Migration is a problem we are condemned to repeat
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Re: "Our grandparents didn't run away", Letters, August 18.
We can’t allow Mr Wilcox to go unchallenged when he compares the French in World War II who stood their ground with the migrants currently descending on Europe to escape mayhem back home.
Millions of Frenchmen were not actually in France during the entire Nazi occupation. Some escaped to Britain in the Dunkirk evacuation, others were in prison camps after the fall of France and still others were deported en masse by the Vichy regime to work in German factories. And then there were the round-ups of French Jews, who were sent to Auschwitz and other death camps.
Further afield, I seem to recall that millions of Brits and Irish crossed the Atlantic to the US in the 19th and early 20th centuries to try and live the American dream. They preferred to be economic migrants rather than stay at home.
Sadly, the only thing we learn from history is that we do not learn anything. As Henry Ford said, “History is more or less bunk.”
Barry Kenyon
