Volume I provides a general survey of the demographic, social, and economic structure of the European countries and describes the way in which a quarter of the European continent was transformed from a predominently agrarian to an overwhelmingly industrial economy.

The story of the Prague Kindertransports and the splendid achievements of Sir Nicholas Winton and Trevor Chadwick in getting some 660 children to safety has often been told. This was only part of a much larger rescue operation. Before Winton and Chadwick even arrived, Doreen Warriner was making Lists of those most in danger, negotiating for visas and shepherding trainloads of people to safety. When she left Prague in April 1939, spirited out of the country before the Gestapo could arrest her for smuggling ‘wanted’ refugees on her trains, her successor was the indomitable Canadian Beatrice Wellington, who was more than a match for the Gestapo, and indeed for a slow-moving British officialdom. These two were directly responsible for saving some thousands of men, women and children. This book reveals the full extend of the British rescue effort for the first time. It devotes a chapter to each of the major participants – each one a fascinating character, and four of them willing to drop whatever they were doing in their lives to come to the aid of those in danger.

Describes, particularly from the organizational aspect, the emigration from Czechoslovakia of groups endangered by the Nazis. Notes that Jews began to flee the border areas even before the Munich agreement because of harassment by Henlein's Sudeten-German movement. Details negotiations between emigrant organizations, refugee aid agencies, and the governments of possible countries of refuge. Britain and the Dominions were willing to accept refugees in limited numbers, with preference for political refugees over Jews. Other countries accepted refugees on a temporary basis. Traces the escape routes, including illegal immigration to Palestine. Describes the flight of refugees in France to the Vichy sector, whose government delivered many of them back to the Nazis and extermination. Notes the antisemitism in the Czech exile community in France and England, especially in the army, but even in Benes's government-in-exile. Few Jews returned to Czechoslovakia after the war. Pp. 277-477 contain documents from government and refugee association archives.

A comprehensive English test covering grammar, usage, composition, research skills, mechanics, and oral English