No reply

  

Hitler Youth supervise Jews as they are forced to scrub the streets of the Austrian capital in 1938. Photograph: United States Holocaust Memorial Museum 

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"Synagogues burned, murders, it was just a hellhole for Jews. People were clutching at any straw to get out,” said Russell.

Of the 730 people named in petitions, about 630 were rejected. 

 Of them, around 125 were murdered in extermination camps such as Sobibor and Treblinka, with the fate of others unclear, said the author.

The hundred or so Jews who were admitted to Northern Ireland settled, found jobs and some built factories.." 

A handful of civil servants processed the applications. Most ended up inscribed with one of two brief, dry responses:  

“Regret” or “No reply”.