1. Inherent Prejudice in the Case of Refugee Crises and Refugee Policy: An
Examination of Present Day Syria and World War II.
By: Carly Tucker
SISU-306-019
Professor Adcock
May 2, 2016

2. 2
Introduction
The concept of migration is not new to the world. We have seen the movement of people
across borders for hundreds of years, however, when the size of migration flows becomes forced
and unprecedented, the world is left disillusioned in how to react. As the international
community continues to bare witness to one of the world’s largest and most unsettled refugee
movements in Syria and the European Union, the troublesome questions of how to act and what
to do with millions of people arises. Has this been the case with other refugee flows and crises?
In this research paper, I encounter and seek to find an answer to the question of whether or not a
country’s refugee policies are based on mere prejudices or if many of these countries cannot
sustain any level of refugees and therefore are much harsher on refugees and their treatment of
them. In looking to past refugee crises, particularly from World War II, I intend to illustrate
through both a neo-positivist and interpretivist framework how the tensions we see today are not
new; that there tends to be more prejudicial undertones and a lack of responsibility and reasoning
for select country’s policies.
As the chaos and the crises ensue, more and more contemporary discourse is being
established regarding the morality of acting, in addition to conversations regarding the crippling
infrastructure of countries that cannot support refugees. These discourses, combined with past
scholarly research on migration crises, such as World War II, when the world saw an
unprecedented amount of uprooted people, and the incentive to act, creates a dialogue among
scholars, analysts, and researchers. I have investigated two cases of refugees: the Jewish refugees
of 1939 and the Jewish refugees of the late 1940’s. These two cases demonstrate a complete re-
orientation of Jewish refugee treatment in the post-war era. By examining what went wrong and
the changes that occurred will help to better understand and explain the contemporary crisis in

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Syria and the European Union. In my analysis and research of primary sources from World War
II and subsequent secondary scholarship that has followed in the post-war era, I have determined
that it is inherent prejudices within a country that reinforces a crisis.
Today’s Syrian refugee movement into Europe is a stark reminder of the World War II
refugee crisis some 75 years earlier. The European Union and neighboring Middle Eastern
countries have bore the brunt of Syria’s refugees, however, the allocation of refugees has been
disproportionate across borders resulting in paltry disputes amongst countries, governments, and
citizens. Thane lack of burden sharing and overwhelming amount of negative discourse has
intensified not only the crisis itself but also the dialogue surrounding the crisis. The case of
Syria brings to the forefront the debate between morality and rationality when responding to and
constructing policy toward refugees. Why are some countries willing to harbor and provide
haven to refugees while other countries are adamantly opposed? Are refugees turned away and
barred from countries on the merits of race and ethnicity? Do states have a moral obligation to
assist and offer haven to citizens that are not their own? These are amongst some of the many
questions this paper answers through careful discursive analysis and a neo-positivism lens.
Literature Review
In doing an analysis of the past, I have read and analyzed much of the scholarly responses
to both the World War II refugee crisis and refugee hood and crises in general. In his book The
Ethics and Politics of Asylum: Liberal Democracy and the Response to Refugees, Matthew J.
Gibney (2004) illustrates how the issue of refugee migrations is one that is politically
controversial and morally important. He compares Western responses to refugees as a “kind of
schizophrenia” stating that “great importance is attached to the principle of asylum but

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enormous efforts are made to ensure that refugees never reach the territory of the state where
they could receive its protection” (Gibney, 2). His book seeks to reflect what a morally
acceptable response to refugees would be by shedding light on policies and advocating for a
pragmatic shift towards humanitarianism.1
Liberal developed democracies have a responsibility
to assist and provide assistance to refugees, as many of them have signed on to and adopted the
UNHCR Convention Relating to the Status of Refugees, a convention that was a result of the
crisis of World War II. It entails states offering asylum to those persons defined as refugees.
These democracies and developed states, however, do not always abide by the convention they
signed. Hannah Arendt exposes the role that European powers played after World War II in
effectively depriving refugees fleeing their homelands from obtaining a new one. Arendt’s
(1951) book The Origins of Totalitarianism showcases refugees in the first half of the 20th
century as the “most symptomatic group in contemporary politics,” a grouping that is ever more
apparent today. Arendt reveals how major powers like Germany and Russia recognized and
treated refugees as if they were “the scum of the earth,”2
a notion and grouping that clearly
played well for them in World War II. When powerful states take a position on such a pivotal
issue, it sets a model and a precedent for the rest of the world and for future mass migrations.
Ironic, though, how the passage of time and significant changes in politics and leaders in a
country like Germany has brought back the idea of the responsibility of the state and the morality
of providing asylum to refugees.
Myron Weiner (1995) draws on the theoretical issues of migration and refugee influxes.
His book, The Global Migration Crisis: Challenges to States and Human Rights, examines the
moral contradiction at hand in western liberal democracies. These first world countries support
1 Matthew J. Gibney, The Ethics and Politics of Asylum: Liberal Democracy and the Response to Refugees,
(Cambridge University Press: 2004), 1-5.
2 Hannah Ardent, The Origins of Totalitarianism, (New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1973), 255-264.

