Talk:Clare Hollingworth

Clare Hollingworth "peacock"
I have researched Clare's story and noticed the "peacock" tag that you recently added to the Wiki page.

What info were you referring to - I could probably help with published sources for some of the information appearing there.

Patrick77.128.28.221 (talk) 14:54, 25 February 2009 (UTC)


 * I edited Clare Hollingworth, added a couple of references, and removed the peacock tag. Sentences with phrases like "getting one of the greatest scoops of modern times" and "made journalistic history" were over-the-top. They needed to be written in a more straight-forward manner. The story is interesting enough without the hype. I also whittled down the lawsuit bit (almost removed it entirely) because it is such a nothing blip in her career and life. It really is given too much weight given the size of her article. Hollingworth is an interesting person and, if you have the time and the references, I would like to see her profile expanded. I'll move this to the talk page should you wish to discuss it further. Cheers. —  Cactus Writer |   needles  17:13, 25 February 2009 (UTC)

Example of her reporting style.
Published in The Scotsman:

Saturday June 5th 1948

Clare Hollingworth, Jerusalem, Friday - In its long, stormy history Jerusalem has known no war remotely like this. It is the nature of warfare, particularly modern warfare, to be swift and catastrophic; the fight for supremacy in the Holy City has been slow and long-drawn-out. Even before May 14, when the sudden departure of British troops and police, for 30 years the guardians of the peace, precipitated open hostilities between Jew and Arab, there had been steady and insidious, if minor, destruction and disintegration. Nothing in the present pathetic desolation can compare with the bricked-in shops inside their serried rusting tangles of barbed wire, the silent “No-Man’s Lands” of empty tins and dust-encrusted scraps of newspaper, which are the legacy of British security measures. Each day certainly has seen new scars to add to those of the last two years, but it is surprising to discover how little damage individual shells have achieved against the stone buildings of Jerusalem. It was impossible during the fortnight I spent, involuntarily, in besieged Jerusalem, to obtain any reliable estimate of the damage caused either by Arab shelling or the fighting that ensued before the aggressive Jewish forces won control over practically the entire modern city and its spreading suburbs. One could not see for oneself, for the Jews have not thrown open the former Arab districts that come under their domination, even to their own people, far less to unwanted, inquisitive British correspondents. They are the province of Haganah and the former terrorist organisations Irgun Zvai Leumi and the Stern Gang. But the damage, from the little I was able to see, is clearly widespread and in some areas extensive. Jerusalem becomes less attractive with each passing day. The Jews, cut off from their burial grounds on Mount Scopus and Mount Zion, have been obliged to consecrate fresh ground in the centre of the city. But very curiously there has been little proper effort to collect and bury many of the corpses of Jews who fell in the battles on the city’s outskirts. They are lying there rotting in the hot sunshine. The blazing sun draws foetid odours from the piles of rotting garbage which, uncollected now for several weeks, have long since overflowed into the streets and gutters. In Jerusalem there is neither adequate nourishment, nor even temporary satisfaction in the official rations - when they can be obtained. And those far-sighted and provident citizens who filled their store cupboards and cellars in the happy days of British control have seen both emptied by official or unofficial requisitioning parties from the Jewish forces. There is perhaps more discomfort at present, and certainly greater potential danger, in the acute shortage of water. After the destruction of the pipeline which runs through Arab territory, the Holy City now draws its water from wells which will shortly be dry and from cisterns which are gradually becoming exhausted. There is a strict daily ration of one gallon per head. There is no petrol at all for civilian use and the once-congested streets are practically empty of traffic. Further, in a mad panic of “civil defence” a fantastic array of road blocks, barriers, “dragon’s teeth” and barbed wire barricades has been erected almost haphazard all over Jewish Jerusalem. With an ingenuity worthy of better ends some streets, to the angry bewilderment of their inhabitants, have been entirely blocked in. For several days no shop opened, and even when, after a fortnight of war, the Holy City began to settle down to some kind of routine, still only one shop in six reopened despite an appeal by the new Jewish Municipal Council for a resumption of ordinary life. In the beginning people had been too frightened by the Arab shelling and snipers’ bullets to venture into the streets; this remains the excuse, but it is no longer the real reason. The shopkeepers are afraid not so much of shells as of raids by Irgun Zvai Leumi and the Stern Gang. These young toughs. who are beyond whatever law there is have cleaned out most private houses of the richer classes and started to prey upon the shopkeepers. Even they, however, hesitate to break down steel shutters, and so, for the moment and although it means a lack of business, a shuttered shop still offers some protection to its contents. Quite distinct from Palmach and Haganah - what one might call the front-line fighting men - these are Home Guards, and police, not to mention the “SS” and “Gestapo” which are playing an increasingly important and sinister part in Jewish life. By their past encouragement of the terrorists, whom they secretly supported whilst publicly denouncing them, the Jewish leaders have created a Frankenstein which will eventually cause them far more trouble than it ever caused the British. It is obviously due to the presence of the Jewish “Gestapo,” which taps telephones and has its spies and informers everywhere, that everyone pretends to be in excellent spirits. The Jews must not be cast down by the siege or by the prospect of a “new Stalingrad” which some of the more fanatical military leaders actually appear still to want. Nor is it advisable in Jerusalem to question the policy of the Jewish authorities or to hope that the war and the siege will soon end. Women who break down under the strain and weep in public make haste to explain that they are bewailing the loss of a relative. No amount of control, no threat or penalties can hide the fact that the ordinary people of the new Jewish State hate the war and long for peace. They are, however, quite powerless to make their desires felt against the burning fanaticism of the small group of people who now rule Jewish destinies. - copyright.

