Gefen Publications

Tandem Press U.K. Distributor

Haven in Africa

Reviews

"Haven in Africa represents a stimulating contribution to the scholarship on European and African Jewry. This thought-provoking volume presents excellent documents and photographs, and is suitable for scholars of Jewish history, African Jewry, European history and World War II, politics, and Holocaust studies, and the general reader interested in the topic."

Yael Even-Levy. "Review of Frank Shapiro, Haven in Africa," H-Judaic, H-Net Reviews, October, 2004

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"Frank Shapiro scrutinizes both group settlement in and individual Jewish emigration to Northern Rhodesia...Until the beginning of World War II, thirteen different plans for the guided emigration of European Jews were discussed...As informative as this book is about the little-studied Rhodesia project, Shapiro is too quick to condemn de Rothschild.

Review: Haven in Africa "Holocaust Genocide Studies" 2004 18: 500-503 Susanne Heim. Max Planck Society, Berlin, Germany

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"Could more have been done to save the millions of Jews ensnared in the Nazi web being spun across Europe? Telfed Magazine speaks to Frank Shapiro about his 2002 publication 'Haven in Africa' which challenges the notion that by 1939 there was nowhere for European Jews to flee to."

Cover Story in TelFed Magazine, Vol. 30 No. 3  October 2004

"This book challenges the history we have all learnt - that in 1939 there was nowhere in the world where large numbers of Europe's Jews could live safely. Yet some of them did and the book also tells their stories; how they made their way out of Europe, their journey by sea to Africa, their arrival in this country. A must-read for anyone interested in Zambia's history and especially for anyone interested in Jewish history."

The Lusaka Lowdown, Lusaka, Zambia Vol.10 No.7  July 2004

"Haven in Africa is a sobering account of attempts – collective and individual – to seek a haven for European Jews fleeing Nazism in Northern Rhodesia. Frank Shapiro’s vivid narrative combines compassion, historical analysis, archival revelations and counter-factual thinking. He unfolds a little known chapter in European History, African History and in the History of the Jews, and in the history of the British Empire demonstrating their unacknowledged interconnectedness. As we currently reflect on the potential of global humanitarian efforts to save lives, on bureaucratic structures and their limitations, Frank Shapiro’s conclusions are of troubling relevance. This is a poignant chapter in twentieth century history."

Professor Miri Rubin, Department of History, Queen Mary- University of London

"Shapiro challenges a conclusion that has become a near consensus among Holocaust historians: that by 1939 there was no place open for large numbers of German Jews to go. He shows that there was at least one major exception, the British Crown Protectorate of Northern Rhodesia. He bases his case on extensive archival materials and oral histories. Here is a frustratingly sad story of an opportunity missed, partly out of malice and partly out of inattention. The inattention seems to have come from a most unexpected source."

Karl A. Schleunes, Professor of History The University of North Carolina at Greensboro

"I have just completed reading Haven in Africa, which I found very enlightening. For seven years, I have been involved in teaching a multi-disciplinary course on the Holocaust, but this is the first time I have heard of the Northern Rhodesian efforts...Thank you for having written the book and for making yourself available for comments."

Kenneth A. Wolkon, Ph.D. Professor of Psychology, Bridgewater State College, MA

"Thank you for sending me a copy of Frank Shapiro's 'Heaven in Africa'. I have started reading it and it is extremely interesting."

The Lord Janner of Braunstone, Q.C. President Commonwealth Jewish Council

"Haven in Africa provides an important missing link in understanding the moral dilemmas and perplexities involved on the one hand in saving Jews, while on the other hand abandoning them to their fate."

Jewish South African SIG Newsletter - March 2003

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"Shapiro emphasizes that Northern Rhodesia 'never closed its gates to the arriving Jews' in contrast to a 'conspiracy of silence' on the part of the Anglo-Jewish leaders."

Anna Charin: Jewish Chronicle August 22, 2003

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 "Shapiro deserves credit for chasing the documentation, judiciously examining responses, and clarifying the debate...his pioneering and carefully researched account will be appreciated." (Professor Milton Shain)

Journal of Southern African Studies Vol.29 No.3 pp.810-811 September 2003

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"In the years leading up to World War 2, when the West had closed its doors to the Jews, Northern Rhodesia became a possible option for Jewish refugees. Frank Shapiro here explores how this unique country allowed a haven of safety to exist on the one hand, and on the other failed to fulfill its saving potential."

SHOFAR  Fall 2003 Vol.22,  No.1 p.186     (Purdue University)

"Shapiro demonstrates that Northern Rhodesia remained a possibility for mass Jewish immigration, and examines why this plan never reached fruition. Citing such primary sources as letters from Sir Roy Welensky, former prime minister of Northern Rhodesia, Shapiro comprehensively covers the British imperial government's plan to settle Jews..."

Adina Levine   Jerusalem Post  November 21, 2003

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Comments

Letter to the Jerusalem Post on May 1 2003 by Mr. Bill Oakfield a former member of the Board of Deputies of British Jews.

Sir, - On Holocaust Remembrance Day the IBA's 8 p.m. TV news program interviewed Frank Shapiro, author of Haven in Africa, about the failed scheme to send Central European Jews to Northern Rhodesia, whose government would have been only too happy to accept them. This shameful episode was swept under the carpet by the prewar Anglo-Jewish leadership, which rejected the scheme, using the lame excuse that it would create anti-Semitism and evoke accusations of dual loyalty.

I was a member of the Board of Deputies of British Jews for nine years in the 1980s and 1990s, but I and other deputies were never told why the files on this scheme were considered so confidential that their contents were barred from researchers for half a century. The prewar board leaders must have known what was going on, but their fears about their standing in Britain seemed to have taken precedence over the saving of Jewish lives. Most of those Jews were lost in the Holocaust.

It is high time to expose this episode and put the blame where it rightly belongs, on the ghetto mentality of the prewar British Jewish leadership.

BILL OAKFIELD

Netanya