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the “fundamental right to emigrate” while simultaneously advocating for the sovereignty of
states, implying they should still be able to control their borders.3
Weiner’s examination of a
balancing framework takes a much more rational and realistic approach that combines
perceptions and reservations; however, he recognizes the need for states to lend a humanitarian
hand. In contrast to Weiner’s piece is the claim that Europe has been far too myopic in its stance
on refugees. Europe has tried to change its nature in terms of refugees and how it perceives “the
refugee problem.” Vaughan Robinson (1995) presents post- Cold War data to suggest that
Europe really is not the center for refugees. He poses the notion that Europe has tried to distance
itself from refugee flows and instead delineate them as complications of the Third World.4
This
is evident when considering that, according to a UNHCR World Trends report, currently 80% of
refugees are hosted by underdeveloped nations such as Lebanon, Pakistan, and Ethiopia. This
delineation to the Third World demonstrates that perhaps Robinson believes Europe sees
refugees from developing countries as not worthy of asylum or European haven, suggesting
prejudicial underlays. Robinson’s literature goes on to suggest that Europe has overreacted to
refugees, an overreaction due to a prejudicial fear of “others” and has been far too narrow-
minded.
This overreaction of countries because of a fear of heterogeneity, as Ardent shows in her
book, is not new to Europe. Europe has sought to ensure homogeneity within its borders for
decades. B.S. Chimni (1998) suggests in “The Geopolitics of Refugee Studies: A View from the
South,” that in the post 1945 period, a new approach critiquing the positivist approach was
3 Myron Weiner, The Global Migration Crisis: Challenges to States and Human Rights, (New York, New York:
HarperCollins: 1995), 253.
4 Vaughan Robinson, “The Changing Nature and European Perceptions of Europe’s Refugee Problem,” Geoforum
26, no. 4 (November 1995): 411-427, accessed October 9 2015. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/0016-7185.

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created regarding refugee law and reaction.5
Shifting geopolitics policy contexts presented the
idea of the responsibility of the origin state for refugees and the solution of voluntary
repatriation. In examining refugee studies from the perspective of the South, it is apparent that
the North is concerned with the idea of containment of refugees, now that they are no longer
needed as Cold War pawns. The North seems to reject the notion and responsibility of refugees
while the South takes on a much more moral, humanitarian approach.
Often times policy and the treatment of refugees depends upon whom, within the
receiving state, the responsibility of the refugees falls upon. Karen Jacobsen’s study (1996)
“Factors Influencing the Policy Responses of Host Governments to Mass Refugee Influxes,”
iterates that when the responsibility of the refugee falls on bureaucratic institutions then the
refugees are treated in a more positive way, whereas when the refugees are in the hands of the
military, they are merely seen as extra burden on existing resources.6
The ways in which policy
is shaped and the ways in which countries respond and treat refugees rest on the institutions that
are responsible for them. Another aspect that affects refugee policy and responses is international
relations. For instance, as Jacobsen highlights, during the 1980s the Costa Rican government’s
opposition to the Sandinista regime in Nicaragua led to the generous treatment of Nicaraguan
refugees in Costa Rice while Salvadorian refugees were rendered as unsubstantial. Refugee
policies are affected by the interests and relations of a country regarding sending countries, they
are not homogenous throughout.
When examining and looking for explanations regarding the contemporary refugee
phenomenon, it is imperative to recognize that this is not the first time that there has been a vast
5 B.S. Chimni, “The Geopolitics of Refugee Studies: A View from the South,” Journal of Refugee Studies 11
(1998): 350-378.
6 Karen Jacobsen, “Factors Influencing the Policy Responses of Host Governments to Mass Refugee Influxes,” The
International Migration Review 30, (1996): 655-678.

