In the 1930s, as Jews faced growing persecution in Germany and anti-Semitic laws proliferated in Central and Eastern Europe, the outside world was mostly indifferent to the victims’ fate. Europe’s response to today’s destitute migrants – many from countries torn apart by extremism and civil war – shows that it can happen again.
ROME – Stories of migrant-laden ships sinking in the Mediterranean while trying to reach the shores of Europe, and of refugees dying at Calais while trying to enter Britain through the Eurotunnel, have lately become ubiquitous in Europe. This ongoing crisis should remind us of a painful, and shameful, episode of recent history: the rejection faced by European Jews seeking refuge from the anti-Semitic fury that raged across Europe in the 1930s. Today’s refugees should remind us, too, of those Jews who, having survived the Holocaust, sailed across the Mediterranean toward Palestine in 1946-1947 only to be imprisoned by the British in Cyprus or elsewhere.
ROME – Stories of migrant-laden ships sinking in the Mediterranean while trying to reach the shores of Europe, and of refugees dying at Calais while trying to enter Britain through the Eurotunnel, have lately become ubiquitous in Europe. This ongoing crisis should remind us of a painful, and shameful, episode of recent history: the rejection faced by European Jews seeking refuge from the anti-Semitic fury that raged across Europe in the 1930s. Today’s refugees should remind us, too, of those Jews who, having survived the Holocaust, sailed across the Mediterranean toward Palestine in 1946-1947 only to be imprisoned by the British in Cyprus or elsewhere.