Divisions and Diversity: The Complexities of Medical Refuge in Britain, 1933-1948

Bulletin of the History of Medicine

Volumn 77, Issue 4, 2003, Pages

  Decker, Karola ^a  

^a NONE   (Germany)

Author keywords

British Medical Association; Fascism; History; Medicine; Policy; Polish forces; Refugees; United Kingdom; World War II

Indexed keywords

EID: 0346964190     PISSN: 00075140     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1353/bhm.2003.0163     Document Type: Review

References (120)

1. For a comprehensive account of the British policy, see Louise London, Whitehall and the Jews 1933-1948: British Immigration Policy, Jewish Refugees and the Holocaust (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000). For other aspects, see Werner E. Mosse, ed., Second Chance: Two Centuries of German-Speaking Jews in the United Kingdom (Tübingen: Mohr, 1991).
2. For a comprehensive account of the British policy, see Louise London, Whitehall and the Jews 1933-1948: British Immigration Policy, Jewish Refugees and the Holocaust (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000). For other aspects, see Werner E. Mosse, ed., Second Chance: Two Centuries of German-Speaking Jews in the United Kingdom (Tübingen: Mohr, 1991).
3. Charmian Brinson, The Strange Case of Dora Fabian and Mathilde Wurm: A Study of German Political Exiles in London during the 1930s (Berne: Peter Lang, 1997), p. 27, with reference to the humorist Alexander Roda Roda.
4. Archive of the British Medical Association, Aliens Committee (BMA, AC) 16/1946-47, 10/12/46 [N.B. Dates are given in the British style: day/month/year]. If not indicated otherwise, precise dates refer to meetings of the Aliens Committee. At the meeting in question H. H. C. Prestige, the representative of the Home Office, stated that physicians "were subject to special restrictions" and that their naturalization was therefore also more difficult than that of other professionals.
5. BMA, AC 14/1941-42, 24/11/41 (henceforth referred to as Historical Note).
6. On the medical emigration from Germany, Austria, and Czechoslovakia in general, see Hans-Peter Kroener, "Die Emigration deutschsprachiger Mediziner im Nationalsozialismus," Berichte zur Wissenschaflsgeschichte, 1989, 12: 1-44, Suppl.; Michael Hubenstorf, "Oesterreichische Aerzte-Emigration 1934-1945," ibid., 1984, 7: 85-107. For an overview on the medical emigration to Britain, see Paul Weindling, "The Contribution of Central European Jews to Medical Science and Practice in Britain, the 1930s to 1950s," in Mosse, Second Chance (n. 1), pp. 243-54.
7. On the medical emigration from Germany, Austria, and Czechoslovakia in general, see Hans-Peter Kroener, "Die Emigration deutschsprachiger Mediziner im Nationalsozialismus," Berichte zur Wissenschaflsgeschichte, 1989, 12: 1-44, Suppl.; Michael Hubenstorf, "Oesterreichische Aerzte-Emigration 1934-1945," ibid., 1984, 7: 85-107. For an overview on the medical emigration to Britain, see Paul Weindling, "The Contribution of Central European Jews to Medical Science and Practice in Britain, the 1930s to 1950s," in Mosse, Second Chance (n. 1), pp. 243-54.
8. On the medical emigration from Germany, Austria, and Czechoslovakia in general, see Hans-Peter Kroener, "Die Emigration deutschsprachiger Mediziner im Nationalsozialismus," Berichte zur Wissenschaflsgeschichte, 1989, 12: 1-44, Suppl.; Michael Hubenstorf, "Oesterreichische Aerzte-Emigration 1934-1945," ibid., 1984, 7: 85-107. For an overview on the medical emigration to Britain, see Paul Weindling, "The Contribution of Central European Jews to Medical Science and Practice in Britain, the 1930s to 1950s," in Mosse, Second Chance (n. 1), pp. 243-54.
9. Historical Note (n. 4).
10. I b i d.
11. I b i d.
12. BMA, AC 8/1942-43, 15/12/42.
13. Ibid.: letter of the Central Medical War Committee to the AC dated 19/10/42, incorporating an extract of a Home Office letter dated 29/9/42.
