This year marks the 80th anniversary of the internment of refugees from Nazi Europe by the British government. It was a particularly contentious episode in our history, when around 30,000 “enemy aliens” were indiscriminately rounded up and detained, mainly on the Isle of Man, most of them German and Austrian Jews already traumatised by the war. To coincide with the anniversary, we’ve partnered with Insiders/Outsiders to present a four-week online series featuring fascinating tales of survival, a playreading, recital and more. We have also organised a trip to the Isle of Man in March 2022, which you can find out about and book on our tours page.
Thursday 23 September
Second World War Internment in the UK: September 1939 to July 1940
Historian Dr Rachel Pistol, author of Internment During the Second World War: A Comparative Study of Great Britain and the USA, leads the first discussion in the series. She examines the first chaotic nine months of internment, prior to most internees being sent to the Isle of Man, and looks at the controversial deportation scheme that sent five ships of refugees to Canada and Australia, only four of which arrived at their destination.
6pm. £5.
Carry Gorney: Send Me a Parcel with a Hundred Lovely Things
A dramatised reading of excerpts from Carry Gorney’s memoir, Send Me a Parcel with a Hundred Lovely Things. In this she considers how her life was shaped by her parents’ experience of displacement and reinvention, including her father’s internment in 1940. The book includes extracts from her parents’ letters, revealing a historic resentment and suspicion of refugees and a unique picture of the internment camps on the Isle of Man.
8pm. £5.
Thursday 30 September
From Internee to Art Collector: Tribute to Ruth Borchard
A screening of Richard Shaw’s documentary Inside Art: Ruth Borchard Collection. The film first aired on Sky Arts in 2020 and explores the superb collection of self-portraits amassed by Borchard, a German Jewish refugee, between 1958 and 1971. Before collecting art, she was arrested and interned first at Holloway Prison, then Rushen Camp for women on the Isle of Man. The screening will be followed by a Q&A with members of Borchard’s family and others familiar with her life story and achievements.
6pm. £5.
Tales of Internment: Sonia Lambert
Writer, journalist and teacher Sonia Lambert discusses how accounts written by Jewish refugees who were interned in 1940 inspired her forthcoming novel, Sea Air. These accounts include Never Mind Mr Lom by Alfred Lomnitz, A Tale of Internment by Livia Laurent and We Are Strangers Here by Ruth Borchard.
8pm. £5.
Self-Portrait Collage by Jack Bilbo © Estate of Jack Bilbo
Thursday 7 October
Jack Bilbo: Cultural Impresario
Gallerist Jane England will talk about the charismatic German-born writer, painter and gallery owner Jack Bilbo, who presided over cultural activities in Onchan Camp on the Isle of Man during World War II.
6pm. £5.
Tribute to Klaus Hinrichsen
Jacquie Richardson, whose father, the art historian Klaus Hinrichsen, was interned at Hutchinson camp on the Isle of Man and chronicled its immensely rich cultural life, will be in conversation with Simon Parkin, whose forthcoming book, The Island of Extraordinary Captives, is dedicated to Hinrichsen.
8pm. £5.
Portrait of a Man: Wilhelm Hollitscher by Hugo Dachinger © Hugo Dachinger estate
Thursday 14 October
Life and Art Behind The Wire
Ines Newman and Rachel Dickson, co-authors of Internment In Britain in 1940: Life and Art Behind The Wire, discuss the friendship formed in Huyton Camp, near Liverpool, between Newman’s grandfather, the engineer Wilhelm Hollitscher, and artist Hugo Dachinger. Hear the remarkable story of when Newman discovered Hollitscher’s internment diary and Dachinger’s portrait of him, painted in Huyton.
6pm. £5.
Music in Internment
Norbert Meyn, tenor, Royal College of Music professor and founder of the Music, Migration and Mobility project, talks about the extraordinary musical life inside the internment camps on the Isle of Man and performs some of the pieces created there. He’s joined by Eva Fox-Gál, daughter of composer Hans Gál who, as an internee, kept a diary called Music Behind Barbed Wire and created the music for the satirical cabaret What a Life!
8pm. £5.
