The evacuation of Jewish children from Europe to Palestine through the Youth Aliyah programme drew global attention. Chapter 4 considers the fundraising activities in the Australian and Jewish community around the organisation of Youth Aliyah, which attracted leading humanitarians such as Aileen Fitzpatrick, Jessie Street, Ruby Rich and Camilla Wedgewood. Youth Aliyah was founded in Germany in 1932 by Recha Freier, a committed Zionist, who was also active during the 1930s in Women’s International Zionist Organisation. At the time, there was resistance to the idea of uprooting children and taking them to Palestine to receive an agrarian, socialist education. As it became clear the Nazi resolve was to eradicate the Jewish population, Youth Aliyah became a fully fledged child rescue effort. From 1933 to 1945, it evacuated 11,000 Jewish children, relocating them to Palestine. There has been little work on the global dimension of this campaign. By focusing on these fundraising efforts and other attempts to support Jewish children in Australia, Chapter 4 explores Youth Aliyah as a transnational global movement.

Selective enforcement and people’s community continued to order offenders and punishments until the bloody end. Widespread defiance during the invasion of Allied forces shook radicals. Himmler had to intervene when security services defied the HSSPF over unsanctioned orders to execute Aryans. Mass arrests and forced evacuations sufficed instead. Mass releases followed as counterattacks relieved pressure. The security services decentralized authority to avoid the same problem during the new year. A regional triumvirate maintained legitimate oversight with joint orders of execution. Punishable offences became death sentences and imprisonment served as a warning. Most Germans were released, and most foreigners were murdered. An epilogue traces how the Gestapo Leader Gerhard Dahmen presented selective enforcement as resistance from within the system during denazification. The main conclusions link this to how a predictable criteria of political reliability grounded in people’s community allowed targeted persecution to be presented as a public good. A mutually reinforcing dynamic of popular support and terror targeting socio-political outsiders legitimized dictatorship.

Chapter 8 investigates the evacuation of approximately 40,000 Dutch children out of the famine-affected areas. In the 1940s, the Netherlands enjoyed an extensive health- and family care system and had a strong civil society. Many networks were therefore in place to efficiently organise relief. These child evacuations were only one aspect of relief efforts but, similar to the child-feeding initiatives, they highlight the active role of ordinary people and grassroots initiatives in taking emergency measures. Shared ideas on the importance of the continuation of family life, even under extreme circumstances, and protecting the future of Dutch society were key to this communal response to the famine conditions.