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number of people looking for asylum across new borders. It is the refugee flows and crises of the
past that provide current insight into the reactions to refugees from other countries. In a
combined study done by Aristide R. Zolberg, Astri Suhrke, and Sergio Aguayo (1989) they
analyze past refuge phenomenon, refugee policy and international responses to them, which in
turn parallels and helps explain the contemporary reactions to refugees.7
Between the Romanian
denial to harbor Jews despite its treaty obligations because the government defined them as
enemies of the nation, and the 1790s U.S. Federalists’ attempts to enact legislative barriers to
keep out British and Irish refugees, it is evident that the international community has an inherent
prejudice against those that are not its own. As Gibney highlights, states employ the concept of
“partialism” –privileging its own citizens’ interests in regards to refugee entrance. Fears and
unknowns blind them to common humanitarian values. However, we need only look to history to
recognize that very rarely do refugees pose imminent threats to a country’s ideology, as so often
believed. The United States, as the leader of the free world, is in fact a country built upon
political and religious refugees. Past international prejudices and barriers, despite the formation
of various international refugee policies, has set the precedent for countries like Hungary and
now, France, to restrict the entry of Syrian refugees.
Granting asylum to refugees is a moral responsibility yet also a normative one as many
states do not have the capability to sustain large numbers of refugees. According to recently
published first hand press reports from BBC (2016), the French Prime Minister Manuel Valls
stated, "If Europe can't protect its own borders, it's the very idea of Europe that could be thrown
into doubt." Subsequently, his Dutch counterpart, Mark Rutte, warned: "When spring comes and
7 Aristide R. Zolberg Astri Suhrke and Sergio Aguayo, Escape from Violence: Conflict and the Refugee Crisis in the
Developing World, (New York, NY: Oxford University Press, 1989), 85-92.

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the numbers quadruple, we cannot as the EU cope with the numbers any longer."8
The
Netherlands has been the most recent country to express animosity towards accepting refugees.
These first hand government statements suggest that the European Union has reached its edge
when it comes to providing a sustainable environment for refugees. These statements would lead
to interpretations about the EU’s infrastructure. However, according to that same BBC report, the
new head of the United Nations Refugee Agency, Italian diplomat, Filippo Grandi said that the
EU could sustain more refugees if it worked better together. Speaking on a visit to Lebanon,
which has taken in over 1.3 million refugees, Grandi stated “Europe can absorb more genuine
refugees if it would be better organised among the different member-states.” This idea of burden
sharing, which has been presented in scholarship by Michael Barutciski and Astri Suhrke (2001),
in which they reference the 1990’s Kosovo refugee crisis, is an important concept that offers a
solution to handling refugees. Their piece, Lessons from the Kosovo Refugee Crisis: Innovation
in Protection and Burden Sharing, stresses the vital need that states must be encouraged to share
in the harboring and caretaking of refugees.9
If countries can share the burden of refugees, they
will have the ability to maintain a stable infrastructure, one that can handle its allotment of
refugees. Burden sharing as a concept is one that has gathered ground and one that needs to
become a new norm if the world is ever to be able to alleviate the tensions of refugee crises. If
countries dismiss this concept, then perhaps they are more concerned with maintaining
homogeneity versus allocation of resources. Countries like France and the Netherlands therefore
may have prejudicial motivations for their statements and their policies.
8 “UN’s New Refugee Head says Europe Could do More,” BBC News, January 26, 2016.
9 Astri Suhrke and Michael Barutciski, “Lessons from the Kosovo Refugee Crisis: Innovation in Protection and
Burden Sharing,” Journal of Refugee Studies 14, (2001): 95-134.

