I’m hoping someone investigates her claims about her husband’s family background.
Wouldn’t surprise me in the slightest if once again, another Tory politician is outright lying in order to manufacture outrage.
1 Like
Went to Berlin a few years ago. The memorials and stories are heartbreaking.
1 Like
I can think of a few other genocides…
3 Likes
It’s not me making the point, it’s those that see the point of Holocaust remembrance is that it should never happen again.
Maybe it’s worth reading on about what actually went on at the time and seeing that there are some worrying similarities to what is happening now:
3 Likes
Great, let’s play genocide top trumps.
It should never be forgotten. Just don’t use it to win an argument.
As per usual, you’re just completely missing the point.
What difference does it make that Hitler was the one pulling the trigger, if the UK was wilfully denying refuge to people who needed it?
@Rambler big deal, coincidentally, the UK wasn’t actually at any point conquered by the German regime.
I wonder how much the both of you know about British anti-Semitism in the interwar period?
4 Likes
I’m not using it to win an argument. Read the articles from the Wiener Library and you will see what they are actually about. They aren’t sitting around feeling sorry for themselves. If they are making comparisons to the Holocaust they aren’t trying to win some trivial argument in a sixth-form debating society. They are concerned that the events of the 1930s are repeating themselves.
5 Likes
Pls read this thread…
“But let me also remind everyone of this: those crimes did not start with concentration camps—that is where they ended.”
10 Likes
I have to say that having studied history, I find this comparison quite bad. You cannot and should never, compare the UK not handing over citizens to an enemy they were at war with, to a conquered country doing so. It makes no sense to compare and it looks a bit disingenious. I also don’t understand the reluctance to admit that the Uk turned back Jewish refugees, as this is a very known historical fact and I don¨t understand that it is controversial.
There is one country that managed to resist Hitler’s demands while being technically allied to Nazi-Germany (for reasons), and that is Finland (https://www.yadvashem.org/odot_pdf/Microsoft%20Word%20-%205852.pdf ), where Mannerheim’s government flatly refused every overture from Berlin to do so and it is historically note worthy. It is frankly obvious and it would have been utterly bizarre, if the UK had handed over Jews to an enemy state and I am surprised you are trying to make that into a point (it really isn’t) as I always find you a very reasonable man otherwise.
Further on to ther point above, the jews of Paris were not even citizens of the Vichy-regime (limited self-rule French collaboralist regime), but of the Zone of German Military Administration. It is wrong to pretend that there was some sort of French rule there.
6 Likes
I had a quick look and couldn’t find much other than a comment saying he was born in the UK. I don’t know if that’s accurate. He works for Mercedes.
If her comments are true about her husband’s background it’s a bizarre position to find yourself instigating those policies. Strange at the very least.
Without question the single most stupid comment I’ve ever read on this or any other forum. To call it idiotic is to insult idiots.
Are you 12 or just utterly unaware of history? Or so blinded by your hatred of, what was it, Modern Conservatives that you’ll spout any level of effluent to justify your position?
I meant in general, not you specifically.
1 Like
You don’t read your own posts, I presume.
Go ahead, tell me what’s so wrong about that statement? You’re using it to deny any responsibility on the part of the country that turned away these refugees.
You actually need this explaining to you? I’m at a loss. If you don’t (or won’t) see what’s so fundamentally deranged about your statement then I can’t (and won’t) help you.
Does that stop your comment being deranged? Or make it my fault for not explaining the lunacy of your stance?
Think on.
I’d almost think you were verging on defending Hitler here. Our fault not his? Really? Fuck me……
Concerning the British Refugee Policy pre-war and during war in regards to Jews, it is not as black and white as some describe it here. It is also difficult to say how big a role anti semitism played.
Like @RedWhippet said above, there was the lingering feeling of shame in Britian post-war for a reason, since relatively few who wanted to flee to Britain (as compared to the number who needed a safe haven) were admitted, however many Jews did in fact manage to flee to Britain and were generally treateed well (I met a nice old jewish lady on a forum who fled to Britain from Germany as a very young child, and she could never stop with ushering praise upon Britain as an example).
