Internment: the Sequel

VOLUME 7 NO.8 AUGUST 2007 Internment: the sequel he wartime internment of many sections of British opinion was expressed thousands of Jewish refugees by the by such champions of the refugees in TBritish govemment (see last month's parliament as Victor Cazalet, who called it issue of the AfRfoumat) proljably arouses 'this bespattered page of our history', Josiah more heated and divergent reactions than Wedgwood, and, above all, the tireless any other single event in the history of the Eleanor Rathbone. refugees in Britam. Since the 1980s, the facts This view of intenunent as ending in a about intemment have been made widely triumph of British liberalism is epitomised known by historical studies, such as those by Judith Kerr's semi-autobiographical of Peter and Leni Gillman and Ronald Stent, account of the intemment of her brother, the and are no longer the subject of much future Sir Michael Kerr, in her book The dispute. Instead, it is the conflicting views Other Way Around, the sequel to When of intemment that have taken centre stage Hitler Stole Pink Rabbit. The parents in the in more recent years. book, desperate to secure the release of their Even in the immediate aftermath of son, write to the editor of a newspaper that intemment, the judgments passed on it had published an article sympathetic to anti- Eleanor Rathbone MP, parliamentary varied greatly. Many of the younger champion of the refugees Nazi emigres. They are astonished to receive intemees - single men - soon came to recall a reply from the editor personally, inform the months spent on the Isle of Man almost 1960, the experience of intemment on the ing them that he had been so moved by their as a kind of enforced holiday to which they Isle of Man paled into insignificance when letter that he had passed it on to the Home became reconciled once they had compared to the Nazi camps: 'It was a great Secretary, who had promised to look into accustomed themselves to it. Older refugees, shock at the time. Now that we have lived their son's case immediately - and this as concemed about their families, found the through the perils of total war and have had newspaper headlines were ominously pro anxieties and fmstration of detention harder to bear the unspeakable horror of Hitler's claiming 'Invasion Barges Massing in to bear, some experienced serious mental Final Solution, this affair of our intemment Channel Ports'. With his son's release now crises. They found it far harder to put the seems trivial enough. Was it not rather assured, the father exclaims admiringly: experience of intemment behind them. ridiculous to take it as seriously as we did?' 'The English really are extraordinary. Here But in the post-war years the great More common among refugees was the they are, threatened with invasion at any majority of the refugees developed a view that intemment was a misconceived, moment, and yet the Home Secretary can find remarkably forgiving attitude to intemment, unjust and stupid measure taken in panic time to right an injustice to an unknown boy which went hand in hand with a strong and implemented inefficiently, but that who wasn't even bom here.' The injustice of sense of loyalty to Britain and of pride in events had soon caused the British inteming an innocent Cambridge student in their association with their adopted govenmient to reverse its policy and that the first place is forgivingly glossed over. homeland in its wartime defiance of Hitler. relatively little serious damage had been Other refugees retained a sense of severe Some refugees went so far as to defend done - even when the nation was fighting and lasting bittemess. Walter Eberstadt, intemment as an understandable measure for survival, British liberalism had who later served with distinction as an not incommensurate with the national reasserted itself. Many refugees had been officer in Normandy, was a student at emergency facing Britain in 1940; it was astounded to learn that the House of Oxford when he was intemed. Though he impossible for the British authorities to be Commons had debated intemment for nearly was impressed by the way in which the certain that there were no German spies six hours on 10 July 1940, with the Nazi govemment had been brought to abandon among the refugees, they argued, so the onslaught on Britain imminent, and debated an unjust policy, intenmient permanently unprecedented national emergency justified it again on 22 August 1940, as German coloured his view of Britain and contributed the intemment of them all. For Leo Kahn, bombs fell on London. The outraged to his post-war decision to emigrate to writing in AfR Information of September opposition to internment among liberal continued on page 2 AjRJOURhJAL AUGUST 2007 L\TKK.\.\IK.