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Why did Britain lock up so many innocent refugees in 1940?

12 February 2022

9:00 AM

12 February 2022

9:00 AM

The Island of Extraordinary Captives: A True Story of an Artist, a Spy and a Wartime Scandal Simon Parkin

Sceptre, pp.486, 20

Despite prostrate Germany’s need for the return of its men, in Britain we didn’t release our prisoners of war until 1948. In Russia — for those who survived — freedom came even later, in the 1950s; an apparent lack of moral equivalence saw the subject conveniently ignored until recently. Likewise, in a country that thrives on retelling wartime tales of derring-do, Britain has been slow to examine the complex story behind its internment of ‘enemy aliens’, the vast majority of whom were Jewish refugees.

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