At a time when the questions of writing, courage and conscience are foremost in our minds, it is well to remember Hubert Butler. And, in remembering him, to remember also that most of what he did to save Jewish lives was illegal, not just in Nazi Germany, but also in Ireland.

Butler’s decision to travel to Vienna to save Jews was forged from the universal demands of humanity. But it also contained a self-conscious assertion of an Irishness at odds with the Irish government and with Irish law.

He was disgusted by the anti-Semitism expressed most infamously in Oliver J Flanagan’s statement in the Dáil about Jews: “They crucified our Saviour 1,900 years ago and they have been crucifying us every day of the week.”

Irish policy was infected with a toxic combination of anti-Semitism and self-pity. The Jews were not to be allowed to compete with the Irish self-image as the Most Oppressed People Ever.

Butler attended the Evian international conference on the plight of Jewish refugees in July 1938 and was sickened by the attitudes of the Irish delegation, one member of which said to him: “Didn’t we suffer like this in the Penal days and nobody came to our help?”

The Department of Justice delegated power over refugees to a body called the Irish Co-ordinating Committee for the Relief of Christian Refugees. The rule adopted was that only Jews who had converted to Christianity should be allowed to settle in Ireland.

Butler & his wife, Peggy Guthrie, working with Irish Quakers & with the American Quaker Emma Cadbury, continued to operate against Irish refugee policy. They secured exit visas for dozen of Jews to escape from Vienna, brought them to Ireland & helped them to settle in the US.

Erwin Strunz, a journalist and former trade-union official, who married a Jewish woman and converted to Judaism, was warned that he had been chosen for deportation to the Dachau concentration camp. Strunz turned for help from Hubert Butler. https://www.irishtimes.com/culture/culture-shock-in-saving-jews-from-the-nazis-hubert-butler-saved-ireland-from-shame-1.2076949