''Collar the Lot! How Britain Interned & Expelled its Wartime Refugees'' is a book by Peter Gillman and Leni Gillman. It is a detailed account of British internment policy during the Second World War. At first, the British government took a relaxed attitude to the tens of thousands of "enemy aliens", most of them refugees who had found sanctuary in Britain from the Nazis. But a panic following the

fall of France The Battle of France (french: bataille de France) (10 May – 25 June 1940), also known as the Western Campaign ('), the French Campaign (german: Frankreichfeldzug, ) and the Fall of France, was the German invasion of France during the Second Wo ...

and the invasion scare in May/June 1940 led to a mass round-up of most Germans in Britain, regardless of their political allegiances. When Italy joined the war thousands of Italians were rounded up too, also irrespective of their political allegiances or how long they had lived in Britain. It was at this time that Winston Churchill, so the cabinet minutes record, issued the order: "Collar the Lot!"

MI5 The Security Service, also known as MI5 ( Military Intelligence, Section 5), is the United Kingdom's domestic counter-intelligence and security agency and is part of its intelligence machinery alongside the Secret Intelligence Service (MI6), Go ...

was supposed to be making sensible assessments but in fact contributed to the panic and misjudgment. The authors show that both the Home Office and the

Foreign Office Foreign may refer to: Government * Foreign policy, how a country interacts with other countries * Ministry of Foreign Affairs, in many countries ** Foreign Office, a department of the UK government ** Foreign office and foreign minister * United S ...

took a more liberal line, and would have preferred to allow most of the refugees to remain free. The book also records the incident of the '' Arandora Star'', in which 1,500 internees were being transported to Canada. It was sunk by a German U-boat and two-thirds of those on board were drowned. The authors interviewed survivors in Britain, the US, and Australia. Many of them were deported again on a second liner, the '' Dunera''; this time heading for Australia. During the voyage the ''Dunera'' narrowly survived another U-boat attack. There were two more deportation voyages to Canada before the outcry in Britain over the ''Arandora Star'' led the British government to revise its policy. From that point on, the internees were gradually released from their holding camps in Britain, leaving only a handful of confirmed Nazis and Fascists. The book won very favourable reviews when it was published, and became the standard reference source on that topic, until the issue was reopened twenty years later.

References

1980 non-fiction books History books about World War II Books about refugees World War II internment camps {{UK-hist-book-stub

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