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The wonder of forced migration and asylum seeking is not something new to the world or
international relations, however, the degree and scale of the current refugee crisis in the Middle
East and especially in Europe has developed into a contemporary phenomenon not seen since the
first half of the 20th
century. Refugee crises and refugee policies are very complicated issues with
no one standard solution. Through the variety of scholarship and discourse discussed within this
literature review section, it is apparent that the issue of morality is one that is at the center
alongside the retort of the rationality of granting asylum to refugees. By examining past refugee
flows, it is evident that policy is not always based upon morality or rationality but instead policy
falls upon who is responsible for the refugees and the relationship and interests between the
sending country and the receiving country. Responses to refugees are not black and white,
however, they are multi-faceted and are constructed through a variety of thoughts.
Today’s refugee and migration crisis draws similar parallels to the refugee crisis in the
mid 20th
century. These refugees were acknowledged as being desperately in need of assistance
yet were turned away from safe borders and were scrutinized for being others. This World War II
refugee crisis, and the aftermath that followed, demonstrates the implications of actions taken by
various countries and institution and the long-term effects they have on refugees, policy and
humanity. Due to inherent prejudices in our global system and society, we see the exacerbation
of crises and the shaping of refugee policy, more often than not, to negatively effect refugees.
The tensions we see today are not new, and by looking to the past we can better understand the
present and predict the future.

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Betwixt and Between: The Consideration of Logical Empirical Analysis versus
Discourse Analysis
Examining the World War II era of refugees, the aftermath of the War, its subsequent
responses, and the treatment of refugees in various times during and after the war will create a
framework that distinguishes responses at the United States’ level and at the international level
as well. Additionally, by looking to the past, the conversation will frame the contradiction
between practice and purpose. Using a variety of primary and secondary sources, I aim to
analyze and compare the way in which the World War II refugees were treated in 1939, amidst
the warfare, versus the treatment of the same group of refugees in the post-war era of the 1940s.
In researching these two time frames, I have also chosen to focus on the treatment of refugees
mainly from two of the most powerful allied nations at the time: the United States and Great
Britain. Much of this research is framed in a neo-positivist framework, as there is clear empirical
evidence, yet intereprevist framing is necessary when it comes to analyzing some of the
discourse surrounding both the World War II refugee crisis.
Institutional Responses at the National and Intra-national Level
When it comes to the World War II refugee crisis, the way in which the world viewed the
war and the refugees varied. In regards to institutions during the 1930s there was a lack of
adequate response to the plight of the Jewish refugees fleeing Nazi rule throughout Europe. In
his book “Beyond Charity: International Cooperation and the Global Refugee Crisis,” Gil
Loescher (1995) highlights the shortcomings of the League of Nations and the refugee
organizations under its sponsorship. The League of Nations was predicated on the basis of
keeping the peace amongst its countries in order to prevent another World War. Not only did the

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League render itself powerless to Hitler, it also failed to uphold its commitment to refugee
interests and resettlement during times of crisis. Additionally, Loescher demonstrates that “as the
Jewish refugee problem grow, any will to resolve it faded… States were unwilling to extend new
legal protections to refugees, particularly when these would limit the rights of sovereign nations
to exclude or deport aliens,” (Loescher, 43). There was an evident international reluctance to
accept Jews in addition to a lack of a comprehensible plan regarding international commitment to
resolving the refugee crisis.10
In regards to countries, most leaders and populations were
concerned more with their national interests versus global interests. There was also a lack of
international confrontation of the German government regarding the refugee issue. In 1936, the
High Commissioner for German Refugees, James G. McDonald quit his post out of irritation of
this reluctance. In his resignation letter he stated, “The efforts of the private organizations and of
any League organization for refugees can only mitigate a problem of growing gravity and
complexity. The problem must be tackled at its source if disaster is to be avoided.”11
The failure
of the international community to confront the issue head on exemplified the absence of morality
or concern for the Jewish refugees.
As the World War II era coincided with the Great Depression, many countries and
institutions imposed strict immigration rules and become more fiscally conservative with their
humanitarian aid. After Kristallnacht, an attack destroying Jewish owned storefronts, cemeteries
and schools in 1938, Jewish refugees were desperate for haven. A telegram sent by the U.S.
Ambassador to Germany, Hugh Wilson to the U.S. Secretary of State, Cordell Hull recognized
10
Gil Loeshcer, Beyond Charity: International Cooperation and the Global Refugee Crisis (Oxford University
Press, 1995), 41-44.
11 James G. McDonald, Letter of Resignation of James G. McDonald, Letter to the Secretary General of the League
of Nations, (New York, New York: Columbia University Libraries Archival Collections).

