Today, the 85th anniversary of the internment of Jewish refugees on the Isle of Man, Meryl O’Rourke reflects on her family’s hidden history in her play, Thrown by Giants.
My Mother’s Story
I grew up hearing stories about my mother, Eva, being held in a British refugee detention camp in WW2. But it wasn’t until I stumbled upon a photograph of the strangers she shared a house with that I decided to write my play Thrown By Giants. Writing has been a fascinating two-year research project into this hidden chapter of our history.
In May 1940, at the age of five, my mother was detained by the Churchill government and sent to the Isle of Man women’s ‘enemy alien’ camp. She was a Jewish refugee from Nazi Germany, and along with her mother and brother, was crowded into a hotel so tight that women had to share beds. Her father, meanwhile, was held in a men’s camp- as one of my play’s characters mournfully says- “Exactly 22 kilometers away”.
Germany, 1939
In 1939, German police stormed my family’s flat. Their shop, below, had been destroyed and set on fire. They dragged my mother and her younger brother, Klaus, out of bed. My grandfather resisted arrest, so they held Eva out of a window, threatening to throw her onto the bonfire unless he complied. She was just 3 years old. The Nazis then policy was “voluntary deportation”. Find a new country to welcome you or remain in Dachau.
My grandmother’s cousin, Wanda, had fled to Britain in 1937 after the Nazis murdered an uncle. Wanda used her university fees to kickstart the £200—the equivalent of £32,000 today—that the Uk govt required for a family of four refugees. But the British government wouldn’t let them arrive together as my grandparents were required to work as live-in servants. So, Wanda raised more money to send my mum and Klaus to boarding school. She fought to ensure they wouldn’t be left behind or adopted by strangers.
On his release from Dachau, where he’d watched friends be murdered on either side of him, my grandfather was given a “vitamin” injection—and developed tuberculosis. It’s now suspected the injections were an attempt to send “human weapons” to Britain. They were met by the Red Cross and brought to the “Garden of England”. It was supposed to be the reluctant beginning of a new, peaceful life.
But the nightmare continued. One weekend, they met the children for a seaside trip in Kent, where the little kids were arrested for speaking German on the beach. The local press suggested their joyful shouts were signalling to lurking Nazi U-boats.
Thrown by Giants
Months of parliamentary debates had raged over the fate of the 70,000 German nationals living in Britain. The Home Office initially decided to detain male Nazi sympathizers, but this decision was met with press fuelled paranoia. Newspapers claimed there were actually four million Germans here; suggested religious Jewish women were wearing wigs as disguises and handing out poisoned sweets. Eventually, even King George joined the growing calls for the detention of 4,000 women and children alongside 26,000 men.
With no barrack facilities for women, the government requisitioned an entire seaside resort on the Isle of Man. The British public, after hearing of the arrests, of course regarded the detainees as dangerous. In Liverpool, crowds spat at them as they were marched onto boats. Rationing was in place partly because boats carrying food were torpedoed—but somehow, boats filled with 10s of thousands refugees were fine. As my Thrown By Giants character, Gertie, says, “They don’t even send cheese across that sea.”

Life in Detention
On arrival, my mother watched her father torn away to yet another camp. For those just released from Dachau, it was terrifying. Some of the detainees were known Nazis. Eventually separated from the Jewish men, the women were presumed nonviolent. As a result, Jewish women were housed with those who considered them subhuman. In one case, a refugee shared a bed with a Nazi woman who would taunt her every night, saying that Germany would come for her soon.
These women and children had no contact with the outside world, no idea how long they would be detained, and no way of knowing what happened to their loved ones left behind. My grandmother was haunted by the fact that she could never get visas for her parents. They were murdered whilst she was in detention. She didn’t find out until four months after her release.
The isolation took a toll. Some women, trapped on an island surrounded by the sea and high cliffs, took their own lives. The nearby insane asylum, nearly abandoned before, became crowded as the camps swelled. Women, without any distractions, would often unpick their knitting to redo over and over just for something to occupy their minds.
Yet, there were blessings in this 40s camp – those we can learn from. Food couldn’t be exported, leading to free meals—something the refugees, especially those who had been homeless or in camps, desperately needed. Compare this to today’s badly maintained hotels, where refugees are given nutritionally deficient tin cartons of food, the cost deducted from their allowance. My grandfather received free healthcare, which helped him recover from tuberculosis before it could spread.
Lessons Learnt
Today, refugees are denied access to essential medical care, such as cancer and maternity treatments, and are forced to pay for it themselves despite no access to funds. Little Eva and Klaus were allowed to go to the beach and even visit the cinema—freedoms they had never known as Jews in Germany. Today, refugee children face threats, and stigma, their outdoor ventures phone-filmed and uploaded. The tiny allowance must be used for food and medical care, not the things that help them build a life.
Movies helped my mother learn English and understand cultures where being different was something to be celebrated. The trauma of seeing their father taken away repeatedly left scars, but my mother and uncle grew healthy and strong. They returned to the mainland, eternally grateful for the kindness of their saviours. Mum went on to work for local government, developing children’s libraries. Uncle Klaus, now 89, still works for BP.
Throughout my life, I’ve been told, “It was different back then. We understood. They behaved differently.” This is a lie. My family arrived by boat, paying thousands of pounds, crossing treacherous seas, sick, penniless, and traumatised. They were unwanted, reviled. When people are shocked, my 5-year-old mother was arrested on a Kent beach, I remind them that Nigel Farage filmed migrant children in Dover calling them a “shocking invasion”.
The truth is that refugee detention is pointlessly cruel. In 2022, 95% of refugees detained were released from immigration detention (Detention Action). Depriving desperate people of dignity and healthcare for years only leads to their entering society broken and fearful. They could be eternally grateful, as Eva and Uncle Klaus were, if given the chance.
Read more
Rene Cassin’s briefing on detention in the UK here.
Jewish women in detention on the Isle of Man here.