...And the Policeman Smiled: 10,000 Children Escape from Nazi Europe
Author:
Genre: History
Book Type: Hardcover
Author:
Genre: History
Book Type: Hardcover
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.
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.