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and described the punishment that Jews would incur after Kristallnacht.12
From sources such as
telegrams, speeches and photographs, it is clear through these types of empirical evidences that
the U.S. government was well aware of what was going on across the pond. The U.S.
government recognized the need for action and seemed to sympathize with the Jewish refugees,
however, this was not the case. In 1939, 908 Jewish refugees, aboard the S.S. St. Louis, fleeing
the terror and death of Nazi rule, begged for entry at both the Cuban and U.S. borders but were
denied by both governments.
Below is an image of the S.S. St. Louis after it is denied harbor at Cuba’s port:
13
Figure. 1
Not even was “The Land of the Free” willing to grant asylum to a group of refugees, to
immigrants- the group from which the United States had been built upon. Photographs from this
12 U.S. Ambassador to Germany, Hugh Wilson, Telegram from U.S. Ambassador to Germany to U.S. Secretary of
State Regarding Fine Levied on Jewish Community Following Kristallnacht (U.S. Department of State, 1938).
13 Fig.1: [Voyage of the St. Louis], Photograph, (Washington, D.C.) from The United States Holocaust Memorial
Museum, 1939. Web. https://www.ushmm.org/wlc/en/media_ph.php?ModuleId=10005267&MediaId=1029.

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voyage show the eager faces of refugees before they were forced to return to Hamburg. The
resulting denial of refuge stemmed from a combination of prejudice towards the Jewish people
and the Great Depression. The Depression led to a much more nationalistic focus and thus
refugees of World War II bore many of those consequences as little attention, money and haven
were given to them. They became “someone else’s problem.” Through a neo-positivist framing
using empirical and primary evidences it is apparent that the treatment of the Jewish refugees of
the late 1930’s was prejudicial, and that they were seen as international charity, not a problem
that individual governments should be assisting.
Discursive Analysis of Prejudicial Undertones
The treatment of refugees and whether or not a country can and will harbor them is based
largely on the way in which they are perceived by society. The 1939 refugees were observed and
portrayed in a negative light. The research and accounts of these refugees, by scholars such as
Ardent, showcases them as undesirable and “less than” human beings. They had been deprived
of their homes, their states and their human rights (Ardent 1973). They were merely left with an
identity that had garnered so much hatred amongst world leaders, governments and, as a result,
societies as a whole.14
This portrayal through various mediums such as propaganda and
noteworthy speeches, allowed for the world to interpret the perception of Jewish refugees as
unworthy of haven, as dehumanized beings. As the two most powerful Allied nations, Great
Britain and the United States could have conducted early campaigns to save the Jewish people,
however, they did the opposite. Between their governments and their citizens, Great Britain and
the United States were heavily against the release of Jewish refugees into their borders yet were
14 Ardent, The Origins of Totalitarianism, 267.

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hypocritical in their remarks regarding refugees. In the wake of the Great Depression, the United
States had implemented a strict immigration quota, however, the Department of State denied
90% of the quota spots, spots that could have been available for European Jews.15
In his 1939 “Statement on Political Refugees” President Roosevelt stated, “We have been
working, up to now, on too small a scale, and we have failed to apply modern engineering to our
task. We know already that there are many comparatively vacant spaces on the earth's surface
where from the point of view of climate and natural resources European settlers can live
permanently.”16
(May change quote) The Roosevelt administration chose its words carefully and
projected upon the American society an image of concern and acknowledgement of the issue at
hand yet framed it to seem as if action was being taken to assist the displacement and refugee
issue. In David S. Wyman’s book, Abandonment of the Jews: America and the Holocaust, he
finds that:
Any such exodus [providing haven to refugees] would have placed intense
pressure on Britain to open Palestine and on the United States to take in more
Jewish refugees, a situation the two great powers did not want to face.
Consequently their policies aimed at obstructing rescue possibilities and
dampening pressures for government action.17
Great Britain, an ally to the United States in this era, also framed their policies on the Jewish
refugees in a way to keep them from becoming their burden. After World War I anti-Semitism
15 Gregory Brazeal“Bureaucracy and the U.S. Response to Mass Atrocity, National Security and Armed Conflict
Law Review, 1, (2011): 57–71.
16 Franklin Delano Roosevelt, “Statement on Political Refugees,” October 17, 1939, Public Papers of the Presidents
of the United States.
17 David S. Wyman, The Abandonment of the Jews: America and the Holocaust, (Lexington, Massachusetts 1984),
216.

