Rosh Hashanah 1939 marked the start of unimaginable horrors

British Jews hoped for peace but expected war. They had seen the clouds of conflict gather in 1939. In mid-March, Czechoslovakia had ceased to exist. Slovakia, under the pro-Nazi Jozef Tiso, had seceded. The Czech rump had been incorporated into the German Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia. Within hours, Hitler had arrived at Prague Castle and the Hlinka Guards were forcing Jews to scrub the streets of the new Slovak republic.

Camps were immediately established in Milovice near Prague and Žatec near Pilsen to hold Jews and political opponents.

Yet this annexation was different. In dismembering the remnant of Czechoslovakia, Hitler had not reclaimed territory lost during the First World War but devoured a people that was not German, ethnically or culturally.

Several states therefore believed that they would be the next victim of the Nazi steamroller. The prime minister, Neville Chamberlain, reacted to this development by pledging to defend Polish independence in the House of Commons. For many British Jews, the slow British retreat from appeasement begat the gradual realisation that a new war was perhaps inevitable.

Local fascists however gloried in Hitler’s advances. The Imperial Fascist League told their supporters in April 1939 not to erect bomb shelters in their gardens but instead to “carry on serenely with their great cleaning work...to remove from all countries, the universal enemy — the Jew. That is the only war worthwhile.”

Oswald Mosley’s British Union of Fascists held rallies in Ridley Road, Dalston and at St Martin’s Lane in London’s West End in the days leading up to the outbreak of war. Mosley denounced the government’s pledge to come to the aid of Poland and told his audience that Germany should be given a free hand in Eastern Europe. Mosley’s slogan was “Britain First!” — a nationalist epithet adopted even today by authoritarian leaders.

Mosley insisted that this was not a quarrel between Britain and Germany, but one manufactured by “the Jewish masters” of both countries. There were fascist marches through areas such as Stoke Newington whereby Jews were told to “go back to Berlin” amidst a deluge of antisemitic insults.

Even after war had broken out, Mosley was allowed to hold a rally in Dalston. The local fascists spoke disparagingly of Britain as “a land fit for Hebrews”.

Jewish organisations and their allies attempted to counteract this propaganda campaign. In April 1939, a prescient Jewish Chronicle editorial commented: “One almost suspects that even Nazi bombs raining down on London would not seriously interfere with the devotion of these men at the Führer’s shrine.”

The invasion of Poland effectively cut off the flow of Jewish refugees to Britain. One of the last arrivals was a party of refugee children from Zbaszyn on the Polish-German border. In October 1938, the Nazis began to arrest and deport Jews who did not hold German citizenship — even though they may have lived in Germany for most of their lives or even have been born there. Nearly 7,000 were dumped at the station at Zbaszyn in the most abject of conditions, wanted by neither the Germans nor the Poles. The religious Zionists of Mizrahi had brought the children to Britain en route for agricultural work in Palestine.

Not all refugees were so lucky. Dentist Rudolf Gerthen had escaped from a German camp and managed to illegally cross the Channel only to be arrested. “Scarred, bruised and toothless” after his experience at the hands of the Nazis, he was sentenced to a month in prison.

Another 24 refugees were cultivating land around Fort Château à L’Étoc on Alderney. At that time, it was deemed inconceivable that the Nazis would ever occupy the Channel Islands. Yet Alderney was to become a lethal centre for slave labour where Jews were also incarcerated in camps.

The outbreak of war saw an enthusiasm on the part of many Jewish refugees to help in the war effort. Filling up sandbags or working in hospitals was seen as contributing to the downfall of those who had persecuted and humiliated them. British Jews became defence wardens, auxiliary firemen and stretcher bearers.

The great fear was a blanket bombing of civilian areas. There was a deep anxiety that this could take place at any moment. Chief Rabbi Hertz issued instructions to his ministers to blow the shofar in “a subdued manner” for fear that in a time of heightened tension, its sound would cause alarm in the local community. Kol Nidrei services had to be concluded before the hour of blackout.

Parents gave up their children for evacuation to safer parts of the country with great outbursts of emotion when saying goodbye. This happened to Jewish refugee children outside Myrtle Street school off Commercial Road in London’s East End. In Scotland, children from Glasgow’s Gertrude Jacobson orphanage were sent to Dumfriesshire.

Some Jewish organisations moved out of London. The Zionist Federation and the JNF went to Oxford while departments of the Jewish Chronicle moved to High Wycombe. Emergency appeals for funds to help refugees proliferated.

Zionist leader Chaim Weizmann declared that “the Jew will fight on the side of the democracies” while his opponent, Vladimir Jabotinsky pledged his support in a telegram to Chamberlain.

Not all adherents on the Zionist Right were enthusiastic supporters of the British. Avraham Stern of Lehi believed that since the British were the occupiers of Palestine, ‘the enemy of my enemy is my friend’ took precedence. Stern sent emissaries twice to contact German diplomats in the Middle East. He believed in September 1939 that Hitler was a persecutor in the tradition of past persecutors of the Jews — and not an exterminator. A canny Menahem Begin occupied a position somewhere between Jabotinsky and Stern. He waited to see what transpired and did not necessarily believe that ‘the enemy of my enemy’ was automatically ‘my friend’.

The year 1939 was awful for British Jews. By the next Rosh Hashanah, all Europe lay ravaged by the Nazi war machine and Britain was threatened by invasion. But what was to follow during the years of occupation and resistance was unimaginable.

At the head of the New Year in 1939, Jewish spiritual leaders strongly felt that they had to respond to the moral desolation which was felt in all parts of the community. They did so by reminding British Jews of their fidelity to the God of Jewish history and Jewish heroism down the ages. In this vein, Chief Rabbi Hertz addressed them in “this hour of tribulation” and told them: “‘The Lord reigns, the Lord has reigned, the Lord will reign forever and ever.’ Let us remember it in the tragic hours that lie before us and let us not despair.”