14. BMA, AC 29/1941-42, 9/3/42.
15. Wiktor Tomaszewski, "The Polish School of Medicine at the University of Edinburgh" (Paper given at the 34th International Congress on the History of Medicine, Glasgow, September 1994).
16. BMA, AC 29/1941-42, 9/3/42.
17. BMA, AC 5/1943-44, 15/10/43.
18. BMA, AC 5/1939-40, 31/10/40.
19. BMA, AC 8/1942-43, 15/12/42.
20. BMA, AC 5/1939-40, 31/12/40.
21. BMA, AC 16/1946-47, 10/12/46.
22. I b i d.
23. I b i d.
24. BMA, AC 5/1939-40, 21/8/40.
25. On the JRC and other Jewish aid organizations, see Ronald Stent, "Jewish Refugee Organisations," in Mosse, Second Chance (n. 1), pp. 579-98.
26. Yvonne Kapp and Margaret Mynatt, British Policy and the Refugees, 1933-1941 (Ilford: Frank Cass, 1997), p. 16. This book was written in the early 1940s, after Kapp and Mynatt had been removed from their posts at the Czech Trust Fund on political grounds; see the foreword by Charmian Brinson. Forthcoming: Yvonne Kapp's memoirs, Time Will Tell (London: Verso, 2003).
27. Yvonne Kapp and Margaret Mynatt, British Policy and the Refugees, 1933-1941 (Ilford: Frank Cass, 1997), p. 16. This book was written in the early 1940s, after Kapp and Mynatt had been removed from their posts at the Czech Trust Fund on political grounds; see the foreword by Charmian Brinson. Forthcoming: Yvonne Kapp's memoirs, Time Will Tell (London: Verso, 2003).
28. Yvonne Kapp, open letter to the Manchester Guardian, 4/7/40, Yvonne Kapp's private archive (Kapp Archive); this figure is repeated in her open letter to the New Statesman, 7/12/40.
29. Unpublished part of the manuscript of Kapp and Mynatt, British Policy (n. 23), p. 299, Kapp Archive.
30. Kapp and Mynatt, British Policy (n. 23), p. 29.
31. Historical Note (n. 4).
32. I b i d.
33. London, Whitehall and the Jews (n. 1), p. 80.
34. Historical Note (n. 4). The members were Sir Robert Hutchinson, PRCP, as chairman; Sir William Gerling Ball, FRCS; Sir Guthbert Wallace, PRCS; Sir William H. Willcox, FRCP, representing the Society of Apothecaries; Dr. George Cranston Anderson, secretary of the BMA; Prof. Samson Wright of the COR-Medical Department; E. N. Cooper, representing the Home Office; and "two lay representatives of the refugee organisations," Prof. A. V. Hill and Dr. Philip D'Arcy Hart of the Society for the Protection of Science and Learning.
35. Yvonne Kapp to Dr. Somerville Hastings, FRCS, 24/12/39, Kapp Archive.
36. Ibid. This time the selection committee, under the chairmanship of Sir Robert Hutchison, consisted of Sir Girling Ball, Sir William Wilcox, Sir Alfred Cox, Dr. Anderson of the BMA, Professor A. V. Hill of the SPSL (later replaced by Dr. Philip D'Arcy Hart), Dr. Louisa Martindale of the British Committee for Refugees from Czechoslovakia, and Mary Ormerod of the Coordinating Committee for Refugees. Yvonne Kapp herself and Professor Samson Wright, as chairman of the COR-Medical Department, attended in an advisory function.
37. I b i d.
38. I b i d.
39. I b i d.
40. Yvonne Kapp, open letter to the Manchester Guardian, 4/7/40, Kapp Archive.
41. Historical Note (n. 4).
42. BMA, AC 29, letter of the Central Medical War Committee to the AC, 9/10/42.
43. The archive of the SPSL is held at the Bodleian Library, University of Oxford. On the history of the SPSL, see William Beveridge, A Defence of Free Learning (London: Oxford University Press, 1959); Gerhard Hirschfeld, "'The Defence of Learning and Science': Der Academic Assistance Council in Großbritannien und die wissenschaftliche Emigration aus Nazi-Deutschland," Exilforschung: Ein internationales Jahrbuch, 1988, 6:28-43; idem, '"A High Tradition of Eagerness . . .': British Non-Jewish Organisations in Support of Refugees," in Mosse, Second Chance (n. 1), pp. 598-610.
