Few domestic issues in Great Britain during the First World War proved more politically sensitive or more difficult to resolve than the question of how to deal with the generally perceived threat posed by enemy alien residents. At the beginning of the war they numbered more than 70,000, excluding British-born women who had acquired enemy nationality through marriage, and children under the age of 14. Ultimately over 32,000 enemy alien men, mostly of military age, were interned, more than 20,000 men, women and children repatriated, and the remainder allowed to remain at liberty but subject to numerous restrictions. The latter group consisted mainly of women, children, elderly men or men who, although technically enemy aliens, were members of races, such as the Poles, Czechs and Alsatians, deemed friendly to the allied cause. This thesis is concerned with the origins, development and implementation of the policies of wartime governments in relation to enemy aliens, taking account of the aims of the decision makers, the factors which influenced them, and the principle results of their actions. The historic precedents and pre-war contingency planning of aliens controls to be introduced in the event of war are briefly considered and an assessment is made of the emergency legislation, most notably the Aliens Restriction Act, introduced in the early days of the war and subsequently extended and strengthened. The study traces the fluctuations of internment and repatriation policy and the operation of the internment camp system. Also examined are the key measures affecting those enemy subjects who retained their freedom; the way in which the property and business interests of enemy aliens were dealt with; the attempts by the authorities to find work of 'national importance' for enemy subjects or, in some cases, to place them in military service, usually with a non-combatant labour unit; wartime naturalisation policy; the operation of port controls and the work of the Aliens Branch of the Home Office.

This thesis attempts to explain Italian intervention in World War I as essentially a product of various domestic economic and political issues. It begins with a discussion of the growing economic difficulties in the years before 1914, problems which lead to greater organisation amongst both employers and labour and the collapse of Giovanni Giolitti's former political dominance. The emergence of Italian imperial aspirations in North and East Africa, the Balkans and Asia Minor is then followed. This is seen as a further symptom of Italy's economic malaise, and as the ground for cooperation between agrarian and industrial interests. Italy's demands in 1915 are linked to this imperialist programme developed over the previous decade. Salandra's decision to pull Italy out of the Triple Alliance and join the Entente powers is also caused in part by the constant clash of economic interests between Italy and the Central Powers in both the Balkans and Asia Minor: above all in their diametrically opposed railway plans which are of such great importance to both Rome and Berlin. Further pressure for intervention comes through the economic crisis of neutrality, bringing with it the threat of a repetition of the insurrection in June 1914. Neutrality also demonstrates Italy's dependence on Britain for vital raw materials and security on the seas, and brings a growing demand for intervention from industrialists. This demand also springs from a desire for lucrative state contracts, and a mounting distrust of the Banca Commerciale -which is attacked as a vehicle of German domination over economic and political life in Italy. Salandra is shown to use the campaign against this bank to strengthen his position in the political struggle against Giolitti: while intervention in the war also serves as a means to set Italian politics on a new course. The final chapter discusses the appearance and significance of the nationalist movement; in particular, its influence throughout the Italian press and on members of Salandra's Cabinet. The similar short-term goals of the government and the nationalists leads to much tacit cooperation in the campaign for intervention.

