Group of Jewish anarchists in London including Milly Witkop in the centre and her husband Rudolf Rocker (above her with glasses)
Born in Ukraine in 1877 to a Jewish famoly, Milly was the oldest of four sisters.
In 1894, Milly was forced to leave Ukraine because or racist violence against Jewish people at the time. She arrived in East London and worked in a tailoring sweatshop and saved enough money to pay for her parents’ and sisters’ escape to England.
The hard conditions she worked under – first as a tailor and then as a baker- led her to question her faith in god.
She became interested in Anarchism – an political idea that wanted to remove the power from bosses and other people in power.
The racism towards Jewish migrants at the time encouraged the Government – in 1905 – to introduce the first official law to stop people making their home in Britain. It was called the 1905 Alien Act.
