La neutralité irlandaise, la Shoah et la Seconde Guerre mondiale

Résumé 0

The policy of Irish neutrality during World War Two was implemented in a most punctilious fashion by the Taoiseach, Eamon de Valera, and the Irish government. The opposition parties, Fine Gael and Labour, supported de Valera, and rooted the policy in a bipartisan agreement for the duration of the war. However strict de Valera appeared to interpret his obligations as a neutral, recent research demonstrates that the Irish government operated a two-track policy between 1939 and 1945. While appearing to remain equidistant between Axis and Allies in public, de Valera and his cabinet acted in a partisan, pro-Allied fashion behind the scenes, giving clandestine support to London and Washington by sharing intelligence, providing information on shipping movements, giving information about the weather, combatting Axis spy networks in the country, and responding very supportively through its diplomatic network to seek, unsuccessfully, exit visas for Jews faced with imminent deportation to death camp in occupied Europe. In that latter endeavour, the Irish government worked closely with the Chief Rabbi of Palestine, Isaac Herzog, to combat the deportation of Jews to the death camps. While there was little of a practical nature neutral Ireland could do during the period after the invasion of France and the Benelux countries in May 1940, it did the little it could to respond generously at a diplomatic level to the pleas of different international Jewish organisations for Dublin’s help in rescuing Jews foredoomed to deportation and destruction. While in no sense heroic, de Valera and his government did not look on passively when confronted by the horrors of the holocaust or, in the post-war period, when aid and shelter were sought by Jewish refugees. In the 1960s, the Irish Jewish community honoured Eamon de Valera was honoured by the planting of a forest in his name in Israel in recognition of his support over the years to Irish Jews.