Remembering the Great British Pet Massacre

Until recently the massacre had remained rarely told, as if wiped from Britain’s official history of the war, writes David Harding

Pets were seen as an unjustifiable luxury in the Second World War (Getty Images)

One uplifting aspect of the relentless tragedy unfolding in Ukraine has been the way that many of those hurriedly fleeing and abandoning pretty much everything they own, still decide to take their pets with them.

Smuggled out in any carrier they can, there have been enduring images of cute pets poking their faces through holes in bags or rucksacks, unknowingly being saved from whatever hell awaited them if abandoned. It says something about ordinary Ukrainians’ attachment to their cats, dogs or whatever their choice of pet may be, and the comfort the animals can provide.

Sometimes though, pets have not fared so well at a time of war. In London, in just the first four days of the Second World War, an estimated 400,000 cats and dogs were voluntarily euthanised – ten times the amount of people who were to die in the Blitz across British major cities. In total, some 750,000 animals were to be killed during 1939, something which has come to be known as the “British Pet Massacre”.