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"In this rich and resonant study, Joanna Newman recounts the little-known story of this Jewish exodus to the British West Indies..."-Times Higher Education
In the years leading up to the Second World War, increasingly desperate European Jews looked to far-flung destinations such as Barbados, Trinidad, and Jamaica in search of refuge from the horrors of Hitler's Europe.
Nearly the New World tells the extraordinary story of Jewish refugees who overcame persecution and sought safety in the West Indies from the 1930s through the end of the war. At the same time, it gives an unsparing account of the xenophobia and bureaucratic infighting that nearly prevented their rescue-and that helped to seal the fate of countless other European Jews for whom escape was never an option.
From the introduction:
This book is called Nearly the New World because for most refugees who found sanctuary, it was nearly, but not quite, the New World that they had hoped for. The British West Indies were a way station, a temporary destination that allowed them entry when the United States, much of South and Central America, the United Kingdom and Palestine had all become closed. For a small number, it became their home. This is the first comprehensive study of modern Jewish emigration to the British West Indies. It reveals how the histories of the Caribbean, of refugees, and of the Holocaust connect through the potential and actual involvement of the British West Indies as a refuge during the 1930s and the Second World War.
List of contents
List of Illustrations
Acknowledgments
Introduction Chapter 1. The Contextual Drivers: The British West Indies, the Colonial Office and Jewish Refugee Organisations
PART I: CONFRONTING THE NEED FOR REFUGE Chapter 2. Jews Seeking Refuge, 1933-1938
Chapter 3. Panic Migration: The British West Indies And The Refugee Crisis Of 1938/39
PART II: CONFRONTING THE NEED FOR RESCUE Chapter 4. Boat People
Chapter 5. Internment, Camps and Missed Opportunities
Epilogue Select Bibliography
Index
About the author
Joanna Newman is Secretary General of the Association of Commonwealth Universities (www.acu.ac.uk) and a Senior Research Fellow in the history department at King’s College London. She was Vice Principal (International) at King’s College London and a Commonwealth Trust Commissioner and was awarded an MBE for services to British higher education in 2014. She is a regular speaker on issues relating to higher education and internationalization.
Summary
In the years leading up to the Second World War, increasingly desperate European Jews looked to far-flung destinations such as the West Indies in search of refuge. Nearly the New World tells the remarkable story of Jewish refugees who overcame persecution and sought safety in the West Indies from the 1930s through the end of World War II
