Post-Holocaust Politics: Britain, the United States, and Jewish Refugees, 1945-1948

by Arieh J. Kochavi

Overview

Between 1945 and 1948, more than a quarter of a million Jews fled countries in Eastern Europe and the Balkans and began filling hastily erected displaced persons camps in Germany and Austria. As one of the victorious Allies, Britain had to help find a solution for the vast majority of these refugees who refused repatriation. Drawing on extensive research in British, American, and Israeli archives, Arieh Kochavi presents a comprehensive analysis of British policy toward Jewish displaced persons and reveals the crucial role the United States played in undermining that policy.

Kochavi argues that political concerns--not human considerations--determined British policy regarding the refugees. Anxious to secure its interests in the Middle East, Britain feared its relations with Arab nations would suffer if it appeared to be too lax in thwarting Zionist efforts to bring Jewish Holocaust survivors to Palestine. In the United States, however, the American Jewish community was able to influence presidential policy by making its vote hinge on a solution to the displaced persons problem. Setting his analysis against the backdrop of the escalating Cold War, Kochavi reveals how, ironically, the Kremlin as well as the White House came to support the Zionists' goals, albeit for entirely different reasons.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780807875094
Publisher:	The University of North Carolina Press
Publication date:	01/14/2003
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	400
File size:	4 MB

About the Author

Arieh J. Kochavi is professor of history at the University of Haifa in Israel. He is author of Prelude to Nuremburg: Allied War Crimes Policy and the Question of Punishment.

Read an Excerpt

Ostensibly Britain came out of World War II with its empire and its political prominence in the international arena intact. But the war had exacted a heavy toll from the country's population and left its economy much weakened. More than 265,000 British soldiers had fallen in battle and about 90,000 civilians had been killed, two-thirds in German air raids. The war had cost Britain about one-quarter of its national wealth, and one-third of its merchant fleet had gone down. From œ476 million in August 1939 London's foreign debt increased sevenfold to œ3,300 million in June 1945. When the Conservative Party lost the general elections in July, the task of coping with this difficult economic situation fell to Labour.[1] For the next three years, until the implementation of the Marshall Plan in mid-1948, government policies were dictated to a large extent by the harsh reality the war had bequeathed to the country. That is, while London remained determined to play a significant role in shaping the postwar world, Whitehall gradually came to recognize that Great Power pretensions were a thing of the past, and the government began seeking ways of reducing overseas spending by, among other things, withdrawing British troops from abroad. Still, during the fiscal year 1946-47 Britain spent 18.8 percent of its national income on defense—overseas defense commitments more or less equaled the budgetary deficit for that year, as 457 million people in different parts of the globe were under British rule in 1945.[2]

In the postwar years, Britain also bore the brunt of checking Soviet expansionist ambitions. Not only had Russia taken over Rumania, Bulgaria, Poland, Hungary, Czechoslovakia, and parts of Germany and Austria, but it was also striving to dominate events in Greece and Turkey, and Soviet soldiers were stationed in northern Iran. Assessing the new international situation this created, Foreign Secretary Ernest Bevin concluded that Moscow sought the decline of the British Empire and was bent on replacing Britain in the areas it might evacuate. American cooperation was crucial for the British; without the support of the Americans, Britain's impact on the foundation of the postwar world would be critically reduced. But already a chill lay over its relations with Washington which made disagreements during the first few months after the war over a policy toward the Soviet Union inevitable.[3]

For the Americans, this attitude stemmed to a large extent from their long-standing misgivings vis-á-vis Britain's imperialist ambitions and their aversion to the Labour Party's socialist tendencies. The British ambassador to the United States, Lord Halifax, highlighted the warnings U.S. financial and business circles were sounding to the effect that "America should beware of countenancing any proposal to grant extensive credits to Britain, which would be likely to employ them to underwrite state Socialism," and added: Whenever they find reason to complain of our actions, Americans do not fail to apply to us a number of ugly catchwords that owe much of their origin to the traditional mistrust of British policies and to the above-mentioned sense of rivalry, e.g., balance of power, sphere of influence, reactionary imperialist trends, colonial oppression, old-world guile, diplomatic double-talk, Uncle Sam the Santa Claus and sucker, and the like. Anti-British outbursts are as a rule the result of the propensity of Americans to oversimplify vexatious issues which lie beyond their immediate ken.[4]

