The UK Holocaust Memorial

VOLUME 16 NO.4 APRIL 2016 journal The Association of Jewish Refugees The UK Holocaust Memorial n 27 January 2016, Holocaust characteristics, including a place for prayer, reluctantly, between 1933 and 1939, and Memorial Day, Prime Minister interactive elements, factual information, and in particular during the last 18 months of David Cameron announced that the details on Britain’s efforts during the Shoah’. peace, between the annexation of Austria by OUK Holocaust Memorial would be located in The factual information will presumably be Germany in March 1938 (the Anschluss) and Victoria Tower Gardens, next to the Houses housed in the learning centre and, again the outbreak of war. Britain was exceptional of Parliament in Westminster. The memorial presumably, within the framework of an among the countries of the world in that the is to be built by the end of 2017 and number of Jews from the Reich that it plans for ‘an associated world-class admitted increased from about 2,000 a learning centre’ will be announced year between 1933 and 1938 to about shortly. The report of the Holocaust 3,000 a month between March 1938 Commission, published last year, and September 1939 – precisely the recommended ‘a focus on promoting period during which other countries and furthering Holocaust education were closing their doors to fleeing Jews. and a programme to record and preserve Among the territories that closed their the testimony of Holocaust survivors’. doors was Palestine, then administered Testimony will be integral to the by Britain under a League of Nations curation of the centre, though it is late mandate. in the day for interviewing survivors of The refugees who were admitted to Nazi persecution. The announcement Britain did not fall victim to the Nazis, also largely begs the questions: what unlike those who had sought refuge in precisely will be memorialised and what Victoria Tower Gardens, Westminster other European countries subsequently will be the aim(s) and content of the occupied by the Germans. In those learning centre? overall history of the Holocaust. But if the countries, such Jewish communities as Taking the memorial first, the obvious UK Holocaust Memorial is truly to fulfil its existed after the war were largely composed of problem is that the Holocaust did not take purpose it can surely do so only if it has a camp survivors and those who had survived place in Britain, which was never occupied specifically British dimension, recording the in hiding or by virtue of special protection. by the Nazis, excepting only the Channel particular historical role that Britain played Holocaust survivors, arriving after 1945, also Islands. It is entirely appropriate that formerly with reference to the Jews of Europe in the occupied a more prominent place than did occupied countries like France, from where years after 1933. All that has so far been pre-war refugees in those countries outside Jews were deported to the death camps outlined in this respect is the vaguely phrased Europe that admitted numbers of Jews after in their thousands, should commemorate intention to include ‘details on Britain’s the war, most obviously Israel and the USA. those events through such institutions as the efforts during the Shoah’. But Britain, like By contrast, the number of Jews who came Mémorial de la Shoah in Paris. Germany and the USA, undertook virtually no operations to Britain from Europe after the war, the Austria, as successor states to the Third Reich, during the war, and therefore during the great majority of them Holocaust survivors, also owe it to the victims of the Holocaust Shoah, designed specifically to attack the was quite small, very considerably smaller to erect monuments and museums in their death camps or otherwise to impede or than the number of pre-war refugees. After memory, as they have done in Berlin and destroy the Nazi machinery of extermination. 1945, the British government allowed in Vienna. Outside the occupied countries of Britain also made little effort to rescue Jews only a relatively small number of Jewish child Europe, institutions rightly exist in countries from occupied Europe after it had declared survivors, most famously the group of several that have a special relationship to the Jewish war on Germany in September 1939. hundred known as ‘The Boys’ and a limited people, most obviously Yad Vashem in This highlights the unusual nature number of adults with family connections to Jerusalem and the United States Holocaust of Britain’s contribution to the saving of Britain, under the Distressed Persons Scheme Museum in Washington DC. It is greatly Jews between 1933 and 1945. Britain’s that was announced in autumn 1945. to be hoped that the UK memorial will be principal efforts on behalf of the Jews in Among the countries that admitted more than a pallid replica of these, worthy fact occurred before the war, and therefore substantial numbers of Jews in the