Divided into several stages and issues, the response of the British – and the neutral Americans until December 1941 – to Hitler's Jewish policies was partially based upon incomplete information on Nazi actions and intentions, supported by different interests and prejudices, to be described as partially inertial and partially political. Churchill alone was the exception when he publicly referred to the mass shootings in the Soviet Union as early as August 24, 1941, without, however, mentioning Jews by name: “Since the Mongol invasions of Europe in the sixteenth century, there has never been methodical, merciless butchery on such a scale, or approaching such a scale. We are in the presence of a crime without a name.” At first, the fear of “masses” of Jewish refugees invading their shores or sensitive areas such as the Middle East dominated British minds, among other things due to the success, in their eyes, of German propaganda beamed into the Arab Middle East from Berlin, from the Fascist Italian radio station at Bari, and later from Vichy France's stations and even from occupied Athens.

As far as British executive officials were concerned, their fears were coupled with the vision of a common Zionist–Nazi interest to move Jews out of Europe to Palestine and related to the Nazi threat to their values and their civilization, which was also accompanied by an optimistic evaluation of Western European power and Hitler's own weaknesses once they resorted to fighting him.