When It’s Over is historical fiction, but it’s based on my mother’s story. My mother was a refugee. A refugee from the Holocaust. She was part of a group of young, mostly Jewish, anti-fascist activists in Prague who managed to escape the Nazis. Most of their family members left behind were eventually deported to concentration camps.
My mother was a refugee during a time of major upheaval and conflict, a distant time that perhaps we now regard as much simpler, the good guys and bad guys clearly identified. We know what happened to those who stayed. So, all decent people helped and supported those who were fleeing, right?
Well, no. My mother and her friends did not find it easy to reach safety. They escaped in different ways, mostly illegal, or through clever manipulation of legal methods. They smuggled across borders, fabricated stories, forged domestic worker sponsorships, overstayed visitor visas – whatever it took.
Most nations closed their borders to Jewish refugees, in spite of the dangers they faced. In July 1938 at the Evian Conference, delegates from 32 nations including the United States, expressed sympathy for the Jews in Germany and Austria, but failed to support them, in spite of calls to “act promptly”.
A 1939 Gallup poll showed 83% of Americans were opposed to the admission of more Jewish refugees. The Wagner-Rogers bill to permit 20,000 Jewish German children into the U.S. failed. The reason: “Ugly children will soon grow up to be ugly adults”.
The Kindertransports evacuated 10,000 children to England before the outbreak of war in September 1939. But 20,000 more were refused entry into Palestine which was under British control at the time. Some German Jews did escape and reach Palestine – as illegal immigrants.
In November 1938 after Kristallnacht, when synagogues throughout Germany were attacked and destroyed, there was a panicked exodus of Jews to Poland, the Soviet Union, or to war-torn Shanghai – some accepting passage on rickety unseaworthy ships. Does that sound familiar?
And then there was the terrible story of the St. Louis. In May 1939, the ship left Germany for Cuba with 900 Jews who were told they would ultimately be admitted to the U.S. In Cuba, 29 were allowed to disembark. The ship then spent 35 days off the Eastern U.S. coast waiting to be accepted, before giving up and returning to Europe. Many of those on board perished in the Holocaust.
The 1951 United Nations Convention defined a refugee as any person who, due to a “well-founded fear of being persecuted for reasons of race, religion, nationality, member of a particular social group or political opinion is outside the country of his nationality and is unable or, owing to such fear, is unwilling to avail himself of the protection of that country.” Refugees have protected status under the U.N. Charter.
The world is currently facing the greatest refugee crisis since the end of WWII. In Europe, the number of refugees is staggering. 11 million Syrians have fled their war-ravaged homes since 2011. One and a half million refugees have sought asylum in the EU. 500,000 Rohingya refugees have fled the bloodbath of ethnic cleansing in Myanmar. Closer to home, Central America has the highest murder rate in the world. 155,000 unaccompanied children have crossed over the southern border into the U.S. in the past 3 years, fleeing gang violence in El Salvador, Guatemala and Honduras. One fifth of these are children under 12 years of age. The so-called “Dreamers” who were brought here illegally as children 20+ years ago, were carried by parents fleeing violent civil wars and brutal U.S.-supported dictatorships.
And climate change, with its extremes of drought and floods, threatens the livelihood of millions of people throughout the developed world. This is projected to unleash further waves of migration over the coming decade.
Desperate people will always look for ways to flee to safer ground. Higher walls and militarized borders will not stop them. The only reason a mother puts her child in a rickety boat, or hands him to a “coyote” heading for the desert, is if it seems safer than staying put.
The answer is not to harden our hearts and put up barriers. We have a moral obligation to help and support refugees. And to put our resources into addressing the underlying problems: aggressive diplomatic efforts to stop ethnic cleansing, end military support for dictatorships, and a robust “Marshall-type” plan to combat global inequality and climate change, to make the world safe for everyone.