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.