Jewish Refugees from Hitler Outside London

VOLUME 14 NO.5 MAY 2014 journal The Association of Jewish Refugees Jewish refugees from Hitler outside London esearch on the Jewish refugees from for the paperback version. Its 420 pages are, Representative Council, Laski was instrumental Hitler in Britain has, it is often argued, however, devoted to a mere seven years in the in imposing what Williams considers an unduly focused almost exclusively on London, history of its subject. cautious and restrictive approach to the rescue Rand in particular on the well-known areas of The book is distinguished by the exemplary of the endangered Jews of the Reich. The fear settlement in the north-west of the city, like thoroughness of its research. Williams displays of appearing ‘disloyal to Britain’ was, Williams Hampstead, Belsize Park and Swiss Cottage a remarkable knowledge of Manchester Jewry, argues, the Achilles’ heel of men like Laski, who (NW3), West Hampstead (NW6), and its communal institutions and organisations, its were concerned that a more radical strategy Golders Green (NW11). While it is true that personalities, places of worship and, not least, would fan the flames of native anti-Semitism. refugees settled in these areas in numbers internal divisions. Already in the chapter that Such men, ‘who had already passed through the unequalled elsewhere in the country, the wealth follows the Introduction, Williams presents to anglicising and embourgeoising processes of of information about the communities that us the first of a series of largely forgotten and communal life into the Jewish middle classes’, grew up along ‘Finchleystraße’ has allowed unsung individuals who, in the face of general placed their faith in the essential benevolence them to overshadow the groups of refugees indifference or hostility, stepped forward to of British society, which might not tolerate a living outside the capital. Regional studies assist the new arrivals from Hitler’s Germany. more militant response by Jews to the plight like Zoe Joseph’s Survivors: Jewish Refugees One such was Isidore Apfelbaum, ‘a relatively of their German co-religionists. in Birmingham 1933-1945 (1988), based on obscure local jeweller and communal worker’, Though the Jewish community of oral-history interviews with refugees in that who as early as 1933 created an improvised Manchester, then numbering about 40,000, city, are few indeed, or, as is the case with the agency that rescued some hundreds of German came to play host to some 7-8,000 refugees two short pages that Judith Samuel devotes to Jews, operating ‘from Apfelbaum’s house at 17 from Hitler – a substantial number – Williams the refugees from Hitler in her book Jews in Wellington Road East, Higher Broughton, and argues that Laski’s strategy of loyally following Bristol (1997), sadly inadequate. from the offices of his firm at 42 Bull’s Head the British government’s policies on refugees The appearance of a major scholarly study Yard, a dreary alleyway off Market Place, in from the Reich, and of avoiding any criticism of the Jewish refugees from Nazism who central Manchester’. of the appeasement-tinged failings of those came to Manchester is therefore greatly to This extract demonstrates Williams’s policies, meant that the operation to aid the be welcomed, the more so as its author, Bill sovereign mastery of his material. Yet he refugees was not conducted with full vigour and Williams, is an acknowledged and much is also capable of setting his rich range of single-mindedness. In Williams’s view, Laski’s admired expert on Manchester Jewry. His material in the wider context of the issues unwillingness to adopt a high-profile strategy book, ‘Jews and Other Foreigners’: Manchester and controversies surrounding the reception of rescue independent of the government and the Rescue of the Victims of European of the Jewish refugees in Manchester in the caused him to shy away from ‘giving too open Fascism, 1933-1940, published by Manchester first years after 1933. Williams is at pains to a welcome to those seeking to flee Germany in University Press in 2011 and supported by the contrast Apfelbaum’s activist willingness to help 1933, who, in large numbers, might have been AJR, is in many respects a model for studies of with the more circumspect policy adopted by seen as a threat to the British workforce, and the refugees from Nazism in cities and regions Nathan Laski, the leading figure in Manchester who, in whatever numbers, could be construed outside London – though at the price of £95 Jewry and the target of considerable criticism … as a threat to a supposed “British identity”’. hardback, readers may be forgiven for waiting from Williams. Through Manchester’s Jewish This, Williams continues, was ‘part of a tradition of communal leadership deferential to the British state and culturally subservient to what it saw as the British identity’. Williams works within a broadly chronological framework, beginning with those relatively few organisations that