Padres Hana (talk) 18:28, 12 October 2012 (UTC)

Possible images
Short on time right now but two CC BY 2.0 images on Flickr: and. Ed [talk] [majestic titan] 19:07, 10 January 2017 (UTC)
 * The second looks marginally better, and could be cropped (although the other subject, Tim Page, is also notable)? Martinevans123 (talk) 23:12, 10 January 2017 (UTC)
 * Is anyone interested in pursuing this, or have any objections/ observations? Thanks. Martinevans123 (talk) 13:42, 12 January 2017 (UTC)

Republic of German-Austria
The republic existed 1918-1919. Please don't link it describing 1938.Xx236 (talk) 06:37, 10 October 2017 (UTC) formally should have been probably formerly. Xx236 (talk) 11:19, 10 October 2017 (UTC)

Guardian
The features editor of the the Guardian from the mid-60s to 1994 (Richard Gott) was found to be a colonel in the soviet KGB. Is this bit about the quashing of the Philby story yet another bit of proof that the KGB connection goes back a lot earlier than 1963?

Discrepancy in reference to husband in 1946
In the section "Later careeer" article states that "In 1946, she and her husband Geoffrey Hoare were at the scene of the King David Hotel bombing in Jerusalem", while in "Personal life" it is reported that, although her marriage to Robinson broke down "during the war", she did not divorce him until 1951 and did not marry GH until later in 1951 (other sources give 1952). Did she go to Jerusalem with Hoare, whom she later married, or did she go with her husband at the time, Robinson? 08:38, 10 October 2017 (UTC)Nigel Cogger — Preceding unsigned comment added by 90.60.22.46 (talk)

Stolen car
According to this thread on reddit, and perhaps there is a citation that can found to back it up, she stole a car in Poland right as everything went sideways and nearly got someone killed as a result: https://www.reddit.com/r/Genealogy/comments/96osza/clare_hollingworth_stole_my_great_grandfathers/ Owlmonkey (talk) 16:54, 12 August 2018 (UTC)

More: the interview that story is based on can be found on this DVD: https://collections.ushmm.org/search/catalog/vha4693 Owlmonkey (talk) 06:10, 13 August 2018 (UTC)

Charitable Work
On here I plan to post what charitable work Hollingworth did while being a journalist out of the U.K. The three reliable sources I have used are listed below the information.

Hollingworth also did charitable work while reporting in Europe by helping and working with Czechoslovak refugees in Poland as part of her work with the British Committee for Refugees form Czechoslovak (BCRC). It is estimated she aided two-three thousand from the Nazis’ clutches, as the takeover frightened many to seek shelter. One individual she helped was a four-year-old called Margo Drotar and her mother who were in jail, starving for five days. Hollingworth assisted many to help them rebuild a life in the UK.

References: 1 https://blog.nationalarchives.gov.uk/clare-hollingworth-clever-english-journalist/ 11/11/19 2 https://www.telegraph.co.uk/women/life/telegraphs-clare-hollingworth-broke-news-world-war-ii-saved/ 11/11/19 3 https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-37606306 11/11/19  — Preceding unsigned comment added by Mkjbright (talk • contribs) 17:19, 13 November 2019 (UTC)