Abstract
ABSTRACTThis article analyses the life stories of female Jewish refugees and survivors in 1950s Britain in order to explore their relationship with the existing Jewish community and wider society. The paper is based on an analysis of twenty-one oral history testimonies from the Jewish survivors of the Holocaust collection held at the British library. Around 50,000 Jewish refugees from Central Europe came to Britain in the 1930s after fleeing from Hitler. In addition, a relatively small number of camp survivors and former hidden children settled in the country after the war; the Board of Deputies of British Jews Demographic Unit estimates the figure at 2000. This article considers how these refugee and survivor women tried to find a place for themselves within 1950s Britain. Looking at their experiences of arrival, work and home, it reflects upon the discrimination and hostility they faced, and they ways they tried to deal with this. Finally it discusses what this meant for their sense of belonging or ‘unbelonging’.
Highlights
In Imaging Home, in which she focused on the experience of non-Jewish women migrant workers from Europe and the former colonies, Wendy Webster reflected that, Unbelonging is a main theme in many women’s accounts of their arrival in Britain as migrant workers or as refugees
The paper is based on an analysis of twenty-one oral history testimonies from the Jewish survivors of the Holocaust collection held at the British library
This article has addressed questions of belonging and ‘unbelonging’ in oral history narratives of Jewish refugees and survivors about their lives in 1950s Britain. Through looking at their accounts of arrival, work and home, and identity it has shown while there were similarities in between their lives and British Jews, other migrant groups and women in
Summary
In Imaging Home, in which she focused on the experience of non-Jewish women migrant workers from Europe and the former colonies, Wendy Webster reflected that, Unbelonging is a main theme in many women’s accounts of their arrival in Britain as migrant workers or as refugees. Drawing on themes highlighted by Webster as demonstrating the exclusion of migrant women from constructions of home and nation in 1950s Britain – their accounts of arrival, and experiences of work and home – the article examines attitudes towards Jewish refugee women Throughout it reflects upon the discrimination and hostility they faced, both as Jewish women and foreigners, and the ways they tried to deal with this. This article will place the experiences of Jewish women in the context of indigenous women and other immigrant groups in order to see what was particular about the Jewish experience and what this tells us about 1950s Britain
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