Product Description

Whitehall and the Jews is the most comprehensive study to date of the British response to the plight of European Jewry under Nazism. It contains the definitive account of immigration controls on the admission of refugee Jews, and reveals the doubts and dissent that lay behind British policy. British self-interest consistently limited humanitarian aid to Jews. Refuge was severely restricted during the Holocaust, and little attempt made to save lives, although individual intervention did prompt some admissions on a purely humanitarian basis. After the war, the British government delayed announcing whether refugees would obtain permanent residence, reflecting the government’s aim of avoiding long-term responsibility for large numbers of homeless Jews. The balance of state self-interest against humanitarian concern in refugee policy is an abiding theme of Whitehall and the Jews, one of the most important contributions to the understanding of the Holocaust and Britain yet published.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #650114 in Books
• Published on: 2000-03-13
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Hardcover
• 332 pages

Review
‘ … impeccably balanced … Louise London’s book should be compulsory reading in Whitehall today.’ David Cesarani, Times Literary Supplement

‘Louise London’s admirable book makes for disturbing reading.’ Julia Pascal, The Independent

‘ An important new book by Louise London … based on the cold, indisputable evidence of documents from the Public Records Office, punctures some of the myths about Britain’s supposedly blameless past for tolerance and hospitality towards refugees.’ Donald Macintyre, The Independent

‘ … a scholarly tour de force … Louise London brilliantly shows how government contrives to manage its policies with the least interference from others, especially international organisations and the public.’ Jewish Chronicle

‘ … remarkably balanced and authoritative … this work … present[s] the Jewish issue in its rich historical context - a goal of every historian, but one that is seldom realized with the skill, insight and sensitivity displayed here.’ Michael R. Marrus, University of Toronto

‘With encyclopedic knowledge and utter precision LouisE London has given us the most detailed account of British policy toward Jewish refugees and escapees from Nazi domination.’ Raul Hilberg, Professor, University of Vermont

‘This is … the most comprehensive study to date of the british response to the plight of Europe’s Jews from the rise of Hitler to the immediate postwar years.’ The Hamstead and Highgate Express

‘… this book certainly adds to the topic and should be used as an example by others seeking to write the history of groups that migrated to Britain.’ Sean Kelly, Reviews in History

‘Whitehall and the Jews makes a number of important contributions to the literature on this subject … Understanding how and why certain policy decisions are made necessitates doing what Louise London has so successfully done here - stepping into the shoes of policy-makers.’ Liza Schuster, Ethnic and Racial Studies

‘… after reading Dr London’s irrefutable conclusions, one is left wondering how many more might have been saved had there existed, in Whitehall, the genuine political will to save them.’ Immigrants and Minorities

‘With all … previous work that has been undertaken on the entry of Jewish refugees, the question of whether another book on this topic is needed, has to be addressed. the simplest way. To answer this query is to ask whether London's work adds anything new to the topic. The answer is undoubtedly ‘yes’. She goes beyond the sources that have been previously utilized, and opens up new areas of interest, as well as presenting a well-developed and supported argument.’ Reviews in History

Customer Reviews

A book marred by ahistorical judgements.
Louise London's survey of the British Governments' attitude towards the Jewish refugees, 1933-48, ostensibly is a highly creditable attempt to synthesise a select portion of the thousands of memorandums produced by Whitehall to form her account. Unfortunately, her work is fundamentally flawed by a refusal, like many other Holocaust Historians dealing with related areas of British response, to dis-band all hindsight and form proper historical judgements based on what was known, and realistically possible at the time. Therefore, London's contention that the British government was dogged by self interest and caution is seen from the comfortable vantage point of the present, as opposed to what could actually have been achieved then. If one takes her chapter on visa imposition for instance Dr. London feels it more appropriate to knit together a few offical statements which could easily be construed as negative and cautious rather than seeing the broader picture. That is, that after November 1938 the government dramatically liberalised its policy towards the Jews. She does not seem to appreciate the magnitude of the fact that 70% of Germany's Jews came to Britain after this time, in the aftermath of Kristallnacht. As for the British record in war-time, before reading this book turn to W.D. Rubinstein's Myth of Rescue:Why the Democracies could not have saved more Jews from the Nazis. Here you will find a more sensible well-balanced and most importantly, forsaken of all post-holocaust lenses approach. Scholarly dealing with the Holocaust, and the response of the British demands objectivity and a degree of empathy. As far as London's book is concerned, she neglects the latter. Also, more emphasis should have been placed on the role of the British Consular Officials who were in the lion's den that was Nazi Germany, and who held the critical role of facilitating their departure, and of the actions of the British Government in making this a more efficent and far-reaching endeavour. Given the fact that she only donates two pages to this area, there is a major hole which, in a book so wide-ranging, should almost certainly have been filled.