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Comparing Jewish Refugees of the 1930s With Syrian Refugees Today
The German liner St. Louis, carrying about 900 German Jewish refugees, was denied entrance to the Havana harbor in 1939. The ship was later denied entrance to the United States and returned to Hamburg, Germany. Credit Associated Press
Introduction
Today there are more than 65 million displaced people worldwide — the highest number on record since the United Nations Refugee Agency began collecting statistics. Europe faces a humanitarian crisis, with thousands of people fleeing conflicts in Syria and around the Middle East and Africa arriving in Greece, Hungary, Germany and other countries each month. Some European citizens are wary of allowing refugees to enter, citing concerns about security and the economy; other countries on the continent have struggled to find the resources and the political will to meet migrants’ and refugees’ needs.
For many observers, today’s challenges also raise uncomfortable historical echoes, as scenes of refugees crowding European train platforms and waiting in grim reception camps recall the events of World War II and the Holocaust. A Times article noted the parallels and asked, “How apt is the comparison between Syrians today and German Jews before World War II, and what can and cannot be learned from it?” In an Op-Ed in August, the columnist Nicholas Kristof argued that “history rhymes” and wrote, “Today, to our shame, Anne Frank is a Syrian girl.”
Mr. Kristof and other writers invoke the fate of Jewish refugees in the 1930s as a cautionary tale about the consequences of indifference and inaction in the world community today. A new documentary film by Ken Burns and Artemis Joukowsky, “Defying the Nazis: The Sharps’ War,” offers another historical lens that can sharpen our perspective on today’s crisis. It tells the little-known story of Martha and Waitstill Sharp, an American couple who left behind the safety of their Massachusetts home and their own young children to aid refugees in Europe on the brink of World War II. The Sharps faced a complex and desperate situation with humanity, creativity and courage.
In this Text to Text, we pair a Times article about the historical resonance of Europe’s refugee crisis with an excerpt from “Defying the Nazis” that chronicles the Sharps’s relief and rescue mission in 1939. Together, these texts raise important questions about whether there are “lessons” of history and invite reflection on how individuals and governments choose to respond to those in need.
Background
Police officers on Sept. 4 guarded a so-called reception center for migrants in Roszke, Hungary. Some migrants were tricked into boarding trains for such camps. Related Article Credit Reuters
Even before the beginning of World War II in September 1939, Nazi Germany’s open aggression toward both neighboring countries and people within its borders had sparked a refugee crisis. The German annexation of Austria and the Sudetenland in 1938 increased the number of people affected by Nazi restrictions, while at the same time those restrictions intensified to the point that Jews, political dissidents and others were effectively removed from German public life and denied rights, employment and education. Germany’s aggressive steps to expand its borders touched off both an international political crisis, as world leaders scrambled to avoid war, and a humanitarian refugee crisis, as hundreds of thousands of vulnerable people, mostly Jews, sought safety from the Nazis in countries outside the grip of the Third Reich.
Despite an isolationist mood, a suspicions of refugees, and official policies that often discouraged involvement, some Americans felt a sense of responsibility toward European refugees and found ways to act on their behalf. The Unitarian Church — a liberal religion with roots in Christianity — had links to Czechoslovakia and wanted to offer assistance to refugees streaming into the country. Though Germany had annexed Czechoslovakia’s Sudetenland region, the rest of the country and its capital remained still free and independent. In January 1939, Unitarian leadership sought volunteers to lead an aid mission in Prague. Seventeen couples had turned down the risky post, but Martha and Waitstill Sharp decided to accept. Just weeks later, after arranging for neighbors to look after their children, ages 8 and 3, they sailed for Europe.
In Prague, the Sharps spent seven months providing food, shelter and medical care to refugees. Just weeks after they arrived, German troops occupied the whole of Czechoslovakia. The Sharps quickly saw the necessity for rescue as well as relief efforts, and mastered the intricacies of emigration procedures, helping refugees find jobs and sponsors abroad and often accompanying them on dangerous border crossings. They were watched by the Gestapo and had to do much of their work in secret. The Sharps went home to Wellesley only when they heard rumors of their imminent arrest. But just a few months later they returned to Europe, this time for another rescue and relief mission in war-torn France. There, Martha led a children’s emigration project that allowed 27 children from dissident or Jewish families to escape to the United States. For their work in Nazi-occupied Czechoslovakia and France, the Sharps have been recognized as Righteous Among the Nations at Yad Vashem — the highest recognition accorded by the state of Israel to non-Jews who risked their lives to save Jews during World War II. They are two of only five Americans to be so honored.
