A Plea for Refuge: Letters from Vienna to Belfast, 1938-39

The Public Record Office of Northern Ireland (PRONI) and Belfast Jewish Heritage are pleased to invite you to the launch of a new exhibition: A Plea for Refuge: Letters from Vienna to Belfast, 1938-39.

This exhibition tells the story of how Jewish business professionals, mostly from Vienna, applied to relocate to Northern Ireland in an attempt to escape the persecution of the late 1930s.

Vienna was one of Europe's most prominent Jewish centres and home to more than 175,000 Jews. Against the backdrop of Jews being stripped of their citizenship and political rights, a brief notice appeared in Vienna on 26 August 1938: “Northern Ireland is willing to assist Central European immigrants if they can establish new branches of industry in Northern Ireland, or promote existing industry, and so help reduce unemployment ...”

The letters, which are preserved within the Ministry of Commerce archive at PRONI, were the subject of the recent book The Saved and the Spurned by journalist Noel Russell. Noel, together with Bernie Enlander, will give a presentation examining this little-known chapter of Northern Ireland's history. Drawing on the correspondence preserved at PRONI, they will explore the hopes placed in the scheme, why the applications ultimately failed, and the fate of many of those who sought safety from Nazi persecution. Tragically, some later died in the Holocaust.

The exhibition will be on display at PRONI until the end of September 2026.