Refugees march along a highway for the border with Austria, out of Budapest, Hungary. Hundreds broke out of a Hungarian border camp on Friday and others set off on foot from Budapest as authorities scrambled to contain a migrant crisis that has brought Europe’s asylum system to breaking point.
As WWII began, the English were asked to sponsor thousands of refugees fleeing Europe. And they stepped up, opening their doors to 70,000 people. Today, for a politician to talk of admitting 10,000 sounds like recklessly generous humanitarianism. It’s quite a contrast.
I FIRST met a refugee just before World War II broke out. Not that I knew it. As far as I could tell, “Miss Cohen” was just one of the aunties who flitted in and out of my grandfather’s house in Brondesbury, north-west London.
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