. ^Edwards (1987), p. 218.
  13. ^Solomon, Raymond S. (15 January 2020)."Victor Gollancz's attempt to stop the Holocaust".The Jerusalem Post.
  14. ^The Massacre of a People: What the Democracies Can Do(1944). Jewish Frontier Association, p. 22.
  15. ^Edwards (1987), pp. 371 & 374–375.
  16. ^Debates: Official report, Volume 5 (1943), Canada. Parliament. House of Commons.P. 4606.
  17. ^The Advertiser (Adelaide, SA),Saturday 15 May 1943.
  18. ^Edwards (1987), p. 389.
  19. ^Edwards (1987) pp. 392–393.
  20. ^Edwards (1987), p. 410.
  21. ^Victor Gollancz:In Darkest Germany.With an Introduction by Robert M. Hutchins. Hinsdale, Ill.: Regnery 1947. free download.
  22. ^Edwards (1987), p. 401.
  23. ^Edwards (1987), p. 450.
  24. ^JSHS fund-raising letter in Edwards (1987), p. 474.
  25. ^Edwards (1987), pp. 634–647, 687.
  26. ^Dudley Edwards, R:Victor Gollancz: A Biographypage 25. Victor Gollancz Ltd, 1987.
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