Britain as a refuge?: historical perspectives/contemporary questions
When:
—
Venue:
Birkbeck Main Building, Malet Street
Britain is portrayed as having an admirable tradition of offering a place of refuge to those fleeing persecution. Yet a closer examination of the historical record of asylum policy often belies this image: from the time of the famous Kindertransport in the late 1930s, which brought thousands of refugee Jewish children to Great Britain fleeing Nazi rule in Europe, up to the more recent times, including the ‘boat people’ fleeing Vietnam in the late 1970s and asylum seekers today from Iran, Afghanistan, Iraq and Syria.
This symposium, held in partnership with the Pears Institute for the study of Antisemitism Centre for the Study of Anti-Semitism, will explore the historical background to the stories described in Birkbeck's current exhibition Refugees, Newcomers, Citizens: Migration Stories from Picture Post showing at the Pelzt Peltz Gallery, Gordon Square, WC1, 4 June-5 July.
Speakers include Louise London (author of Whitehall and the Jews and a Honorary Research Fellow of the Pears Institute) and Becky Taylor (Reader in History at University of East Anglia and specialist in post war asylum policy).
Contact name:
Michael Berlin
Contact phone:
02076316647
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