The Nazi Holocaust represents an original, interdisciplinary contribution to the field of education, with special reference to the teaching of the humanities in general, and history in particular. Its claim to originality lies in its overall educational conception, in its approach to understanding and transmitting the memory' and lessons of the Holocaust and in its filling a palpable gap.2 Before the publication of my work, despite hundreds of volumes devoted at various levels to the subject - from fields as disparate as history, psychology, sociology, theology, moral philosophy, literature and jurisprudence - there was no single accessible, multidimensional volume for the many hundreds of teachers who were faced - often suddenly, as in the case of Britain - with the intimidating task of teaching this most complex of subjects; under-informed and under-resourced, they were often resigned to teaching it badly or not at all Those works that were available were either too simplistic,4 or were too narrowly focused, over-scholasticised and sometimes shrouded in mystification:5 they generally failed to take sufficient stock of the fact that the Holocaust had historical and ideological antecedents, such decontextualisation 6 being, perhaps, the single most glaring educational problem I identified; virtually all 'historical' works failed even to ask, let alone address, the serious moral and psychological questions raised by the subject,7 and - most seriously - often formed part of an extremist, partisan and The Nazi Holocaust represents an original, interdisciplinary contribution to the field of education, with special reference to the teaching of the humanities in general, and history in particular. Its claim to originality lies in its overall educational conception, in its approach to understanding and transmitting the memory' and lessons of the Holocaust and in its filling a palpable gap.2 Before the publication of my work, despite hundreds of volumes devoted at various levels to the subject - from fields as disparate as history, psychology, sociology, theology, moral philosophy, literature and jurisprudence - there was no single accessible, multidimensional volume for the many hundreds of teachers who were faced - often suddenly, as in the case of Britain - with the intimidating task of teaching this most complex of subjects; under-informed and under-resourced, they were often resigned to teaching it badly or not at all Those works that were available were either too simplistic,4 or were too narrowly focused, over-scholasticised and sometimes shrouded in mystification:5 they generally failed to take sufficient stock of the fact that the Holocaust had historical and ideological antecedents, such decontextualisation being, perhaps, the single most glaring educational problem I identified; virtually all 'historical' works failed even to ask, let alone address, the serious moral and psychological questions raised by the subject,7 and - most seriously - often formed part of an extremist, partisan and passionate literature, seemingly unable or unwilling to grapple with its broader educational meaning [a meaning that I would argue in my book went way beyond the world of its Jewish victims]. My work set out to make good these shortcomings, and to attempt a breakthrough in the transmission of its most salient messages for all. In a clear, educationally provocative, yet scholarly fashion, I sought to mediate between a vast, often unapproachable literature, and the hard-pressed teacher and student who wrestle with its meaning. By examining it from different disciplinary perspectives, I also wanted to demonstrate that no one discipline can claim an educational monopoly on this subject. My work aimed to break new ground in the educational sphere by locating the Holocaust within a number of historically important and educationally desirable contexts: namely Jewish history, modem German history, genocide in the modem age, and the larger story of human indifference, bigotry and the triumph of ideology over conscience. It examined the impact and aftermath of the Holocaust, considering its implications not only for the surviving Jewish world (including the State of Israel)9 but for all humanity. In such a highly-charged emotional and intellectual arena, my work aimed, uniquely, to strike an enlightened balance between various Scyllas and Charybdises, standing, as it were, in the educational and historiographical crossfire of often diametrically opposed views. The philosophical starting-point of my work is that the Holocaust, though unquestionably a unique historical event, should not be cordoned off from the rest of human experience and imprisoned within the highly-charged realm of 'Jewish experience' . It offers a new educational perspective by stressing that the attempt to understand even so appalling a tragedy as the Holocaust is, like all good education, ultimately about the making, and not the breaking, of connections. In short, the Holocaust as educational theme is both unique and universal.

'Nothing But Letters' are the words used by my paternal grandparents to describe what had remained of their family following its dispersal in the years after the Nazi accession to power in Germany in 1933. The letters became a substitute for what was previously a close family unit. Almost eighty years later, these letters are the primary source material used in this thesis to reconstruct the lives of my parents, Ruth Loew and Taddy Rechtman together with their families. The existence of some 1,500 letters, from members of two families and friends, which had been preserved and which had survived for so many years is itself quite unusual. The correspondence and, in consequence this narrative, is restricted to the years leading up to, and encompassing, the Second World War and its immediate aftermath. As the subtitle indicates this work is a family memoir. It is a thesis in Biography, not a historical monograph. The narrative is anchored around my parents, usually the recipients, but sometimes the authors of the letters. Nevertheless, it is a group biography as it tells their story as well as that of their parents and siblings. It is, however, a story not unlike that of many families who lived through similar historical events and who were affected by circumstances beyond their control. My work is based primarily on letters and documents which were kept mainly by my mother. Other letters, family papers and information came from my father, two surviving aunts and some of my cousins. I also found more letters in two of the archives I visited and there are numerous photographs, now in my possession. Of the twelve protagonists in this narrative only four, my parents and two aunts, were still alive when I started my work and I was able to write clown some of their memories. Sadly all have since died. Most of the letters were written in German, often interspersed with Hebrew words. Some were written in Italian, English or Hebrew. While most of the material consisted of family correspondence, a great number of letters were from friends. All these I had to collect, sort and translate, often with the help of a professional translator, and all the material had to be collated. Personal recollections, as well as collective family memories, had to be verified with information gleaned from the correspondence. The letters often presented a different version of events to recollections based on long memory.