In the aftermath of World War II, the newly formed United Nations moved to set up international bodies and laws to define the status and rights of refugees for the first time. The U.N. High Commission for Refugees was established in 1951 and given a three-year mandate to resolve postwar refugee problems. Sixty-five years later, it still exists, and there are more refugees around the world today than at any time since the end of World War II.
Today’s refugee crisis has its roots in conflicts all around the world. Many of those fleeing to Europe come from Syria, where a brutal civil war that began in 2011 has created nearly 5 million refugees, many of them children. Some of those refugees live tenuously in camps and cities in Turkey, Jordan and Lebanon; many others, desperate to get to Europe, have risked their lives crossing the Mediterranean Sea in small boats. The crisis has overwhelmed the systems for aiding refugees created in the wake of World War II. Humanitarian impulses and the rights of refugees guaranteed by international law are competing with concerns that the migrants may pose a threat to the security of European countries where they seek asylum. In fact, the refugee crisis and the threat of terrorism have become intertwined in the minds of many Europeans.
Can the history of the refugee crisis of the 1930s help us think about how we respond to Syrian refugees today? The Times article by Daniel Victor’ explores the parallels between today’s Syrian refugees and Jewish refugees before World War II. We pair this news article with a 10-minute excerpt from “Defying the Nazis: The Sharps’ War” that focuses on the Sharps’s efforts to help refugees escape from occupied Czechoslovakia in 1939. Together, these sources complicate our thinking about how individuals and governments define their responsibility to refugees, in the past and the present.
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Key Questions
• What are similarities and differences between the refugee crises of the 1930s and today?
• How might examining the history of refugees in the 1930s inform the choices that individuals and governments make in responding to refugees today?
Activity Sheets: As students read and discuss, they might take notes using one or more of the three graphic organizers (PDFs) we have created for our Text to Text feature:
• Comparing Two or More Texts
• Double-Entry Chart for Close Reading
• Document Analysis Questions
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Text 1: “Comparing Jewish Refugees of the 1930s With Syrian Refugees Today,” Daniel Victor, The New York Times, Nov. 19, 2015.
A tweet drawing a historical parallel to the current plight of Syrian refugees drew thousands of retweets this week.
An article in The Washington Post with a similar premise also drew attention in recent days.
They both raised the question: How apt is the comparison between Syrians today and German Jews before World War II, and what can and cannot be learned from it?
Some historians say that, while the two groups are not completely symmetrical, there are lessons to be drawn.
Republican leaders and some Democrats have sought to halt the Syrian refugee program, fearing fighters from the Islamic State could be among the 10,000 migrants allowed to enter the country.
“We cannot allow terrorists to take advantage of our compassion,” Speaker Paul D. Ryan of Wisconsin said. “This is a moment where it is better to be safe than to be sorry.”
In 1938, Jews sought to escape Nazi Germany at a time when the United States was struggling through the Great Depression, and Americans expressed similar concern over accepting refugees.
“I don’t think it would meet the part of wisdom,” said Senator Gerald P. Nye of North Dakota, according to the Nov. 5, 1938 edition of The New York Times. “Our conditions here at home prohibit accepting an influx of population.”
Peter Shulman, an associate professor of history at Case Western Reserve University and the man behind the @HistOpinion Twitter account, said most of the responses to his tweet had supported the premise, while others disputed it. Americans were primarily concerned with economics in 1939 while today’s fears are related to safety, many replied.
It’s true that Americans in 1939 were worried about refugees taking jobs. Those who lived through the Depression were overwhelmingly supportive of restricting immigration, Mr. Shulman said.
But safety was also a concern. Jews were associated with a variety of acts and ideas that were seen as un-American, Mr. Shulman said, including Communism and violence.
That caused Jewish refugees to be “extraordinarily, excruciatingly vetted,” said Marion Kaplan, a professor in the Department of Hebrew and Judaic Studies at New York University.
“The State Department worried that among the Jewish refugees there would be Nazi spies,” she said. “There was hysteria about fifth columnists coming in with the refugees.”
One area where the two refugee groups do not neatly match, Ms. Kaplan said, is the racial animus they faced both home and abroad. Unlike modern Syrians, Jews in the 1930s “were singled out as the racial enemy, par excellence, in German society,” she said.
And the United States was not entirely welcoming. On top of wanting to preserve jobs, Americans were concerned about Jews “weakening the Nordic or Anglo racial stock,” Mr. Shulman said. “That was a very real concern.”
He added: “You can’t just reduce it to economics or politics. That sort of racial identity was very powerful.”
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