44. The archive of the SPSL is held at the Bodleian Library, University of Oxford. On the history of the SPSL, see William Beveridge, A Defence of Free Learning (London: Oxford University Press, 1959); Gerhard Hirschfeld, "'The Defence of Learning and Science': Der Academic Assistance Council in Großbritannien und die wissenschaftliche Emigration aus Nazi-Deutschland," Exilforschung: Ein internationales Jahrbuch, 1988, 6:28-43; idem, '"A High Tradition of Eagerness . . .': British Non-Jewish Organisations in Support of Refugees," in Mosse, Second Chance (n. 1), pp. 598-610.
45. The archive of the SPSL is held at the Bodleian Library, University of Oxford. On the history of the SPSL, see William Beveridge, A Defence of Free Learning (London: Oxford University Press, 1959); Gerhard Hirschfeld, "'The Defence of Learning and Science': Der Academic Assistance Council in Großbritannien und die wissenschaftliche Emigration aus Nazi-Deutschland," Exilforschung: Ein internationales Jahrbuch, 1988, 6:28-43; idem, '"A High Tradition of Eagerness . . .': British Non-Jewish Organisations in Support of Refugees," in Mosse, Second Chance (n. 1), pp. 598-610.
46. Hirschfeld, "Tradition of Eagerness" (n. 39), p. 605.
47. Kapp and Mynatt, British Policy (n. 23), p. 59.
48. Stent, "Jewish Refugee Organisations" (n. 22), pp. 594-95.
49. Hirschfeld, "Tradition of Eagerness" (n. 39), p. 602.
50. Paul Weindling, "The Impact of German Medical Scientists on British Medicine: A Case Study of Oxford, 1933-45," in Forced Migration and Scientific Change: Emigré German-Speaking Scientists and Scholars after 1933, ed. Mitchell G. Ash and Alfons Söllner (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996), pp. 86-114, on pp. 113-14.
51. Kapp and Mynatt, British Policy (n. 23), p. 63.
52. Archive of the Society for the Protection of Science and Learning, medical subseries (SPSL), 384/1 : "Ich weiss, dass es eine grosse Ehre ist, in den Listen der Society gefuehrt zu werden; aber ist es nicht vielleicht besser als einer von den 'Jungen' oder 'Kleinen Leuten' dieser Ehre nicht teilhaftig zu werden . . . und nicht erst Monate zu verpassen mit unnuetzen - weil unerfuellbaren-Hoffnungen?"
53. I b i d.
54. I b i d.
55. BMA, AC 5/1939-40, 31/12/40.
56. SPSL 362/2.
57. I b i d.
58. Register of the COR-Medical Department, 1939, Kapp Archive. This list was compiled by Yvonne Kapp herself, and it is of particular significance for biographical research. Detailed information on pediatricians has been published by Eduard Seidler, Kinderaerzte 1933-1945 - entrechtet - geflohen - ermordet / Pediatricians - Victims of Persecution 1933-1945 (Bonn: Bouvier, 2000).
59. David Cesarani and Tony Kushner, eds., The Internment of Aliens in Twentieth-Century Britain (London: F. Cass, 1993); François Lafitte, The Internment of Aliens, 2d ed. (1940; London: Libris, 1988).
60. David Cesarani and Tony Kushner, eds., The Internment of Aliens in Twentieth-Century Britain (London: F. Cass, 1993); François Lafitte, The Internment of Aliens, 2d ed. (1940; London: Libris, 1988).
61. BMA, AC 5/1939-40, 3/10/40.
62. SPSL 372/5.
63. Ibid.: letter of the COR-Medical Department to the SPSL.
64. BMA, AC 29/1941-42, 9/3/42: extract of a Home Office letter, 7/2/42.
65. Historical Note (n. 4).
66. I b i d.
67. Ibid: extract of a Home Office letter, 18/7/41.
68. BMA, AC 5/1939-40, 21/18/40.
69. Historical Note (n. 4).
70. Ibid.: extract of a Home Office letter, 18/7/41.
71. I b i d.
72. Ibid. The members were Mr. H. S. Souttar, chairman of the Central Medical War Committee; Sir Girling Ball; Sir Charles Wilson; Sir Francis Freemantle; Prof. Samson Wright of the COR-Medical Department; Prof. W. Fletcher Shaw; Dr. F. Gray; Dr. H. Guy Dain; Dr. G. Lilico; E. N. Cooper, the representative of the Home Office; and Dr. F. Murchie, the representative of the Ministry of Health.
73. I b i d.
74. BMA, AC 5/1939-40, Dr. Craig's letter, 24/7/40.
75. I b i d.
76. I b i d.
77. Historical Note (n. 4).
78. I b i d.
79. I b i d.
80. I b i d.
81. I b i d.
82. I b i d.
83. I b i d.
84. BMA, AC 29/1941-42, 9/3/42.
