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We Built Up Our Lives Education and Community among Jewish Refugees Interned by Britain in World War II

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Maxine Schwartz Seller

Book Code: GM1815

ISBN: 0-313-31815-8

ISBN-13: 978-0-313-31815-3

DOI:

272 pages, photos

Greenwood Press

Publication: 8/30/2001

List Price: $115.00 (UK Sterling Price: £65.00)

Availability: Out of stock

Media Type: Hardcover

Trim Size: 6 1/8 x 9 1/4

Subjects:

Series Title: Contributions to the Study of World History

Series Number: 92

Reviews:

We Built Up Our Lives is an interesting contribution to the still limited, but growing scholarship on experiences of refugees, exiles, displaced persons, prisoners and internees of many different ethnic groups during and immediately after World War 2. The group that Schwartz Seller focuses her research on is unique both in its composition and circumstances surrounding its emigration from Germany and sojourn in Great Britain and her dominions....Schwartz Seller's work is admirably disciplined in its account and analysis. Its style is lively, and her numerous individual stories help to bring the internee experience to life, making the book accessible to both scholary and popular audiences.
—International Migration Review 2003

We Built Up Our Lives is a well-written, highly readable book.
—Ethnic and Racial Studies May 2003

...should prove useful to those working on the history of ethnicity in Britain, while the use of oral testimony makes it interesting reading.

—History January 2003

Description: Fearing an imminent Nazi invasion, the British government interned 28,000 men and women of "enemy" nationality living in Britain in the spring of 1940. Most were Jewish refugees who, having fled Nazi persecution, were appalled to find themselves imprisoned as potential Nazi spies. Using oral histories, unpublished letters and memoirs, artifacts and newspapers from the camps, and government documents, We Built Up Our Lives tells the compelling story of sixty-three of these internees. It is a seldom-told part of the history of World War II and the Holocaust and a classic tale of human courage and resilience. We Built Up Our Lives describes the survival mechanisms relied upon by the Jewish refugees. Although the internees, imprisoned in Britain, the Isle of Man, Canada, and Australia, were adequately housed and fed and rarely mistreated, they were cut off from family, friends, school, and work--everything that had given meaning to their lives. Resisting boredom, anger, and despair, the internees made the best of a bad situation by creating education, culture, and community within the camps. Before and after as well as during the internment--in Nazi Germany and in Britain--educational resources and social networks were essential to the refugees' efforts to "build up" their lives. Equally important were personal qualities of courage, ingenuity, assertiveness, and resilience.

Table of Contents:

Introduction
"We Had to Go"--Life in the Third Reich
From Refugees to Internees
Making the Best of It
Community and Culture
Education in the Men's Camps
Education in the Women's Camp
Getting Out and Looking Back
Bibliography
Index

LC Card Number: 2001023340

LCC Class: DS135

Dewey Class: 941


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