Skip to main content
PBS logo
 
 

Book Reviews of ...And the Policeman Smiled: 10,000 Children Escape from Nazi Europe

...And the Policeman Smiled: 10,000 Children Escape from Nazi Europe
And the Policeman Smiled 10000 Children Escape from Nazi Europe
Author: Barry Turner
ISBN-13: 9780747506201
ISBN-10: 0747506205
Publication Date: 6/28/1990
Pages: 224
Rating:
  • Currently 4/5 Stars.
 1

4 stars, based on 1 rating
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing PLC
Book Type: Hardcover
Reviews: Amazon | Write a Review

Book Reviews submitted by our Members...sorted by voted most helpful

hardtack avatar reviewed ...And the Policeman Smiled: 10,000 Children Escape from Nazi Europe on + 2701 more book reviews
This book describes the benefits and problems with bringing so many children to a free country without their parents. Frankly, it is heart rendering enough to read about parents sending their children off, knowing they may never see them again, but doing so to save their children's lives.

But then we read how many in Britain placed stumbling blocks in the way to prevent more children coming and then treating them differently than British children.

As a result, it often depended on a child "lucking out" with a good foster home as to whether that child made the transition successfully. The problems were enormous, and quite frankly, not limited to Britain. If you remember your history, a liner full of Jewish refugees sailed the Atlantic looking for a place of refuge, and even the United States refused them. The liner eventually returned to Germany and the refugees to their deaths.

Historians still argue as to whether the democratic countries knew what was in store for the Jews.

And so many of the people involved had their own agendas. Even some orthodox rabbis seemed to feel it was better for a Jewish child to die than to be 'seduced' to Christianity by living in a Christian home.

A sad tale forgotten by most due to the tens of millions of other sad tales in the European 'battleground' of the 1930s-40s.