Internment

Further Information

Aliens: Islington Internment Camp-(Prisoners of War), 1914-18 - Catalogue reference MEPO 2/1633

A rare photograph from a First World War camp on the Isle of Man at Knockaloe. It's actually part of a correspondence file for the Islington Internment Camp where there had been a request for a group photograph. The commandant sought permission and needed evidence that this request was not so unusual.

 

Internees at liberty in UK, Weg-Weim, 1939-42 - Catalogue reference: HO 396/180
Available on MovingHere.org.uk

This is an enemy alien internment tribunal card for Arthur Weidenfeld. He was one of the 66,000 who had been classified as category C (90% of all assessed aliens), mainly because he provided evidence that he had escaped Nazi persecution. Most, but by no means all, of the 55,000 Jewish refugees who had come to the UK to escape Nazi persecution in the early and mid 1930s found themselves in Category C. 

 

16 year old who had escaped persecution from Vienna with his parents and was settling in school in Falmouth. - Catalogue reference: HO 396/180

 

 

 

Aliens File: BERNI, FRANK Date of Birth: 30.10.1903 (1928-1941) - Catalogue reference: HO 405/2103

Frank Berni was not a foreign national, having taken out British citizenship in 1934. However, by May 1940, with the risk of German invasion high, regardless of their Category classification, a further 8,000 Germans and Austrians resident in the Southern strip of England found themselves interned. Resident Italians were also considered for internment following Italy's declaration of war on Britain on 10 June 1940. Some 4,000 resident Italians who were known to be members of the Italian Fascist Party and others aged between 16 and 70 who had lived in the UK for less than 20 years were ordered to be interned.

 

German internees released in UK, jory-katz, 1939-42 - Catalogue reference: HO 396/180

Here is the case of Erich Kahn (1904-1979) who was a German Expressionist. He was born and lived in Germany until, persecuted by Nazis, he found himself imprisoned at the Welzheim concentration camp. 

 

Part of a photograph album of a Women's camp on the Isle of Man - here is a glove making industry - Catalogue reference: HO 213/1053

 

The camps offered education and training. A Dress-making class at the camp plus a cat. Catalogue reference: HO 213/1053

 

 

 

 

 

Movement of Internees abroad: diary kept by internee who was shipped from the Isle of Man to Camp Hay, Australia and back, 1940-1 - Catalogue reference: HO 215/263

The increase in numbers of those interned led to a serious space problem within the UK and, following offers from the Canadian and Australian governments, more than 7,500 internees were shipped overseas on 24 June and 1, 2, 4 and 10 July 1940 on the vessels the Ettrick, the Sobieski, the Duchess of York, the Dunera, and the Arandora Star.