Uneasy Asylum

Uneasy Asylum
Author: Vicki Caron
Publisher: Stanford University Press
Total Pages: 626
Release: 1999
Genre: History
ISBN: 9780804743778

This book, which draws on a rich array of primary sources and archival materials, offers the first major appraisal of French responses to the Jewish refugee crisis after the Nazi seizure of power in 1933. It explores French policies and attitudes toward Jewish refugees from three interrelated vantage points: government policy, public opinion, and the role of the French Jewish community. The author demonstrates that Jewish refugees in France were not treated in the same manner as other foreigners, in part because of foreign policy considerations and in part because Jewish refugees had a distinctive socioeconomic profile. By examining the socioeconomic and political factors that informed French refugee policy in the 1930's, the author presents overwhelming evidence that Vichy's anti-Jewish measures were not merely the work of a few antisemitic zealots in the administration, nor did they stem solely from the desire of Marshal Pétain's government to find scapegoats for the military defeat of 1940. Rather, they enjoyed widespread popular support, not only from far-right organizations but also from a host of middle-class professional associations and their members (doctors, lawyers, merchants, and artisans) who perceived Jews as a competitive threat. The author also sheds new light on Jewish political behavior in the 1930s. She demonstrates that the French Jewish community was sharply divided over the proper approach to the refugee crisis. While some Jewish leaders pressed for a hard-line policy, others worked assiduously to provide the refugees relief and to persuade the government to pursue a more liberal refugee policy. Thus the author refutes claims that the native French Jewish elite was overwhelmingly unsympathetic to the refugees because of fear that an influx of refugees would provoke an antisemitic backlash. While this book reveals the extent to which anti-refugee attitudes and policies in the 1930's paved the way for Vichy's anti-Jewish policies, it also highlights significant discontinuities between the refugee policies of the Third Republic and those of the Vichy regime.

Refugees

Refugees
Author: Nathan Bell
Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield
Total Pages: 281
Release: 2021-03-18
Genre: Philosophy
ISBN: 1786614200

There have never been more refugees, across the world from Myanmar to Syria, than at this moment. Many more millions of refugees are likely to be displaced by the effects of climate change. Why has politics failed to produce adequate responses to these challenges, and not heeded the lessons of refugee crises of the past? Are human rights and international law, or more radically, the case for 'open borders', sufficient to address them? Nathan Bell argues for nothing less than a new concept of the political: that societies (liberal or not, in the mode of the sovereign state or some other form) embrace an ethos of responsibility for others, where the right to seek asylum becomes foundational for politics itself. Such a proposal is at the antipodes of Schmitt's friend-enemy distinction, such that hospitality and not hostility forms the basis of political decision-making. This book comprises two halves: the first establishes the theoretical basis of the ethos of responsibility, with particular reference to the writings of Hannah Arendt, Emmanuel Levinas and Jacques Derrida, while the second half examines these theorists in the context of historical and contemporary case studies. Finally, the book calls for a ‘politics of hauntology’ in memory of the missing - those who might have been rescued, and those yet to come, who are already among the disappeared. In this urgent work, Bell demonstrates that a radical reconfiguration of the understanding of politics is required in order to safeguard the future and human dignity of stateless persons.

Refugees from Nazi Germany and the Liberal European States

Refugees from Nazi Germany and the Liberal European States
Author: Frank Caestecker
Publisher: Berghahn Books
Total Pages: 358
Release: 2010
Genre: History
ISBN: 9781845455873

"The exodus of refugees from Nazi Germany in the 1930s has received far more attention from historians, social scientists, and demographers than many other migrations and persecutions in Europe. However, as a result of the overwhelming attention that has been given to the Holocaust within the historiography of Europe and the Second World War, the issues surrounding the flight of people from Nazi Germany prior to 1939 have been seen as Vorgeschichte (pre-history) ... Based on a comparative analysis of national case studies, this volume deals with the challenges that the pre-1939 movement of refugees from Germany and Austria posed to the immigration controls in the countries of interwar Europe"--Publisher's description.

The Ungrateful Refugee

The Ungrateful Refugee
Author: Dina Nayeri
Publisher: Catapult
Total Pages: 368
Release: 2019-09-03
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 194822643X

A Finalist for the 2019 Kirkus Prize in Nonfiction "Nayeri combines her own experience with those of refugees she meets as an adult, telling their stories with tenderness and reverence.” —The New York Times Book Review "Nayeri weaves her empowering personal story with those of the ‘feared swarms’ . . . Her family’s escape from Isfahan to Oklahoma, which involved waiting in Dubai and Italy, is wildly fascinating . . . Using energetic prose, Nayeri is an excellent conduit for these heart–rending stories, eschewing judgment and employing care in threading the stories in with her own . . . This is a memoir laced with stimulus and plenty of heart at a time when the latter has grown elusive.” —Star–Tribune (Minneapolis) Aged eight, Dina Nayeri fled Iran along with her mother and brother and lived in the crumbling shell of an Italian hotel–turned–refugee camp. Eventually she was granted asylum in America. She settled in Oklahoma, then made her way to Princeton University. In this book, Nayeri weaves together her own vivid story with the stories of other refugees and asylum seekers in recent years, bringing us inside their daily lives and taking us through the different stages of their journeys, from escape to asylum to resettlement. In these pages, a couple fall in love over the phone, and women gather to prepare the noodles that remind them of home. A closeted queer man tries to make his case truthfully as he seeks asylum, and a translator attempts to help new arrivals present their stories to officials. Nayeri confronts notions like “the swarm,” and, on the other hand, “good” immigrants. She calls attention to the harmful way in which Western governments privilege certain dangers over others. With surprising and provocative questions, The Ungrateful Refugee challenges us to rethink how we talk about the refugee crisis. “A writer who confronts issues that are key to the refugee experience.” —Viet Thanh Nguyen, Pulitzer Prize–winning author of The Sympathizer and The Refugees