provided assistance to the refugees in the first years after 1933 and moving on to the greater number of agencies of support that came into exist- The Morris Feinmann Home, Manchester continued overleaf journal MAY 2014 Jewish refugees from Hitler SPECIAL EVENT Kindertransport outside London continued Reunion DVD ence in the critical years 1938-39. Within that Judith Kerr e are delighted to announce framework, he provides a detailed and expert Sunday 29 June 2014, 3 pm that a special commemorative account of the main organisations concerned. at the London Jewish Cultural Centre (LJCC) WDVD with footage of the At first, organised efforts to help the refugees We are delighted that the celebrated author Kindertransport Reunion at JFS and the were few in Manchester. Williams notes the Judith Kerr will be our guest of honour at a reception with His Royal Highness The initiatives of the Manchester Women’s Lodge special event we are organising with the London Prince of Wales at St James’s Palace is of the Order B’nai B’rith, from whose ranks Jewish Cultural Centre. came Rae Barash, subsequently one of the now available for purchase. Judith has become part of the fabric of British leading activists in the Manchester Jewish Filmed and produced by Alan Reich, the life and her books have enthralled and inspired Refugees Committee (MJRC), the important DVD will serve as a poignant memorial children for many decades. agency set up in November 1938 to take to the two historic gatherings of Kinder forward the work of supporting the rapidly We especially encourage the families of our and their families that took place in increasing number of Jews fleeing the Reich. members – Second and Third (and possibly even June 2013 as part of the events the AJR Otherwise, the responses of institutions like Fourth) generations – to come along. We are organised to commemorate the 75th thrilled that Judith has agreed to read from her the University of Manchester, which gave anniversary of the Kindertransport. positions to some refugee scholars, or the books When Hitler Stole Pink Rabbit and When Lancashire Industrial Development Coun- the Tiger Came to Tea to younger members of To receive your copy, please send a cil, which supported refugee industrialists the audience. She will also reflect on her own cheque for £5 made payable to the and entrepreneurs, earn scant praise from experiences and take questions from guests. AJR to: AJR, Jubilee House, Merrion Williams. Even the Manchester Quakers were, Please book early to avoid disappointment Avenue, Stanmore, Middx HA7 4RL in Williams’s words, ‘slow off the mark’, their and join us for what we are sure will be a objective of bringing about international memorable gathering by purchasing your harmony between Britain and Germany being tickets through the LJCC website hard to reconcile with their desire to assist the www.ljcc.org.uk or by calling victims of Nazism. AJR Head Office on 020 8385 3070. Only after the intensification of Nazi persecution of the Jews in 1938 did men and Eastbourne women like Norman Jacobs, Morris Feinmann Lansdowne Hotel and Margaret Langdon, all members of the those of Bachad, which established a settlement MJRC alongside Rae Barash, become fully for Zionist agricultural trainees at Thornham Sunday 20 July active, setting up Kershaw House in Alexandra Fold Farm in Castleton, outside Manchester. A to Sunday 27 July Road South, Whalley Range, the first hostel hostel for refugee boys was set up in Stockport, Come and join us for a week for refugees to be established by Anglo-Jewry and one for girls, Harris House, in Southport; Make new friends and meet up with old friends outside London. It was named after Arthur as a collective diary of the girls at Harris House has survived, the history of that hostel is better £400pp for twin/double Kershaw, who offered the spacious mansion £450 for single room as a residence for refugees. Its Orthodox known than most. The Manchester Jewish Sea View rooms an additional £15pp per night counterpart, Cassell-Fox House in Upper Home for the Aged provided accommodation Price includes transport to and from Park Road, Higher Broughton, was likewise for elderly refugees, probably at the instigation Eastbourne from Jubilee House, Stanmore named after its creators, Eli Fox and Adolf of Morris Feinmann, who died on a rescue and Finchley Road (behind Waitrose); mission in North Africa in 1944. In his Sandwich Lunch on journey to Eastbourne; Cassell. The pogrom of 9-10 November Dinner, Bed and Breakfast; Outings, Cards 1938 also galvanised the Quakers into setting memory, the present home, whose construction and Entertainment up hostels for the refugees. Through the was largely funded by former refugees, was Space is limited so book early Refugee Committee of the Society of Friends named Morris Feinmann Home, a symbolic For further details, please telephone in Manchester and District, the Quakers act of gratitude to Manchester Jewry.

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