decade in sentiment but lacking their focus and before the Shoah, which historians usually and a half after 1933, Britain was exceptional their natural connection to the events that date as occurring between 1941, following in this respect: the Jewish victims of unfolded in mainland Europe under Nazi the invasion of the Soviet Union, and Nazi persecution who settled here were rule. The design of the memorial will be put the end of the war in 1945. The special predominantly refugees, not camp survivors. out to tender. British dimension to the rescue of the Jews In the areas in Britain where Jews displaced The memorial, we were informed a year of Europe, on which the UK Holocaust by Hitler settled in large numbers, principally ago, will ‘ensure that the memory of the Memorial should in the interests of historical north-west London, the social culture Holocaust is preserved and that the lessons accuracy focus, is dominated by the large was heavily influenced by refugees from it teaches are never forgotten’; it and the number of pre-war refugees admitted Germany, Austria and Czechoslovakia who learning centre ‘will have a number of key by the British government, if sometimes continued on page 2 journal APRIL 2016 The UK Holocaust Memorial continued had arrived before September 1939, not by those who came after 1945. The great names associated in the public mind with the victims of Nazism are in Britain’s case almost exclusively pre-war refugees, from KINDERTRANSPORT EVENT Karl Popper to Max Perutz, from George Weidenfeld to Judith Kerr, from Anton FRIDAY 1st JULY 2016 Walbrook to Ernst Gombrich. It is surely Sadly we have had to cancel our planned five day trip to Europe to visit some of the essential that any memorial established in the commemorative statues and to mark the journeys of the Kinder from 77 years ago. UK to the victims of Nazism should reflect As this trip was supposed to culminate with a ferry crossing from the Hook of Holland this. No one would deny that the victims to Harwich, we would be delighted if you could instead join us for a special day trip and survivors of the Holocaust are uniquely and Service of Remembrance in Harwich on Friday 1st July. deserving of commemoration, a function that the UK Holocaust Memorial will doubtless As part of this event there will be a special train journey from Harwich to Liverpool Street Station. fulfil. That function should, in all equity, not obscure the story of the pre-war refugees Please see separate box below for additional information concerning events in Harwich. from Nazism, a story that is of such particular AJR will arrange transport from London to Harwich on the morning of Friday 1st July historical significance to Britain. The overarching narrative of any memorial Please register your interest by calling to the Holocaust must be the attempted Susan Harrod on 020 8385 3070 or email [email protected] extermination of the Jewish people in the Nazi death camps, in the mass shootings carried out by the Einsatzkommandos, and the nature of their relations with the host have made to British society includes not only by a multitude of other means. Without community in the post-war years of their that of the high achievers whose names have wishing to establish a hierarchy of suffering, settlement in Britain. One thinks here of the adorned almost every field of endeavour in it is plain that the experience of those who ‘anti-alien’ petition mounted in the London Britain over the past 70 years, but also that survived the Holocaust in Nazi-controlled Borough of Hampstead in autumn 1945 of the mass of ‘ordinary’ refugees who have Europe is qualitatively different from which demanded, but failed to achieve, the so greatly enriched the culture and society of that of other groups of victims of Nazi repatriation of the refugees to their native their adopted homeland, in the face of every persecution. It is to be hoped that the UK countries, ostensibly in order to free up obstacle and setback. We can only wish those Holocaust Memorial will strike the delicate accommodation for ‘British’ people. One also responsible for planning the UK Holocaust balance between that overarching narrative thinks of the process of naturalisation which, Memorial well in their efforts to achieve their and the specifically British dimension to after a slow start in 1946, saw the granting objectives. the events of 1933-45. A British narrative of British citizenship to tens of thousands Anthony Grenville would encompass the Kindertransport of Jewish refugees by 1950. The story of the children, the many thousands of Jews, contribution that the refugees from Hitler mostly women, who came on domestic ADVANCE NOTICE • ADVANCE NOTICE service permits, and the 4,500 men, so- Day Trip called ‘transmigrants’, accommodated at Kitchener Camp in Kent, often after being by Special Train: released from German concentration camps.

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