abstract |
This thesis explores the experience of the Irish-Jewish community before, during, and
after the Second World War, a period marked by neutrality, censorship, and isolation of its
Jewish population from the crisis occurring in mainland Europe. Through census data,
government records, newspaper archives, and, most importantly, memoirs, this study
reconstructs the realities of Jewish life in 1930s and 40s Ireland at the peak of their population. It
explores how the close-knit community navigated the challenges of a predominantly Christian
country, which, like many other countries in 1938, felt they did not have the capabilities to
support Jewish emigrants on the continent. Ireland's neutrality continued an already restrictive
refugee policy and introduced fragile protection. Germany would break the neutrality of several
other nations, and while the British Royal Navy controlled surrounding seas, the Irish Jews did
not know how long that protection would last. However, this thesis also considers the broader
context of Irish attitudes toward Jews and the role of Christian minorities in supporting Jewish
neighbors, something celebrated by those interested in seeing Ireland's reputation as a country
with minimal antisemitism history maintained.
Central to this work are memoirs by Theo Garb, David Marcus, Stanley Price, Lionel
Cohen, and Nick Harris, whose firsthand accounts create an intense intersection of security,
survivor's guilt, and the experience of a rare hyphenated identity. These narratives provide
insight into how Irish Jews' lives changed as a result of war, how they learned of the Holocaust
and reacted to news of atrocities, and how they maintained connections with global Jewry, often
through family members, despite intentional barriers to information. By balancing personal
testimony and official records, this thesis demonstrates how Ireland offered its Jewish citizens
relative safety at the cost of isolation and limited representation. Ultimately, the memoirs used
are essential to the history of Jewish Ireland during World War II, as historians cannot fully
understand this experience without putting the voices of those who lived it at the center,
highlighting both the privileges and the burdens of survival in a neutral nation.
|