The Saved and the Spurned

On the eve of World War II, several hundred persecuted Jews, mainly from Nazi-occupied Vienna, tried to escape to Northern Ireland. They had learned of a Stormont scheme to tackle the region’s chronic unemployment by offering financial support for skilled professionals to move to the province to stimulate local economic growth.

Almost all applicants were rejected, and more than 125 of these men, women and children were murdered in the Holocaust.

Based on extensive archival research, unpublished family memoirs and letters, and interviews with Holocaust survivors and their descendants, this extraordinary book describes the applicants’ desperate efforts to save their families and themselves, as well as highlighting the tireless work undertaken by many Northern Irish civil servants in the application process.  It also explores how the small numbers of refugees admitted to Northern Ireland made a major contribution to its economic, social and cultural life that continues to this day.