Swimming to safety

Swimming to safety

Jochen Lingelbach
Then & Now

In 1942, an unnamed Greek man swam the seven kilometers from the island of Chios to the Turkish coast. According to historian Philip Argenti, he started his journey at the promontory of Haghia Heléne, putting his clothes in a watertight tin that also served him as a lifebuoy. He wasn’t alone in escaping the islands during the German occupation, though he is believed to be the only one who swam. Between March and May 1942 alone, nearly nine thousand inhabitants of Chios fled the brutal occupation and famine conditions to neighbouring Turkey. The German military had declared it illegal to leave the island and confiscated most seaworthy boats, so the refugees had to cross the sea on frail skiffs and under the cover of night. It was a dangerous journey, as it is today, and not all the vessels reached the Turkish shore safely: in April 1942 one boat broke on a reef and 207 of the 236 passengers lost their lives, while another similar accident saw eighty-one casualties.

Refugee deaths, refugee lives

Refugee deaths, refugee lives

Peter Gatrell
Refugees Today

Do (some) refugees’ lives matter only in so far as they die prematurely and in the glare of some kind of publicity, such as happened in September 2015 when the body of three-year old Alan Kurdi washed up on a Turkish beach?

Judith Butler’s meditations on ‘grievable life’ are relevant here. They prompt questions in my mind about the premature death of refugees, including the question: What about life before death?

‘Boat People’: A Tale of Two Seas

‘Boat People’: A Tale of Two Seas

Juliette Frontier
Refugees Today, Then & Now

Following the end of the Vietnam War in 1975, North Vietnamese forces moved into Saigon displacing thousands of people from their homes. Vietnamese refugees boarded small fishing and rowing boats, taking flight across the South China Sea in search of refuge from neighbouring Thailand, Malaysia, the Philippines and Indonesia. Images of men, women and children in overcrowded wooden boats captured media headlines across the world. Their plight garnered both outrage and sympathy in the West as the British and French governments mobilised to receive 19,000 and 119,000 ‘boat people’ respectively.

In France, the defining moment in public and political opinion occurred in November 1978 when the vessel, Hai Hong, with 2,564 refugees aboard, spent three weeks stranded off the coast of Malaysia.

Repelling refugees, 2020 / 1938

Repelling refugees, 2020 / 1938

Becky Taylor
Then & Now

This seems a good moment to remember Britain’s well-established tradition of repelling refugees from its shores.

As the persecution of Jews and dissidents in Nazi-controlled Germany and Austria intensified in the summer of 1938, and as the liberal democracies which surrounded its territories imposed more and tougher visa restrictions and hardened their borders against refugees, those seeking refuge started to look for other means to enter safe countries. Those who had reached France, but feared that the country might soon be in line for invasion, or who already had relatives in Britain, started to enter the country illegally.

Vietnamese refugees in Britain: displacement, home and belonging

Vietnamese refugees in Britain: displacement, home and belonging

Annabelle Wilkins

In 1975, North Vietnamese forces took control of Saigon, marking an end to the protracted conflict of the Vietnam War (also referred to as the American War and the Indochina War). By 1979, the impact of policies of forced relocation and the repression of ethnic minorities forced hundreds of thousands of people to leave Vietnam. Around 19,000 Vietnamese refugees were resettled in Britain between 1975 and the 1990s.

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