Anti-Semitism In London

George Orwell’s book Down and Out in Paris and London has themes of anti-Semitism hinted in several scenes throughout the story. Though it is not the main theme of this story, one can definitely feel the anti-Semitic ideas that Orwell was trying to throw in the book to give a sense of what times were like in post WWI Europe. Anti-Semitism, or the hatred of Jews, is mostly known for being the primary idea of Adolf Hitler and his Nazi Germany. However, if one reads Down and Out in Paris and London, they can understand that these anti-Semitic ways are not present in Germany alone, but other post WWI countries too. This paper will compare Orwell’s scenes of anti-Semitism in England and France with the more commonly known anti-Semitic country, Germany

It is only a minor incident, but it shows some dislike of Jews nonetheless. The narrator, an Englishman, had just woken up and left the spike he had been staying in for that night. He decided to walk into a coffee shop to get some breakfast when he notices, “In a corner by himself a Jew, muzzle down in the plate, was guiltily wolfing bacon.”5 This was an example of the narrator, an Englishman, speaking. From this, one gets an understanding that this anti-Semitic feeling extended to England as well as other European countries. Some of this dislike of Jews in other European countries might have been due to the fact that many Jews were fleeing Eastern European countries to find freedom in Western countries like France and England. Many of the natives of receiving countries may not have been too welcoming to the Jewish newcomers. During this time, there were even instances of propaganda in the United States that turned Americans against immigrants to the

It really does not compare to the minor incidents of hatred toward Jews in Western European countries. There are infinite accounts of horror to be told by the Jewish population in Germany during the inter-war years. On the other hand, one must not forget about the hatred the Jews faced in Paris and London according to Orwell’s writings.

Works Cited

Bankston, III, Carl L., Nazi Germany and the Jews, Salem Press, Ipswich, MA, March 2008

Engelking, Barbara, Murdering and Denouncing Jews in the Polish Countryside, 1942-1945, East European Politics & Societies, Aug 2011, http://ehis.ebscohost.com.librarylink.uncc.edu/eds/detail?sid=b3f2cb6f-46e3-4afd-8a73-dc47e338f275%40sessionmgr14&vid=5&hid=120, 2/20/12

Lamberti, Marjorie, The Reception of Refugee Scholars from Nazi Germany in America: Philanthropy and Social Change in Higher Education, Jewish Social Studies, Summer 2006,http://ehis.ebscohost.com.librarylink.uncc.edu/eds/pdfviewer/pdfviewer?sid=0f1b86df-29f7-406d-8bc1-23445832ba0e%40sessionmgr114&vid=6&hid=4, 2/20/12

Orwell, George, Down and Out in Paris and London, Harcourt, Inc., New York,