\T: the seciuel continued from page 1 America: 'Still, since intemment I have felt the view of Cesarani and Kushner, articles aimed at Jews from Eastern Europe, the different about the English. No doubt it was like Kahn's and Wiener's demonsfrated the intemment of 'enemy aliens' in the First and my fault that I had foolishly fancied that a refugees' reluctance to criticise British Second World Wars, the detention of Arab few years at public school and a year at policy, for fear of reawakening the suspects during the first Gulf War, and the Oxford had made me part of them.' slumbering forces of British antisemitism anti-terrorist measures adopted since 2001. The judgments passed on intemment by and xenophobia. Behind the complacent fiction of Britain as modern historians, often left-wing This arguably falls into the error of a generous haven for the persecuted, they academics strongly critical of British imposing the historical model of Anglo- perceive a series of illiberal and govemment policy, differ sharply from those Jewry onto the refugees from Central discriminatory measures taken against of the majority of the refugees, including Europe, a model dominated up to 1945 by 'alien' immigrants and minorities. most of the intemees themselves. When Anglo-Jewry's overriding fear of arousing Refugee commentators, by contrast, F. I. Wiener retumed in 1957 to Hutchinson antisemitism. Hailing mostly from Tsarist mostly saw intemment as a passing and Square, his place of intemment 17 years Russia, Anglo-Jewry had had little experi exceptional episode that was rapidly previously, he described his time there in ence of successful assimilation in its lands overtumed once public opinion had reverted an article in AfR Information with humour of origin, whereas the Jews in the German- to its traditional values; an underlying sense and affection, concluding: 'What has been speaking countries had known over a century of fair play and tolerance had, they believed, the final judgment on that time? Few were of gradually advancing integration; some of reasserted itself, overcoming the illiberal really hurt and deeply offended, most them maintained even after 1933 that prejudices that had led to the initial injustice. accepted intemment as a necessary evil, a Hitler's rise to power was an unaccountable Their view of Britain was conditioned by govemment screening operation. From this lapse into barbarism on the part of an other confidence in its democratic institutions point of view intemment on the Isle of Man wise highly civilised society. Consequently and trust in the basic decency and was just an inconvenience.' For this, he and they did not believe that gentile societies humanity of its people. Given the gulf Leo Kahn were accused by David Cesarani were irredeemably infected by vicious anti between these two views, it is hardly and Tony Kushner, editors of the volume of semitism - Britain less than most - and they surprising that the refugee historian Ralph essays The Intemment of Aliens in Twentieth were not prey to a consuming fear of it. Blumenau adopted a tone of mild Century Britain (1993), of 'sanitizing In reality, the underlying issue here was bafflement when reviewing Cesarani and intemment into a jolly jape'. not the rights and wrongs of intemment, hut Kushner's volume for AfR Information: The implication here was that the two contending views of Britain as a And yet it seems to this reviewer that there refugees had refused to face up to the tmth homeland to immigrant groups. Historians is something awry when the book makes about intemment, fearing to confront the like C«sarani and Kushner do not believe illiberalism and injustice so much more central than the idea, conveyed by so many Jewish ex- reality of their treatment by the British that intemment was a temporary aberration internees, that in the end they were more government. Carefully avoiding any serious from the mainstream of British liberalism. impressed by the liberalism and fairness which For them, it stood in an established tradition analysis of why the process had been ended their ordeal. This reviewer is inclined to instituted by the British state, the refugees of repressive hostility to small and align himself with the quotation in the book had deliberately refrained from any criticism defenceless minorities at times of war and from Lord Beloff: 'The reaction of the refugees of Britain and the British govemment. In crisis, exemplified by the Ahens Act of 1905 themselves proved considerably more understanding than that of the historians who ^msfjrt9s:s^'iiam&ws were not even bom at that time, or were infants then.' Seventy years of history Anthony Grenville In 1937-38 I was a pupil at the Jewish „ Wir lebten in einer Oase Girls' School in Wolfratshausen, near •^. ^ ^^^ des Friedens... Munich. This April I was invited back AJR Directors for an 'Oasis of Peace' exhibition Gordon Greenfield organised there.

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