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136 SHOFAR Winter 1997 Vol. 15, No. 2 spersed with remarkable anecdotes and compelling illustrations. How antisemitism shapes and is shaped by popular culture is something more scholars should explore and when they do.so, they will have to rely on Felsenstein for a model. Michael Scrivener Department of English Wayne State University Island Refuge: Britain and Refugees from the Third Reich 1933-1939, by A. J. Sherman. 2nd ed. London: Frank Cass, 1994. 293 pp. $25.00. The first edition of this book, which appeared originally in 1973, was immediately accepted as the standard account of the British government's response to the prewar phase of the refugee exodus from Nazi Germany. The book examined the record of British governmental decision-making and showed the conflicting bureaucratic, political, diplomatic, and public pressures that shaped policy. The outcome, an immigration to Britain estimated at about 55,000 refugees (90. percent of them Jewish) in the years 1933-1939, was considered by Sherman "comparativelycompassionate , even generous," at any rate when assessed in the context of the times and by comparison with other countries. In its sobriety oftone, meticulous scholarship, fairminded analysis of evidence, and measured judgment, Sherman's study served as a model for subsequent studies on this and many related themes. Nevertheless, in recent years some ofits conclusions have come under attack from a new generation of historians who take a less charitable view ofBritish policy. Writers such as Tony Kushner, David Cesarani, and Louise London have emphasized the ungenerous and xenophobic elements in British public and governmental attitudes towards refugees, and specifically towards Jewish refugees, in this period. Another writer, Richard Bolchover, has issued harsh criticisms of the attitudes of the Anglo-Jewish community towards the refugee influx. In this new, paperback edition ofthe book, Sherman has added a brief introduction in which he considers'this new literature but stands by the conclusions of 1973. On one important point of fact he revises the earlier version-but in a way that bolsters his earlier conclusion: the true number of refugees from the Third Reich who arrived in Britain, it now appears, was almost certainly between 60,000 and 70,000 rather than the lower numbers generally accepted hitherto. Apparently there was a virtual Book Reviews 137 conspiracy of misinformation on the part of the Home Office, the Jewish community, and refugee relief organizations, all ofwhom had an interest in minimizing the numbers of refugees who were said to be arriving in the country. Sherman again stresses the comparative generosity of view towards Jewish refugees on the part ofBritish consular officers in Germany and Austria (there is more evidence now available to support that general conclusion) as compared with the "rigid, unsympathetic administration by American consuls of their country's immigration regulations." The text of the book remains substantially the same as in the previous edition, but a useful supplementarybibliography has been added, as have some evocative photographs. Sherman's book is out of tune with much of the recent literature on the subject-but that does not mean it is wrong. The more critical view of British policy now common perhaps reflects current sociopolitical preoccupations rather than an altogether disinterested analysis of the historical evidence. The British record on these issues was admittedly rather different, certainly less impressive, during World War II, but it is a mistake automatically to extrapolate back into the prewar period. In the judgment of this reviewer Sherman's central argument remains unassail· able. It should be added that the book is written with a rare felicity: it is a pleasure to read. Bernard Wasserstein Oxford Centre for Hebrew. and Jewish Studies .The Origins ofNazi Genocide: From Euthanasia to the Final Solution, by Henry Friedlander. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1995. 421 pp. $34.95. Henry Friedlander's long-awaited book is the first systematic attempt to link specifically defined Nazi practices of negative selection affecting human beings not deemed worthy of life. He does this by emphasizing three factors. First, although he professes not to deal with physicians or medicine per se (meaning that he did not intend to write a text from the point of view of medicine), he clearly demonstrates...

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