85. I b i d.
86. An interesting case is that of Egon Kodicek, an endocrinologist from Prague who later became director of the Dunn Nutritional Laboratory in Cambridge and a Fellow of the Royal Society (SPSL 383/2).
87. Kapp and Mynatt, British Policy (n. 23), p. 64.
88. Ibid., pp. 29-30.
89. Mitchell G. Ash, "Central European Emigré Psychologists and Psychoanalysts in the United Kingdom," in Mosse, Second Chance (n. 1), pp. 101-20; Henry Victor Dicks, Fifty Years of the Tavistock Clinic (London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1970); Uwe Henrik Peters, Psychiatrie im Exil: Die Emigration der Dynamischen Psychiatrie aus Deutschland 1933-1939 (Düsseldorf: Kupka, 1992); Edward Timms and Naomi Segal, Freud in Exile: Psychoanalysis and Its Vicissitudes (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1988).
90. Mitchell G. Ash, "Central European Emigré Psychologists and Psychoanalysts in the United Kingdom," in Mosse, Second Chance (n. 1), pp. 101-20; Henry Victor Dicks, Fifty Years of the Tavistock Clinic (London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1970); Uwe Henrik Peters, Psychiatrie im Exil: Die Emigration der Dynamischen Psychiatrie aus Deutschland 1933-1939 (Düsseldorf: Kupka, 1992); Edward Timms and Naomi Segal, Freud in Exile: Psychoanalysis and Its Vicissitudes (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1988).
91. Mitchell G. Ash, "Central European Emigré Psychologists and Psychoanalysts in the United Kingdom," in Mosse, Second Chance (n. 1), pp. 101-20; Henry Victor Dicks, Fifty Years of the Tavistock Clinic (London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1970); Uwe Henrik Peters, Psychiatrie im Exil: Die Emigration der Dynamischen Psychiatrie aus Deutschland 1933-1939 (Düsseldorf: Kupka, 1992); Edward Timms and Naomi Segal, Freud in Exile: Psychoanalysis and Its Vicissitudes (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1988).
92. Mitchell G. Ash, "Central European Emigré Psychologists and Psychoanalysts in the United Kingdom," in Mosse, Second Chance (n. 1), pp. 101-20; Henry Victor Dicks, Fifty Years of the Tavistock Clinic (London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1970); Uwe Henrik Peters, Psychiatrie im Exil: Die Emigration der Dynamischen Psychiatrie aus Deutschland 1933-1939 (Düsseldorf: Kupka, 1992); Edward Timms and Naomi Segal, Freud in Exile: Psychoanalysis and Its Vicissitudes (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1988).
93. BMA, AC 5/1939-40, letter of J. R. Rees to the Home Office Medical Advisory Committee, 9/10/40.
94. I b i d.
95. I b i d.
96. I b i d.
97. I b i d.
98. I b i d.
99. I b i d.
100. BMA, AC 11/1945-46, 26/9/45: undated extracts of a letter from the Home Office to the AC, and of a letter of the Tavistock Clinic to the Home Office.
101. I b i d.
102. I b i d.
103. BMA, AC 8/1942-43, 15/12/42.
104. BMA, AC 16/1946-47, 10/12/46.
105. I b i d.
106. SPSL 358/3.
107. SPSL 382/2.
108. BMA, AC 16/1946-47, 10/12/46: Home Office letter of 15/11 /46.
109. I b i d.
110. Weindling, "Contribution of Central European Jews" (n. 5), p. 247.
111. BMA, AC 16/1946-47, 10/12/46: Home Office letter of 15/11/46.
112. I b i d.
113. BMA, AC 16/1946-47, 10/12/46.
114. I b i d.
115. Keith Sword, Norman Davies, and Jan Ciechanowski, The Formation of the Polish Community in Great Britain, 1939-1950 (London: School of Slavonic and East European Studies, University of London, 1989).
116. General Medical Council, Minutes of the General Medical Council (Branch Councils and Committees for the Year 1948, vol. 85, 1953), meeting of 25/6/48.
117. Sword, Davies, and Ciechanowski, Formation of the Polish Community (n. 105), p. 327.
118. BMA, AC 16/1946-47, 10/12/46.
119. General Medical Council, Minute (n. 106), meeting of 23/11/48.
120. Robert Miles, "Migration to Britain: The Significance of a Historical Approach," Internat. Migration, 1991, 29:527-42.