Belle Seguin April 19, 2012

Reactions to the Holocaust

Canadian response to the holocaust The Canadian Jewish community There were approximately 100,000 Jews already living in Canada by the outbreak of World War I (majority were in Montreal and Toronto) Jewish Canadians worked their way up to have established businesses and played an essential role in the development of the Canadian textile and clothing industry. Jewish merchants and laborers spread out into cities and small town building synagogues, community centers and schools. As a result the population grew, they organized themselves as a community and the Canadian Jewish Congress (CJC) was formed in 1919. The purpose of this group was to speak on behalf of the Jewish Canadian community and assist immigrant Jews.

Canadian Jews in World War II Almost 20,000 Jewish Canadians volunteered to fight for Canada during the second world war In 1945 several organizations merged to form one the largest Jewish Fraternal organizations In Canada the United Jewish Peoples Order Similar to the United States, the Jewish community had a muted response to the Holocaust. The response was most likely their inability to comprehend the event at the time however awareness eventually emerged in the 1960s.

Post War (1945-1999) As a result of the war Canada liberalized its immigration policy. Near 40,000 Holocaust survivors immigrated into Canada in the late 1940s Moshe Lewis and the Jewish Labour committee started a project called the Tailors Project where they were able to bring Jewish refugees to Montreal in the needle trades. This was made possible by the federal governments bulk-labour program which allowed labour intensive industries to bring European displaced persons to Canada to fill a job.

Non-Jewish Canadian Perspective Before World War II (1933-1939) many countries were overwhelmed with how many Jews were attempting to escape Germany. Canada accepted fewer than 4000 Jewish refugees. Many Canadian seemed unmoved, apathetic toward the refugees. Anti-Semitism existed in Canada during the 20s and 30s. Often times Jewish Canadians had to hide their identity in order to be hired. There were no Jewish lawyers, professors and few Jewish teachers. Sometimes clubs and resorts even had signs on their doors stating that Jews were restricted access. Canadas immigration policy was strict during the 1930s where those of Anglo-Saxon descent were preferred and those otherwise were discriminated against.

Belle Seguin April 19, 2012 The St. Louis Incident The St. Louis Ocean Liner arrived off the East Coast of Canada in 1939 carrying almost 907 Jews. These refugees had already been denied entry by Cuba and other Latin American counties. The Jews had turned to Canada in hopes of finding somewhere to live. Canada had already let 3000 Jews enter the country but refused to allow these Jews in. The St. Louis Ocean Liner was forced to turn back to Europe where many of the Jews on the boat would die in concentration camps. The story of these Jews was made into the movie The Voyage of the Damned

Source: http://worldw2.tripod.com/id8.html American Response to the Holocaust American Restrictions on Immigration Congress has enacted restrictive immigration quotas in 1921 and 1924 after Americas traditional policy of open immigration. After the stock market crash of 1929 rising unemployment caused an increase in restrictions made by President Hoover. He ordered vigorous enforcement of immigration visas which lowered immigration rates. This continued after the inauguration of Roosevelt. Some Americans believed that the country lacked the resources to accommodate for newcomers. Soon anti-Semitism arose where Jews were looked upon unfavorably. The degree of anti-Semitism was slight in Canada and the U.S compared to the Jew-hatred in Nazi Germany however the worry came from the presence of some anti-Semitic leaders and movements in American politics.

Attempting to Prevent the Holocaust Because the quota walls seemed unassailable Americans took some steps to prevent the suffering of the German Jews from afar. American Jewish leaders organized a boycott of German goods hoping that the economic pressure would eventually crack Hitler to end his extreme anti-Semitic policies. Some Jewish leaders convinced Roosevelt to ease the restriction on immigration policy. Roosevelt organized the international Evian Conference on the refuge crisis where little was accomplished because no country was willing to accept a mass of Jewish refugees.

American Jewish Community Responds to Holocaust Most Americans were preoccupied with the war itself while American and British Jewish organizations pressured their governments to take action on the plight of European Jewry. The countries announced that they would have a conference in Bermuda to develop a plan to rescue the victims of Nazi killings.

Belle Seguin April 19, 2012 The Bermuda conference achieved little because both countries did not know what they would do with the Jews once they were rescued because neither wanted to accept them into their country. The Emergency Committee to Save the Jewish People of Europe publicized the holocaust and the need for Roosevelt to create a government agency to devise ways to rescue European Jewry.

War Refugee Board President Roosevelt also had pressure from the treasury department officials. They had discovered their colleagues were undermining rescue efforts and brought their concerns to the secretary of the treasury who was Jewish and a longtime supporter of Roosevelt. Under the Secretarys order the officials prepared a Report to the Secretary of the Acquiescence of This Government in the Murder of the Jews and it was requested that Roosevelt established a rescue agency. Finally the president issued the War Refugee Board (WRB) They successfully developed a number of rescue projects where they saved roughly 200,000 Jews. However the war department refused to bomb Nazi concentration camps or the railroads leading to them. The lagging response of the American government and refusal of bombing railway remains the subject of great debate.

Sources: http://www.ushmm.org/wlc/en/article.php?ModuleId=10005182 http://www.history.com/topics/american-response-to-the-holocaust Latin American Response to the Holocaust Latin America immigration Policy Most Latin American nations were open to immigrants from 1918-1933 but after the search for refuge intensified resistance to the acceptance of European Jews increased. Between 1933 and 1945 only 84,000 Jewish refugees were admitted which was less than half that came in the previous fifteen years. Others entered illegally. Anti-Semitism was growing in Latin America out of fear of economic competition. Some Jews were then admitted on the condition that they work in agricultural regions but slowly drifted to the city. Another reason anti-Semitism was on the rise was because some Latin Americans of German descent had sympathy for the Nazi ideology. Tight immigration laws were put on during the great depression as in America

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