December 17

US tanks run into trouble at Amonines in Belgium 1944: German counter-attacks in Ardennes England have The Germans have mounted a series of counter-attacks on the Western front allowing them to re-cross the borders of Luxembourg and Belgium. On the second day of what now appears to be a full-scale counter-offensive, the Germans are attacking with tanks and aircraft along a 70-mile front guarded by American forces in the Ardennes region. The main thrust has been launched from the northern Ardennes near the town of Monschau. Two further attacks have taken place further south. German paratroops have been dropped behind Allied lines. Allied army reports say some of them have been "mopped up", others are still at large. Reports from the US 9th Army, attacking a line to the north of the Ardennes region, say the German Luftwaffe also launched a concerted bombing campaign in support of its ground forces. The United States Air Force claims to have shot down 97 Luftwaffe planes overnight, 31 of their own aircraft were lost. According to the reports, the Luftwaffe put up "what was probably its greatest tactical air effort since D-Day". German aircraft appeared in force over the western front. More than 300 German planes were deployed in the Bonn and Cologne areas last night and a similar number have been active again during the day.

Foreign Minister Anthony Eden attacked the "bestial policy" of persecuting Jews 1942: Britain condemns massacre of Jews Artificially 1969: The The British Foreign Secretary, Anthony Eden, has told the House of Commons about mass executions of Jews by Germans in occupied Europe. Mr Eden also read out a United Nations declaration condemning "this bestial policy". He said news of German atrocities sent in by the Polish Government and widely reported in the press this month would only serve to strengthen allied determination to fight Nazism and punish all those responsible. After his announcement the House rose and held a one-minute silence in sympathy for the victims. A family moved in next door but they had no furniture and put newspaper up at the window. They were Polish Jews who had come from their homeland in a hurry. Mr Eden described how the German authorities, who have already stripped the Jews of their basic human rights, were now carrying out "Hitler's oft repeated intention to exterminate the Jewish people in Europe". He described how hundreds of thousands of men, women and children were being transported from all German-occupied territory "in conditions of appalling horror and brutality" to Eastern Europe. In Poland, Jewish ghettoes were being "systematically emptied" except for the able-bodied who were being sent to labour camps. "None of those taken away are ever heard of again," he said. Those who are sick or injured are left to die of exposure or starvation or killed in mass executions. The House then heard him read out a declaration made by the governments of Belgium, Czechoslovakia, Greece, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Norway, Poland, the United States, the UK, the USSR, Yugoslavia and the French National Committee. It condemned "in the strongest possible terms this bestial policy of cold-blooded extermination" and made a "solemn resolution to ensure that those responsible for these crimes shall not escape retribution". He said the United Nations would try to give asylum to as many refugees as possible but that there were "immense geographical difficulties" as well as security procedures to overcome. James A De Rothschild, Labour MP for the Isle of Ely, made an emotional speech on behalf of British Jewry thanking Mr Eden and the United Nations for their declaration. He said there were many first-generation Jews living in England who believed they had had a lucky escape from the concentration camps. Four days ago, synagogues all over Britain held a day of mourning as a mark of concern for the massacre of the Jews in Nazi-occupied Europe. The Chief Rabbi Dr J H Hertz called on all Jews to commemorate "the numberless victims of the Satanic carnage". The Archbishop of Canterbury has also expressed his outrage in a letter to The Times earlier this month condemning "a horror beyond what imagination can grasp".

Vocabulary:

synagogue: a congregation or assembly of Jews met for the purpose of worship, or the performance of religious rites（猶太教集會）