The other day, I was watching an interesting documentary on BBC about the almost unbelievable true story of the Jewish girl Anne Frank. From the file presented, which was found when a volunteer was sorting out old WWII refugee files in New York City, it was confirmed that on 30 April 1941, Anne Frank’s father, Otto, wrote a desperate letter to his American friend, pleading for help to emigrate his family from Amsterdam to the United States. For the volunteer, this particular file looked like countless other files and documents, until he opened the file and saw the children’s names....
In this file, this volunteer noticed that there were many other letters written by Otto Frank, frantically seeking help to flee Nazi persecution in Europe and obtain a visa for America, Britain or even Cuba – but, unfortunately, getting nowhere because of global indifference to Jewish refugees.
We all know that the Frank children were murdered by the Nazis, but what is less known is the way Anne’s fate was sealed due to a callous fear of refugees.
Sound familiar?
During his second term in office, President Obama vowed to admit 10,000 Syrian refugees – a tiny number, just one-fifth of one per cent of the total – and Hillary Clinton suggested taking more. During the presidential campaign, Donald Trump excoriated both of them for their willingness to welcome Syrians – and instead, called on his ‘America First’ voters to ban Muslims from entering the United States of America.
As we all know, the fear of terrorism has left Muslim refugees regarded as toxic in the West as well, and almost no one wants them any more than anyone wanted a German-Dutch teenager named Anne Frank. The parallels to the anti-refugee hysteria of the 1930 and 40s to today are absolutely striking.
For the Frank family, a new life in America seemed feasible. Anne had studied English and her father Otto also spoke English. He had lived for a few months on West 71st Street in Manhattan, and had been a long-time friend of an official in the Franklin Roosevelt administration. However, the sole obstacle was an American wariness towards refugees that outweighed sympathy. Ninety-four per cent of Americans disapproved of the Nazis’ treatment of Jews, but 72 per cent still objected to admitting large numbers of them into the US.
The reasons for the opposition then were the same as they are today: “we can’t afford many refugees, we should look after ourselves first, we can’t accept anybody, they’ll take our jobs, they’re dangerous and different...’
With the exception of German Chancellor Angela Merkel, (the best Chancellor that Germany has ever had), it is a great sadness that, in today’s political environment, officials and most politicians have lost all humanity with respect to the outrageous, still on-going, Syrian conflict.
It is absolutely disgraceful!
Jos Edmond Zarb
Birkirkara