At first sight, there would seem to be little to connect Eleanor Rathbone, Independent MP for the Combined English Universities, with the occupation of Prague by Hitler’s regime on 15 March 1939. But nothing could be further from the truth, for this incursion sealed the fate of refugees from Czechoslovakia, on whose behalf Eleanor was already campaigning. Far from rejoicing at Chamberlain’s settlement with Hitler the previous September, whereby Germany was granted the strategic Sudeten northern frontiers of the Czechoslovak Republic, in return for the German dictator’s promise not to attack the rest of the Republic, and to keep the peace in the future, Eleanor viewed the Munich Agreement as a betrayal, and forecast a humanitarian tragedy.
War had been averted in the short term, but at what price? The resulting partial occupation of Czechoslovakia by the Nazi party precipitated a massive movement of terrified people, and Eleanor’s immediate concern, and that of other refugee activists, was for the endangered ‘political refugees’ – Sudeten Germans and Communists, and old Reich refugees, German and Austrians, mostly Jews, who were in Czechoslovakia – for none of them were afforded protection in the dismembered country, and were all in grave danger. From September 1938 Eleanor threw herself wholeheartedly into a two-pronged campaign, on the one hand to help rescue as many people as possible from Czechoslovakia, on the other to press the British Government to make funds immediately available to Czech refugees.
This brought her into close working contact with Miss Doreen Warriner, the first representative in Prague of the British Committee for Refugees from Czechoslovakia. Miss Warriner became Eleanor’s eyes and ears, being her major source of information concerning the mounting crisis, and at her insistence, Eleanor agreed to visit the beleaguered city in January 1939 to assess the situation for herself. Over the course of five days, Eleanor came face-to-face with the dangers facing the refugees, and with the inhumane conditions in which they were living.
On her return to Britain she used her newly formed all-party lobbying group, the Parliamentary Committee on Refugees, of which she was Honorary Secretary, as the platform from which to launch an offensive against the government and their policies. There was no doubt in her mind that having appeased Hitler, Britain had a moral obligation to help the refugees. Impressing upon the government the urgency of action involved Eleanor in Parliamentary Questions, deputations, reports, telephone calls, private letters and much more. Neville Chamberlain and his cabinet ministers were put under mounting pressure to adopt a more humane approach by easing the restrictions on immigration quotas, issuing more entry permits and granting immediate financial aid to the Czechs.
The news that reached Eleanor on 15 March 1939, that Prague had been seized and the rest of the Czech state occupied by the Nazis, was a dreadful day, and confirmed her worst fears. She wasted not time in contacting Miss Warriner, whose life and refugee work were now seriously threatened, offering whatever help she could to expedite the rescue of threatened souls. The gravity of the situation called for desperate measures and Eleanor became even more forceful in her approaches to Foreign Office officials, urging them to adopt somewhat unorthodox methods of transferring life saving sums of money abroad, and begging them to give Passport Control Officers personal authority to issue visas and thus minimise delays, a policy which had, the Foreign Office reluctantly admitted in private, been allowed in Warsaw. Up until the outbreak of war in September 1939 Eleanor continued to champion the cause of the Czech refugees, but without Miss Warriner’s assistance, for she had been forced, for her own safety, to leave Prague in April 1939.
War changed everything, not just for the Czech refugees, but for the millions over others, men women and children, especially Jews, in Eastern Europe whose very existence was threatened. It also impacted upon Eleanor and her humanitarian activism, as she embraced the refugee cause with a fervour and compassion unequalled by any of her peers. She was, without doubt, a remarkable human being.
Susan Cohen’s book, Rescue the Perishing. Eleanor Rathbone and the Refugees, is published by Vallentine Mitchell.