The Arc of Protection

The Arc of Protection
Author: T. Alexander Aleinikoff
Publisher: Stanford University Press
Total Pages: 129
Release: 2019-10-01
Genre: Political Science
ISBN: 1503611426

The international refugee regime is fundamentally broken. Designed in the wake of World War II to provide protection and assistance, the system is unable to address the record numbers of persons displaced by conflict and violence today. States have put up fences and adopted policies to deny, deter, and detain asylum seekers. People recognized as refugees are routinely denied rights guaranteed by international law. The results are dismal for the millions of refugees around the world who are left with slender prospects to rebuild their lives or contribute to host communities. T. Alexander Aleinikoff and Leah Zamore lay bare the underlying global crisis of responsibility. The Arc of Protection adopts a revisionist and critical perspective that examines the original premises of the international refugee regime. Aleinikoff and Zamore identify compromises at the founding of the system that attempted to balance humanitarian ideals and sovereign control of their borders by states. This book offers a way out of the current international morass through refocusing on responsibility-sharing, seeing the humanitarian-development divide in a new light, and putting refugee rights front and center.

The Boundaries of the Republic

The Boundaries of the Republic
Author: Mary Dewhurst Lewis
Publisher: Stanford University Press
Total Pages: 386
Release: 2007
Genre: History
ISBN: 9780804757225

In this first comprehensive history of immigrant inequality in France, Mary D. Lewis chronicles the conflicts arising from mass immigration between the First and Second World Wars, the uneven rights arrangements that emerged during this time, and their legacy for contemporary France.

Traces of a Jewish Artist

Traces of a Jewish Artist
Author: Kerry Wallach
Publisher: Penn State Press
Total Pages: 311
Release: 2024-03-12
Genre: Biography & Autobiography
ISBN: 0271098236

Graphic artist, illustrator, painter, and cartoonist Rahel Szalit (1888–1942) was among the best-known Jewish women artists in Weimar Berlin. But after she was arrested by the French police and then murdered by the Nazis at Auschwitz, she was all but lost to history, and most of her paintings have been destroyed or gone missing. Drawing on a range of primary and secondary sources, this biography recovers Szalit’s life and presents a stunning collection of her art. Szalit was a sought-after artist. Highly regarded by art historians and critics of her day, she made a name for herself with soulful, sometimes humorous illustrations of Jewish and world literature by Sholem Aleichem, Heinrich Heine, Leo Tolstoy, Charles Dickens, and others. She published her work in the mainstream German and Jewish press, and she ran in artists’ and queer circles in Weimar Berlin and in 1930s Paris. Szalit’s fascinating life demonstrates how women artists gained access to Jewish and avant-garde movements by experimenting with different media and genres. This engaging and deeply moving biography explores the life, work, and cultural contexts of an exceptional Jewish woman artist. Complementing studies such as Michael Brenner’s The Renaissance of Jewish Culture in Weimar Germany, this book brings Rahel Szalit into the larger conversation about Jewish artists, Expressionism, and modern art.

The Ethics and Politics of Asylum

The Ethics and Politics of Asylum
Author: Matthew J. Gibney
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Total Pages: 304
Release: 2004-07-08
Genre: Law
ISBN: 9780521009379

Over the last two decades, asylum has become a highly charged political issue across developed countries. This book draws upon political and ethical theory and an examination of the experiences of the United States, Germany, the United Kingdom and Australia to consider how to respond to the challenges of asylum. In addition to explaining why asylum has emerged as such a key political issue, it provides a compelling account of how states could move towards implenting morally defensible responses to refugees.

Unwelcome Exiles. Mexico and the Jewish Refugees from Nazism, 1933-1945

Unwelcome Exiles. Mexico and the Jewish Refugees from Nazism, 1933-1945
Author: Daniela Gleizer
Publisher: BRILL
Total Pages: 354
Release: 2013-10-02
Genre: Religion
ISBN: 9004262105

Unwelcome Exiles. Mexico and the Jewish Refugees from Nazism, 1933–1945 reconstructs a largely unknown history: during the Second World War, the Mexican government closed its doors to Jewish refugees expelled by the Nazis. In this comprehensive investigation, based on archives in Mexico and the United States, Daniela Gleizer emphasizes the selectiveness and discretionary implementation of post-revolutionary Mexican immigration policy, which sought to preserve mestizaje—the country’s blend of Spanish and Indigenous people and the ideological basis of national identity—by turning away foreigners considered “inassimilable” and therefore “undesirable.” Through her analysis of Mexico’s role in the rescue of refugees in the 1930s and 40s, Gleizer challenges the country’s traditional image of itself as a nation that welcomes the persecuted. This book is a revised and expanded translation of the Spanish El exilio incómodo. México y los refugiados judíos, 1933-1945, which received an Honorable Mention in the LAJSA Book Prize Award 2013.

Hitler's Refugees and the French Response, 1933–1938

Hitler's Refugees and the French Response, 1933–1938
Author: Julius Fein
Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield
Total Pages: 311
Release: 2021-03-01
Genre: History
ISBN: 1793622299

Julius Fein examines the French response to the large number of German refugees between 1933 and 1938. Fein demonstrates how the Quai d’Orsay sought a compromise between the Republican canon, which said France must help the persecuted, and the factors that limited its willingness to accept refugees, including economic depression, mass unemployment, anti-Semitism, and anti-German sentiment.