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had resurfaced in Great Britain and then seemed to decline in the latter half of the 1920s. With
the onset of the Great Depression and the brewing of war once again, Great Britain, an anti-
Fascist nation, became more anti-Semitic than before. Aaron Goldman finds that with the help of
anti-Semitic propaganda, anti-Semitism had reached a higher level and was on its way to
becoming a permanent element of British political life.18
In a speech in the House of Commons
at the end of 1938, Churchill called for a curtailment of Jewish refugees entering Palestine.
Despite debate that Churchill tried to implement plans for gradual Jewish immigration, the
government of Neville Chamberlin rejected his policy proposals and instead declared a White
Paper (May 19,1939) “which planned not only to curtail Jewish entry to Palestine much more
drastically in the present, but also to foreclose on its continuation in five years unless Arabs
consented, which was assuredly a denial, and to create a majority Arab state in ten, thus aborting
all prospects of Jewish statehood” (Mandel 2009).19
These political statements and lack of
substantial assistance are on the grounds of prejudice and refusal to help “others.” Had Great
Britain or the United States acknowledged the desperate plight of Jewish refugees then they
would have been required to act and find haven for the refugees. Pressure could have been
applied to neutral countries near the Axis, such as Switzerland, Spain, Sweden and Portugal, but
two of the most influential countries failed to do this as well.20
These two nations, one founded
on the grounds of freedom and democracy, were advocates for human rights, yet did nothing for
an entire ethnicity, different from their own, simply because it was not in their best interests. As
an effect of the political discourse within their respective countries, British and American
18 Aaron Goldman, “The Resurgence of Anti-Semitism in Britain During World War II,” Jewish Social Studies, 46,
(Winter 1984): 37-50.
19 Dr. Daniel Mandel, “Winston Churchill- A Good Friend to Jews and Zionism?” Jerusalem Center for Public
Affairs, (May 11, 2009) accessed on April 17, 2016 from http://jcpa.org/article/winston-churchill-a-good-friend-of-
jews-and-zionism/#sthash.EBSRb72y.dpuf.
20 Wyman, The Abandonment of the Jews: America and the Holocaust, 218.

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citizens voiced their opinions on the issue as well. For instance, in an opinion poll conducted in
the United States by Fortune magazine in 1938, two-thirds of the population responded that they
agreed with the U.S. government’s response to keep the refugees, who were mostly Jewish, out
of the country.21
Post War Treatment of Jewish Refugees: 1944-1950, A Change of Heart and Policy
in the United States?
As a new decade began and as the war in Europe waged on, the United States and some
of the allied nations began changing their policies and actions towards the Jewish refugees. The
United States had still yet to render assistance to the targets of the Reich in Germany. It wasn’t
until the Treasury Official at the time, Josiah DuBois, released a statement entitled “Report to the
Secretary on the Acquiescence of this Government in the Murder of the Jews,” in which he made
public the preventative efforts of the Department of State to block Jewish immigration into the
U.S. 22
DuBois’s report was final ammunition that was needed for the new Secretary to the
Treasury, Henry Morgenthau, a Jew, into forcing President Roosevelt to create the War Refugee
Board. With pressures coming from within his own party as well as the American Jewish
community, Roosevelt acknowledged the need to rescue the displaced Jews. A change of policy
also came with a change of administrations in the U.S. government. After Roosevelt’s death in
1945, President Harry Truman opted to approach the refugee debacle using a much more liberal
based policy. Issuing the executive order, “Truman Directive,” at the end of 1945, Truman
21 What’s your attitude towards allowing German, Austrian & other political refugees to come into the US? July
1938, Fortune Magazine, Gallup Poll. Accessed from
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/worldviews/wp/2015/11/17/what-americans-thought-of-jewish-refugees-on-
the-eve-of-world-war-ii/.
22 Josiah DuBois, “Report to the Secretary on the Acquiescence of this Government in the Murder of the Jews,”
(January 13, 1944).