Washington's priorities and objectives right after the war differed greatly from those of London. The Americans regarded the Pacific Ocean and East Asia, especially China, Japan, and Korea, as their sphere of influence, while they wanted to cut back their involvement in Europe as quickly as possible. Already at the Yalta Conference (4-11 February 1945), President Franklin D. Roosevelt had declared that Congress would not support the stationing of American forces in Europe for more than another two years. The Americans placed great hopes in the new United Nations Organization (UNO), set up especially to help resolve international disputes, and, to ensure its participation in the new body, were ready to accommodate the Soviet Union on a variety of points, including giving the USSR three votes instead of one.

President Harry S. Truman at first continued the policies of his predecessor. Thus in mid-June 1945 he refused, as Prime Minister Winston S. Churchill was urging, to keep Anglo-American forces about one hundred miles inside the Russian zone in Germany so long as Joseph Stalin had not acceded to various Western requests. Neither did Truman consult with Churchill before he informed Moscow that the United States had no territorial ambitions or ulterior motives in countries in East Europe, the Baltic republics, and the Balkans. Washington, furthermore, allowed the Soviets a free hand in Poland in exchange for their acceptance of a plan the Americans had introduced for voting procedures in the UN Security Council. Truman was aware of Stalin's fears that Anglo-American cooperation could be directed against the Soviets and wanted to dispel Russian suspicions. For example, only a few weeks after the war, the president dismantled the Supreme Headquarters Allied Expeditionary Force (SHAEF) and declined an invitation from Churchill to stop over in London on the way to the Potsdam Conference. In many respects, the Americans played the role of mediator between Britain and the Soviet Union, a position first adopted by Roosevelt when he met with Stalin in Teheran (28 November-1 December 1943).

Table of Contents

Preface
Abbreviations and Acronyms

Introduction

Part I. Confronting the Jewish Displaced Persons
1. Nonrepatriable Displaced Persons in Germany
A Temporary Problem?
Polish Displaced Persons Pressure the Western Powers
Resettlement Options
2. Jewish Displaced Persons in British Occupation Zones
"Like All Others"
"Infiltrators" from the East
Withholding Food Rations
Separating German Jews from Jewish Displaced Persons
3. Countering Illegal Immigration
Debating a Policy
Deportations to Cyprus
Deportations Back to Ports of Embarkation?
Ending the Mandate

Part II. American Opposition
4. Jewish Displaced Persons and American Policy-making
The Harrison Report
Eisenhower Reacts
5. Conflicting Attitudes
Truman Intervenes
Anglo-American Negotiations
Further Discords
Respite for Whitehall
Swayed by Electoral Considerations
6. American Occupation Zones Offer Asylum
An Open Gate Policy
Failing to Seal the Borders
Change of Policy?
Washington and "Illegal Sailings"

Part III. The Soviet Bloc
7. The Flight from Poland
Polish Jews in the Aftermath of the War
Phase One: Summer and Winter of 1945-1946
Behind the Scenes: Moscow's Role
The Anglo-American Committee Visits Poland
Phase Two: Summer of 1946
8. Czechoslovakia and Hungary: Countries of Transit
Czechoslovakia: Between Poland and Germany
Hungary: Between Rumania and Austria
9. The Balkans: Ports to Palestine
Rumania: The Main Thrust
Yugoslavia: Interim Sailing Base
The Hunger Flight
Bulgaria: Final Sailing Base
With Moscow's Blessings

