Jewish Refugees’ Differing Responses to Entrapment while Fleeing: Two Women and a Girl who Fled from Vichy France to Franco’s Spain

• In Event: Jewish Refugees’ Responses to Entrapment in Places of Temporary Sojourn during Flight from Holocaust Persecution

Abstract

Refugee flight should be re-conceptualized as a sequence of entrapments. The word “flight” evokes movement, but statis and an inability to move, in a series of sites, more accurately describes refugees’ experiences of fleeing. Thousands of refugees who left Vichy France for Franco’s Spain were held up for days, weeks or months, trapped, in one or more locales. This paper examines their responses to entrapment, with a focus on their emotions, attitudes, and actions. It focuses on a girl and two Jewish refugee women who, without knowing each other, left France for Franco’s Spain only a few months apart, in 1940 and 1941. These three individuals differed markedly in their approach towards leaving, in what they did in order to leave, and in their emotions while trapped. This paper seeks to explain these differences, analyzing closely their memoirs; the memoirs and personal correspondence of individuals who worked with or were related to them; official documents produced for them; official correspondence concerning state repression in the area in which they were staying; and photographs of them and of their abodes. The analysis of these sources reveals that the refugees’ central interest (such as political activism or the achievement of family togetherness), their recent experiences such as internment, and separation from family members shape their responses to entrapment and leaving. Implications for the concept of refugee flight and for the analysis of gender and flight will be discussed.

Author

• Jacqueline Adams, University of Salamanca, Department of History