Some 3,500 women aliens, two-thirds of them refugees from Nazi persecution, will.be interned on the Isle of Man, it was announced today by Home Secretary Sir John Anderson.
The women, aged 16 to 60, are in the group B of aliens, or those who have been at Liberty under certain restrictions. They will be permitted to take their children with them if they desire. Round-up of the women began early this morning.
Sir Norman Angell, head of the refugee survey of the Royal Institute of International Affairs, criticized internment of refugees in a letter to The Times, declaring that “by indiscriminate and prolonged internment of those naturally our allies we may be blunting, if not destroying, the instrument which at the appropriate moment might be of the utmost military and political value.”
At the same time,Wenzel Jacksche,president of the Sudeten German Social Democrats, in a letter to the Manchester Guardian, protested against the describing of refugees as “enemy aliens,” declaring there was not the slightest proof that political refugees took part in “fifth column” activities in Norway , Denmark, Holland and Belgium.
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