I’ll just again use Yad Vashem as a source since it is easier than combining several sources into a post (though this stuff is all things I have in my head anyway, so I am just googling a source to “legitimise” my knowledge):
Extract:
Britain’s response to Jewish refugees fleeing the Nazis also evolved before
and during the war. Soon after Hitler rose to national power in Germany in
January 1933, thousands of Jewish and non-Jewish refugees flocked to Great
Britain, which had a longstanding tradition of admitting those in need of a safe
haven. However, the British government made it rather difficult for refugees to
enter. Based on the country’s immigration laws of 1919, no distinction was
made between the refugees and other immigrants to Britain, so the refugees
were not granted any special treatment due to their special situation. Those
that were allowed in were only accepted on a temporary basis.
- The British public was quite sympathetic to the refugees, as were the Jews*
of Britain, who quickly began establishing refugee aid organizations, such as
the Jewish Refugee Committee. In April 1933 the committee’s director, Otto
Schiff, and the chairmen of the Board of Deputies of British Jews, Neville
Laski and Leonard Montefiore, met with British government authorities; they
promised them that the Jewish community would provide financial support for
every Jewish refugee that entered Britain, and that no refugee would become
a burden on the government. In fact, until the end of 1939, British Jewish
organizations fully supported the thousands of Jewish refugees that entered
Britain, with money, housing, education, job training, and help with further
emigration. - After the Kristallnacht pogrom took place in Germany in November 1938,*
pro-refugee groups and certain members of Parliament put a lot of pressure
on the government to change its immigration policy for refugees, and in fact,
unlike other countries at that time, Britain eased its immigration regulations. In
all, more than 80,000 Jewish refugees reached Britain by September 1939.
However, when World War II broke out, Britain banned all emigration from
__________________________________________________________________________
3/3 Shoah Resource Center, The International School for Holocaust Studies
Nazi-controlled territories. Throughout the rest of the war, only some 10,000
Jewish refugees managed to find their way into Britain. In addition, the British
White Paper of 1939 further limited European Jewry’s chances of finding
refuge in that it restricted Jewish immigration to Palestine, which was under
the control of the British Mandate authorities. - For the lucky Jews who had successfully reached Britain before it closed its*
doors at the beginning of the war, life was not easy. Many highly educated
people could only find work as domestics. After Germany invaded and
conquered several Northern and Western European countries in mid-1940,
the British public began to panic. Fearing that anyone with a German accent
might be a spy, the British government began imprisoning Germans and
Austrians who had settled in Britain, calling them “enemy aliens.” This
included Jewish refugees from Nazi-occupied Germany and Austria. About
30,000 were interned in camps in Britain itself (where in some cases Jews
and pro-Nazi Germans were put together), while 8,000 were deported to
Canada and Australia (some of whom died when their ships were hit by
torpedoes). As the threat of a German invasion passed, the prisoners were
released and some of the deportees were returned to Britain. - From 1942 on, the British government knew about the Germans’ execution*
of the “Final solution”" However, after winning the war, Britain still did not open
the gates of immigration to Palestine, and physically turned away thousands
of Holocaust survivors who wanted to make a fresh start in a Jewish
homeland. Only after the Jews in Palestine rebelled against the British
Mandatory authorities did the British give up their control over the region.
https://www.yadvashem.org/odot_pdf/Microsoft%20Word%20-%206312.pdf
4 Likes
I pretty much agree with all of that and I have no idea how it would have panned out in the UK if we had come under German occupation. However the french were undoubtedly complicit in the deportations. There is plenty of evidence to support that. We didn’t have the same history of anti semitism in the UK that was rife all over Europe pre war.
Only one part of Britain was occupied by the Nazis and their record is far from admirable:
Classic gish gallop.
I can’t argue against you so I’m just going to throw up loads of nonsense gibberish to avoid having to rebut your point, and just say that I win, not to mention wilfully mischaracterising my point along the way.
Classic orange man.
Oh for Christ’s sake don’t bring bloody sectarianism into this. Liverpool is and always has been an anti-sectarian club.