Comments on: Welcoming refugees then and now

By: Jara Handala

Jara Handala — Wed, 14 Oct 2015 21:23:51 +0000

Thanks for your interesting report, Suzanne. Eliette D saying she was raised, like so many others in her region, on the principle ‘love the entire world’, reminded me of the novel ‘Les Javanais’, written by a Pole drawing on his cosmopolitan time working in the 1920s & ’30s just to the south of Auvergne, in the mines of Provence. Wladimir Malacki (better known as Jean Malaquais) also novelised the perils of refugees, ‘Planète sans visa’ (the title of the earlier pamphlet by Breton et al. protesting the expulsion of Trotsky from France). (The other year I suggested to PM Press that they try to re-publish his evocative work.)

Perhaps you didn’t go to school in the Auvergne but there’s a 2002 film, ‘Étre et avoir’, that you may have seen. It’s a non-sentimental ‘fly-on-the-wall’ documentary of a village elementary school in Puy-de-Dôme, the department immediately above the ones shown in your useful map.

Lastly, Canada, its Jewish citizens, & prospective Jewish immigrants, not just refugees. It’s a black history, as you know, even so in early 1945: a “senior Canadian official”, in an off-the-record briefing to journalists, “was asked how many Jews would be allowed into Canada after the war” . . . “‘None,’ he said, ‘is too many'” (Irving Abella & Harold Troper, None Is Too Many: Canada and the Jews of Europe 1933-1948, Toronto UP, 2012, p.xix – first published 1983).

As you say, it’s one thing exposing the past for good & for ill, & it’s another to care for those today who are seeking refuge.

By: MurrayLumley

MurrayLumley — Mon, 12 Oct 2015 03:07:09 +0000

This is a wonderful report and life giving story. The people in France that Suzanne and John met who are still caring for refugees are an inspiration to all of us who know and are encouraged by the lives of Suzanne & John.

By: merilynmoos

merilynmoos — Sat, 10 Oct 2015 05:24:30 +0000

Hullo, John and Susanne, Thank you for a touching email. I would have written to you personally but as i cant, this is just to say in case you are interested, Im speaking about being the child of refugees from Nazism in Britian at Senate House this Monday at 5,30 to the London Socialist History Group

By: pmdelsoi

pmdelsoi — Sat, 10 Oct 2015 01:37:20 +0000

This story is truly inspiring, showing solidarity can happening even in the most difficult political social extreme. Thanks for researching, and bringing light to this forgotten history John and everyone involved.

By: Henry Lowi

Henry Lowi — Fri, 09 Oct 2015 22:22:12 +0000

Thanks for sharing this, Suzanne and John