Internment and Deportation

Abstract

The war transformed the work of the voluntary organisations. All visas granted prior to 3 September 1939 to what had now become ‘enemy’ nationals were automatically invalid. No new immigration applications would be considered. Besides the almost insuperable difficulties of establishing contact, it was necessary to proceed with the utmost caution for fear that enemy agents might infiltrate as ‘refugees’. Immigration was restricted to those who had close relatives in Britain and had reached neutral or friendly countries, refugees in neutral countries who had possessed visas prior to the war and refugees proceeding to overseas destinations from neutral territory via Britain.1 Until 1943, therefore, the work of the GJAC (which reverted to its original title, the Jewish Refugees Committee) and the CGJ, now renamed the Central Council for Jewish Refugees (CCJR), was almost entirely restricted to refugees already in Britain. Among the few exceptions were several hundred refugees, holding United States visas, who escaped to Britain after the fall of the Low Countries and France in May and June 1940.2 During this period, certainly until late 1941, the Anglo-Jewish community was primarily concerned with internal problems: internment of refugees, growing anti-Semitism and evacuation following the threat of air-raids.