ABSTRACT
During the Second World War, 'Europe had never seen so many refugees ... the total number of displaced Europeans ... was thirty million or more'. Total war accompanied by genocide, 'ethnic cleansing', and the attempt of the Nazis to 'reorder' the 'racial' map of Europe, led to forced population movements on a new scale.1 Britain was geographically and culturally remote from the killing fields but could not altogether escape contact with the victims of Nazism. A new wave of refugees arrived after the military disasters of spring 1940 and smaller numbers, survivors of mass murder, managed to flee the continent for the remainder of the war. Few of these arrivals were welcomed and anti-alienism dominated responses. The first victims of such antipathy were, ironically, those who had fled Nazism before September 1939. In spite of the renewed commitment to the concept of asylum and the humanitarian sentiment and activity towards refugees in the late 1930s, hostility and ambivalence had not disappeared; the war provided the opportunity for those in government and populace who had never welcomed the newcomers' presence to put their prejudices into operation.
