This is an apron belonging to Lisbeth Sokal, whose parents sent her to England from Austria in 1938. Her initials and last name are sewed onto the apron. The apron is from the collections of the Jewish Museum in London.
Lisbeth’s parents did not survive the war. They were taken to the Sobibor camp and were never heard from again. Her brother, Carl, was taken to Dachau, but he was freed thanks to intervention by Lisbeth’s employer, Mrs Moon.
The large influx of refugees from Europe prompted British Jews to help by establishing aid organisations like the Jewish Refugee Committee that assisted with money, housing, education, and job training. Lisbeth met her Polish-born husband, David Sokal, through this organization, and they were married in 1944.
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Immigration to Great Britain before and during World War II – From the time the Nazi party gained power in Germany, Jews began trying to emigrate. Initially the Nazis supported and even encouraged Jewish emigration. However, German Jews faced difficulties due to immigration quotas. The Evian conference attempted to find solutions for the Jewish refugees, but most countries did not increase their quotas. Some countries, however, found creative ways to allow in more immigrants. In Britain, for example, two large programs were initiated that allowed entry to Jews from Germany and Austria: the Kindertransport permitted the immigration of 10,000 Jewish children under the age of 18, and 20,000 domestic visas were granted to Jewish women for work as maids. Approximately 40,000 German and Austrian Jews had immigrated to Britain by the outbreak of World War II.
The Jewish Community of Britain – The first mention of Jews in Britain is from 1070. In the eleventh and twelfth century Jews were legally under the protection of the monarchs in return for heavy taxes and loans and lived mainly in the financial centres of London, Oxford, Lincoln, Bristol, and Norwich. In the late twelfth century, the Jews suffered from anti-Semitic restrictions, blood libels, riots, and massacres. One of the worst anti-Semitic massacres of the Middle Ages took place in York where the entire Jewish community was burnt to death at Clifford’s Tower. In 1290 King Edward I expelled all the Jews of Britain and their homes and properties were confiscated. For many centuries, Jews did not officially live in the country, but many lived secretly until the rule of Oliver Cromwell, when they were readmitted due to the intervention of the Dutch rabbi and leader, Menashe Ben Israel. Many of these new Jewish arrivals were of Spanish and Portuguese origins. An attempt to legalise Jewish presence in Britain was made in 1753 with the Jewish Naturalisation Act, and in the nineteenth century Jews received equal rights. The community prospered and comprised academics, bankers, scientists, and merchants. Among these distinguished British Jews of the eighteenth and nineteenth century were Sir Moses Montefiore, Nathan Mayer von Rothschild, and Benjamin Disraeli. Due to the good conditions, the lack of violence towards Jews, and religious tolerance, in the nineteenth century Britain became a target for Jewish immigration from Eastern Europe. The new Jewish immigrants lived mainly in the large industrial cities, especially London, Manchester, and Leeds. The East End of London became a Jewish neighbourhood where Yiddish was commonly spoken. In the twentieth century many more Jews fleeing the Nazis arrived in Britain, including the famous kindertransport, the British rescue effort of thousands of children from Nazi-occupied Europe. The Jewish community of Britain numbers over 300,000 today. This is the fifth largest Jewish community in the world and the second in Europe.
Domestic service visas – Britain offered domestic service visas to Jewish women provided they find jobs before arriving in Britain to ensure that the refugees would not be a burden on the state. These immigrants were seen as a solution to the growing difficulty of finding domestic servants. Many of the women who received these visas came from upper middle-class families, who often employed their own servants, and they were not accustomed to working and doing menial jobs. The physical adjustment to a 15-hour workday and the psychological adjustment to the inferior status of a maid made for an extremely difficult transition. Furthermore, many of the domestic servants were not treated well and had no choice but to persevere with their difficult work conditions.
Jewish community of Austria – Jews have lived in Austria since the times of the Roman Empire. In the early Middle Ages Jews were permitted to participate in commerce, but in the fifteenth century all of the community were arrested, murdered, or expelled. Around the beginning of the eighteenth century Jews slowly returned to Austria, and by 1781, when Emperor Joseph II issued the Edict of Tolerance, more than one and a half million Jews were living in the Habsburg Empire. The situation for the Jews improved significantly in the nineteenth century: a chief rabbi served in Vienna, a synagogue was consecrated in 1826, and Emperor Franz Josef granted equal rights to the Jews in the Austro-Hungarian Empire. This was also a time of many prominent Austrian Jews including Sigmund Freud, Arnold Schoenberg, Gustav Mahler (who converted to Christianity), and Stefan Zweig. Two Jewish politicians, Victor Adler and Otto Bauer, served as foreign ministers after World War I. The prosperity of Austrian Jews also attracted many Jewish immigrants from eastern parts of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, and by the mid 1930s more than 200,000 Jews lived in Austria. However, anti-Semitism also intensified during this time, and young people, such as Adolph Hitler himself, grew up under this anti-Jewish atmosphere. Austria was annexed by Nazi Germany in 1938, and around 65,000 Austrian Jews were murdered in death camps during the Holocaust. After the war, the Jewish community was slowly rebuilt. In 2015 approximately 9000 Jews lived in Austria, primarily Vienna; most are of Austrian origin with some originally from the former Soviet Union and Eastern Europe. The community has a number of synagogues, schools, and other organisations.