Nazi concentration camps (KZs) were established in the vicinity of local communities across Europe. These communities have often been characterised as bystanders as they were identifiably not Nazi perpetrators, or victims like those imprisoned in the camps. However, this did not simply make them passive or uninvolved. Situated on the threshold of extreme horror and ‘ordinary life’, bystanders’ relationships with Nazi camps were complex, complicit and, in fact, highly interactive. Their relations with camps also continued after the end of the Second World War. Nazi camps were often reused as post-war internment camps and in some cases took on subsequent identities as penal institutions, military compounds or housing encampments. Over time, many were transformed into sites of memory to commemorate Nazi persecution. Local communities coexisted with these various post-war camp legacies and, very often, they were involved in the metamorphosis of camps into KZ Memorial Sites. However, KZ memorialisation is often conceived of in terms of national cultures of memory with little attention paid to the salient dynamics amongst localised communities. This thesis seeks to reattribute agency to bystanding local populations in the long-term histories of concentration camps. It adopts a comparative approach and examines three case studies of camps in Western Europe: Natzweiler-Struthof (France), Neuengamme (Germany) and Vught (the Netherlands). It evaluates the different patterns of local civilians’ interactions with the Nazi camps and highlights how these conditioned different forms of engagement in post-war commemoration. It traces the contested developments of these camp sites in the changing political climates of the post-war years, relating the trajectories of local, regional and national memory. It contends that local populations were materially and morally scarred by their relationships with the Nazi camps, and the institutionalisation of KZ memory was ultimately interconnected with processes of local memory.

Two events greatly increased the technological gap between Western Europe and the United States in the second half of the twentieth century. First, the Second World War greatly enhanced the "Atlantic Divide". Later, the introduction of a new general purpose technology, the information and communication technologies (ICT), fostered the European technological lag. The aim of the dissertation is to study the impact of technological gaps on growth by looking at the role of human capital. This is because the gaps generated a great need for adjusting the existing educational, training and research settings. The research question addressed in the thesis is: what have been the structural adjustments undertaken by European countries in the human capital policy since the end of the Second World War. Have these changes been sustained by the technological development. To address the research question, three aspects of the human capital policy that have received little attention in the existing literature but that appear to be fundamental in order to fully understand the European response are identified. The first chapter provides the theoretical and conceptual framework for the analysis whereas chapter two gives an overview of the historical background of postwar Europe. In chapter three, the first human capital policy change is examined by analysing the expansion of compulsory schooling and trying to understand what have been its determinants. Chapter four studies the policies undertaken with respect to the curricula of education by looking at the evolution of vocational education and training with respect to general education. The introduction of the ICT programmes in vocational education is examined for three European countries. Chapter five is devoted to the estimation of the returns to education across European countries by carrying out a cohort analysis over 1985-2000. The last section provides a discussion and concluding comments on the findings of the research.

No description available.

No description available.

No description available.

This thesis analyzes the life histories of women who served in the Second World War British auxiliary services (the Auxiliary Territorial Service, the Women’s Auxiliary Air Force, and the Women’s Royal Naval Service) who migrated to Canada as war brides (the wives or fiancées of Canadian servicemen). It argues that understandings of womanhood which connect ideal femininity with domesticity operate on the ways in which war bride veterans view themselves as veterans and how they remember their experiences as servicewomen. In their oral histories, these women portrayed themselves both in accordance with and in opposition to traditional feminine roles. However, identities associated with traditional femininity such as ‘sweetheart,’ ‘wife,’ ‘mother,’ and ‘grandmother’ were frequently most prevalent. My findings indicate that war brides who had more satisfying and smooth transitions to Canadian life generally remember and emphasize their war bride past over their military history and view themselves as having a Canadian identity. Alternatively, those who had more difficult experiences of migration gain composure in remembering their experiences as servicewomen since these experiences were less troubling and complicated. These women tend to assert their British identities. This project contributes to scholarship in gender history, memory studies, and studies of migration though unpacking how cultural discourses regarding gender in wartime and national identity intersect with stories of migration in the life history narratives of war bride veterans. It provides a new framework for the study of women in war in Britain, as well as war bride history in Canada. This thesis produced and draws from eighteen comprehensive life history interviews with war bride veterans. Part I begins with a chapter exploring theoretical concepts setting out the combined material and cultural epistemology of this project, including popular memory theory, as well as understandings of gender and nationality that assisted the methodology developed for analyzing war bride veterans’ narratives in relation to historical and cultural research. This methodology based on the work of T.G. Ashplant, Graham Dawson, Michael Roper, and Richard Johnson, recognizes the circular and nuanced relationships people have with cultural codes and memories. The historical context chapter examines historical understandings regarding appropriate roles for men and women in wartime through primary source research and contemporary gender historical theory. It also examines how war brides have been recognized in Canadian cultural memory. Part II applies this work with three chapters centred on life history interviews with Wendy Turner, Victoria Sparrow, and Penny MacDonald (pseudonyms).