Language:
English
Year of publication:
2023
Titel der Quelle:
Australian Jewish Historical Society Journal
Angaben zur Quelle:
26,3 (2023) 286-317
Keywords:
Calwell, A. A.
;
International Refugee Organization
;
United HIAS Service
;
American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee
;
Jewish refugees History 1945-
;
Australia Emigration and immigration
;
Economic aspects
Abstract:
Jewish immigration to Australia in the aftermath of the Holocaust has been much studied. This article adds to knowledge of the period by examining one aspect which to the present has not received sufficient consideration, that pertaining to the funding of Jewish survivor immigration from Europe. After the war, the cost of travel to Australia was substantial, the equivalent of male average weekly earnings over 20 or more weeks. Australian Jewish organisations lacked the capacity to assist at the level required by thousands of Jewish survivors who wished to migrate to Australia and they turned to American Jewish welfare organisations, the Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society and American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee, but even their resources were stretched. The International Refugee Organisation stepped into the breach and provided subsidies for travel of Jewish refugees in the first year of its operation, but in August 1948 it was required to cease this funding assistance by Australia’s minister for immigration, Arthur Calwell. This article examines the reasons for Calwell’s action, and the failed attempts to secure its reversal during Calwell’s ministry and that of his successor, Harold Holt. It reveals political judgements and prejudices that overrode humanitarian concerns.
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