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declared that any existing immigration quotas be designated for displaced persons, the European
Jewish refugees. Under these provisions, from 1945 until 1947, almost 23,000 refugees entered
the United States, with two-thirds of them being Jewish. With Truman’s liberal approach and the
pressures placed upon Congress to pass and amend laws on displaced persons, the conversation
on refugee policy changed drastically in the United States. Prejudices still remained amongst
parts of American society, however, the governmental stance projected policies demonstrating a
call for action.
Unlike the United States, Great Britain was reluctant to change their ways regarding the
displaced Jewish persons after the War ended. The British followed a strict non-segregation
policy, implementing very few reforms for displaced persons and Jewish refugees, and were
reluctant to create a Jewish welfare system or render any assistance to German Jews. The British
also refrained from regulating restitution for Jewish property. The United States had already
enacted rules regulating restitution in their country, and France soon followed suit, yet Great
Britain was adamantly opposed. Why did the United States drastically change its refugee and
displaced persons policies but its Allied nation did not? During the war the British were very
strict about movement in and out of their zones, a notion that did not change but only amplified
after the war. With such heavy movement within Europe, the Jewish refugee flow was heavy and
unlike the United States at the time, the British prevented illegal entry into their territory, even
going so far as to implementing an extensive intelligence agency to prevent refugees from entry
even before they reached British borders. In addition to these attempts at alienation, the British
responsibilities in Palestine and a fear of Jewish national organizations putting pressure on the
British government to open up Jewish immigration in Palestine constituted as reasons for

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adamant opposition to Jewish refugees and displaced persons.23
These attempts by the British
resonated with prejudice as well as anti-Semitism in the country.
As the United States and the now Allied occupied nations of Germany, Austria and Italy
welcomed and provided camps to Jewish refugees, a huge call was created for international
humanitarianism, as the realities of the Holocaust and the lack of international intervention came
to light. In 1945, the United Nations was established and subsequently adopted in 1948 The
Universal Declaration of Human Rights. After the war ended, the international community
acknowledged and responded to the Nazi war crimes with the Nuremburg Trials, where the
USSR, Great Britain and the United States sought to impose punishment on the Nazi’s who
played a role in the genocide of the Jews. These trials and establishments reflected the ways in
which the world aimed to correct its wrong, to abolish its prejudices. They brought human rights
to the forefront within the global political sphere and set the precedent of punishment of
governments who committed crimes against humanity. The powerful countries of Great Britain,
even though it was more reluctant to change its refugee policies, and the United States helped
pave a path for humanity and assisted in assuring something like this would never happen again.
Islamaphobia as the New Anti-Semitism
While Germany, the United States and the rest of the world have vowed to never allow
something like the Holocaust of World War II to happen again, they have allowed severe
prejudice to be imposed upon a group of people. The Holocaust may not be happening again, but
the scale of desperate refugees who are being turned away at countless borders is happening
again and on an arguably larger scale. As a largely Muslim population, the Syrian refugees are
23 Hagit Lavsky, New Beginnings: Holocaust Survivors in Bergen-Belsen and the British Zone in Germany, 1945-
1950, (Wayne State University Press: 2002): 52-55.

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discriminated against and refused refugee hood for merely being Muslim. In recent years, the
world has bore witness to extremist terrorism and has a result, become widely prejudicial those
practicing the Islamic faith, which in Syria is more than 90%.24
Many of the world’s countries
are so concerned with homogeneity, whether it be in race or religion, and this is arguably the
greatest principle for which many government’s policy is based.
Conclusion
After careful analysis of the discourse and primary sources of World War II and the
plight of Jewish refugees, it is evident that there was a large degree of anti-Semitism throughout
the world, and as we have seen in this paper, the United States and Great Britain. The tensions
we see today, with regard to the refugee crisis in Syria and Europe, are not new. After the
refugee crisis of World War II, policies changed, institutions and boards were established and
acts were passed, however, those have seemingly been rendered useless when it comes to the
plight of the Syrian refugees. The practice and purpose of the above- mentioned are failing the
Syrians and the rest of the world. The world is in disarray, facing a refugee and migration crisis
that hasn’t been seen since that of the World War II refugees. In understanding the contemporary
crisis, we must look to the past and acknowledge that a policy change is absolutely vital and that
prejudices must be wiped from the international system and from government’s policies for the
sake of humanity.
24 “International Religious Freedom Report 2006,” U.S. Department of State. (2006).

20. 20
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