Part IV. Italy and France: Delaying Tactics
10. Italy: Contrary Maneuvers
The La Spezia Episode
UNRRA and the JDC
Confounding British Strategies
11. France: Manipulations
Asylum for Jewish Refugees
Quai d'Orsay vs. the Interior Ministry
The Exodus Affair

Conclusion

Notes
Bibliography
Index

What People are Saying About This

From the Publisher

Meticulously researched and elegantly written.—Shofar

Provides a detailed and nuanced analysis of the larger political landscape and shows how converging priorities among Americans, Zionists, and Europeans on both sides of the iron curtain—albeit for distinct reasons—allowed and even encouraged illegal Jewish immigration to Palestine after World War II.—Albion

Kochavi's relatively uncomplicated narrative will appeal to a general audience interested in the story of the displaced persons, the postwar diplomacy of the great powers, and the creation of the state of Israel.—Henry Friedlander, author of The Origins of Nazi Genocide: From Euthanasia to the Final Solution

[An] admirable, ground-breaking work.—Studies in Contemporary Jewry

A valuable study of the mass exodus of Jews from East Central Europe after World War II.—New York Review of Books

A perceptive and intelligent assessment of British policy in a complicated multinational context, as well as a comparative analysis of the policies of Britain, the United States, the Soviet Union, and several other states. . . . An important window on the complicated diplomacy surrounding the international origins of Israeli statehood.—Journal of American History

Skillfully demonstrates—while paying meticulous attention to the voluminous historical evidence he has unearthed—that for the British, humanitarian considerations were eclipsed by political and pragmatic calculations. . . . A major contribution to our understanding of how the DP issue and the Zionist's manipulation of it helped undermine the British policy in the Middle East.—Holocaust and Genocide Studies

This important new study illustrates how postwar British foreign policy was designed and pursued to prevent Jewish survivors of the Holocaust from emigrating from Europe to Palestine. With admirable industry and considerable skill, Professor Kochavi has unearthed and explored a mass of new information on the often-frantic but well-organized, heavily subsidized, and internationally supported efforts by Holocaust survivors to flee Europe for a new life in the Middle East. Kochavi's study makes several important contributions to postwar international history, to our understanding of the imperial agendas of British Conservative and Labour governments during and after the war, and to the international context and national policies that prolonged the suffering and despair of the surviving Jewish victims of the Holocaust. This book fits comfortably among the most important and interesting works in this field.—Charles W. Sydnor Jr., author of Soldiers of Destruction: The SS Death's Head Division, 1933-1945

Kochavi provides one of the most complete assessments yet of why, for the Jews, liberation was not the same thing as redemption.—Choice

[Kochavi] examines the history of the displaced persons problem in the widest context so far. . . . Kochavi's excellent account is the most comprehensive study so far.—American Jewish History

Editorial Reviews

Kochavi's relatively uncomplicated narrative will appeal to a general audience interested in the story of the displaced persons, the postwar diplomacy of the great powers, and the creation of the state of Israel.

Henry Friedlander

This important new study illustrates how postwar British foreign policy was designed and pursued to prevent Jewish survivors of the Holocaust from emigrating from Europe to Palestine.

Charles W. Sydnor Jr.

"Skillfully demonstrates—while paying meticulous attention to the voluminous historical evidence he has unearthed—that for the British, humanitarian considerations were eclipsed by political and pragmatic calculations. . . . A major contribution to our understanding of how the DP issue and the Zionist's manipulation of it helped undermine the British policy in the Middle East."
— Holocaust and Genocide Studies

Kochavi's relatively uncomplicated narrative will appeal to a general audience interested in the story of the displaced persons, the postwar diplomacy of the great powers, and the creation of the state of Israel. (Henry Friedlander, author of The Origins of Nazi Genocide: From Euthanasia to the Final Solution)

This important new study illustrates how postwar British foreign policy was designed and pursued to prevent Jewish survivors of the Holocaust from emigrating from Europe to Palestine. (Charles W. Sydnor Jr., author of Soldiers of Destruction: The SS Death's Head Division, 1933-1945)

From the Publisher