"It matters very much whether you care that they live or die": British Columbia Newspaper

Responses to Jewish Persecution in Europe, 1933-1939

by

Nathan Lucky

Submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements of the Honours Program in History

University of British Columbia, Okanagan

(2018)

Faculty Supervisor: Dr. Brigitte Le Norman, Department of History

Author’s Signature: ______Date: ______

Supervisor’s Signature: ______Date: ______

Honours Chair’s Signature: ______Date: ______

Abstract:

This paper examines British Columbia press responses to Jewish persecution in Nazi Germany and Eastern Europe from 1933 to 1939. Using the Vancouver Jewish community paper as its focus, the study juxtaposes its responses with three non-Jewish papers. Vancouver Jews responded to the persecution of their coreligionists in Germany and Europe by countering neutral and skeptical reporting in the mainstream papers with explicit reporting of persecution. They tried to catalyze divided Jewish communities toward a common effort to help European Jews through fundraising efforts and lobbied for Canada to allow Jewish refugees. By 1938, they adapted to appeal to mainstream Canadian views by calling for “refugees” and “immigrants” to enter the country. They dispelled myths circulated in the non-Jewish papers about refugees and worked to change minds and gather support to convince Canada to open its doors. Finally, they emphasized that the threat of fascism was a crisis of civilization

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Acknowledgments

I would like to thank my honours thesis supervisor, Dr. Brigitte Le Normand, for skillfully steering me through this challenging process. I thank Rhianna for supporting, encouraging, and putting up with me over the last year. I also thank my fellow honours students, Jaclyn Salter and Jack Wilson for their advice and humour during challenging times. Finally, I thank my late grandma for always cheering for me and for reading everything I ever wrote.

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Table of Contents

Abstract……………………………………………………………………………………..i

Acknowledgements…………………………………………………………………………ii

Table of Contents…………………………………………………………………………...iii

Introduction…………………………………………………………………………………1

Chapter I | First Impressions and the Search for a Unified Answer

………………………………………………………………………………………...... 15

Chapter II | Fading Interests and a Domestic Threat

………………………………………………………………………………………………29

Chapter III | From Anschluss to the Second World War: A Cause for Civilization

………………………………………………………………………………………………42

Conclusion

………………………………………………………………………………………………57

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Adolf Hitler’s appointment to the chancellorship of Germany on January 30, 1933, and seizure of dictatorial powers weeks later would ultimately lead to a world war in 1939 and the attempted extermination of European Jews. In the intervening years, he established policies to match the anti-Semitic rhetoric he had preached to his adherents for many years. On April 1,

1933, the Nazi Party called for a nation-wide boycott of all Jewish businesses and began removing Jews from government positions as well as from the professions. Predictably, German

Jews who could flee the country did, and those who could not or risked staying behind quickly depended on charity for survival and endured Nazi violence. In September 1935, the Nazis enacted the most infamous legislation of the pre-war years: the Nuremberg Laws. These laws made German Jews non-citizens in their own country, formalized racial hierarchies, and codified

who was a Jew. Germany’s preparation for the 1936 Olympic Games necessitated that the Nazis

appear to treat the Jewish population with a sense of fair play, thus no new, major actions were

taken against the Jews, but neither were anti-Semitic initiatives rolled back. The Jews’ respite

came to an end with the annexation of Austria, the Anschluss in March 1938. The Nazis visited

upon Austrian Jews in a matter of weeks what had taken five years in Germany as mass violence,

imprisonment, and Aryanization overtook the Jewish community. In November of the same year,

a Greater Germany that included Germany, Austria, and the Sudetenland engaged in a nation-

wide pogrom against the Jews known as Kristallnacht.

It was not only German Jews and later Jews within German territory who suffered

persecution during this period. Anti-Semitism was widespread on the continent, but it had

become especially pervasive in Eastern Europe. In Poland, the majority of the approximately

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three million Jews had been living in poverty for years.1 The government enacted measures to

marginalize the Jews further, such as by requiring all business owners to carry their names on the

store. Not unlike the painting of Jude on Jewish businesses in Germany, it helped non-Jews

avoid Jewish shops.2 Additionally, Jews studying in universities became subject to violent attacks by Nationalist anti-Semites over an extended period of time that led to segregated classes and a cap on Jewish attendance.3 When officially anti-Semitic parties like the National

Democratic Party or the Endeks came into prominence, they were supported by the powerful

Catholic Church in Poland in their endeavor to find somewhere, such as the island of

Madagascar, to expel its Jewish population.4 In Romania, the rise of fascist, pro-Nazi parties like

the Iron Guard and the National Christian Party of Prime Minister Octavian Goga won 25

percent of the vote in the 1937 elections and expelled Jews from law and medicine.5 In 1938, one hundred twenty thousand Jews lost their Romanian citizenship, quotas for Jews were established in industry, and those in government lost their positions.6 Similarly, Miklós Horthy, Regent of

Hungary, was openly anti-Semitic and sought to replace Hungary’s Jews, who made up nearly

the entire Hungarian middle class, with ethnic Hungarians. Jews composed about five percent of

the Hungarian population, but their numbers within professions such as medicine, law, and

journalism were more than 50, nearly 50, and 30 percent of the professions. Thus, when the

1 Paul Friedman, Polish Antisemitism Before During, and After the Holocaust: A Look into the Unique Existence of Polish Antisemitism (master’s thesis, Kean University), 2012, 33. 2 Ibid., 34. 3 Ibid., 41. 4 Ibid., 42. 5 Walter Laqueur and Judith Tydor Baumel, eds, The Holocaust Encyclopedia (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2001), 575. 6 Raul Hilberg, The Destruction of European Jews (New York: Holmes & Meier Publishers, 1985), 811.

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Hungarian Government placed a cap of 20 percent in 1938, then 6 percent in 1939 on Jews in professions, the livelihoods of the backbone of the Hungarian Jewish community vanished.7

Across the Atlantic Ocean, Canadians read in their newspapers about the increasingly

severe persecution of European, and especially German, Jews. Using a sample of four British

Columbia newspapers from 1933-1939, the focus of this study will be how these four

newspapers responded to the tragedy that unfolded before them on a weekly and daily basis.

What events did each paper cover, how did they cover them, and in what depth? Did the

coverage and positions of the papers change over time? To what audience are each of the papers

speaking to, and what are their apparent motivations? Of Primary focus is the weekly Jewish

Western Bulletin, the community newspaper of Vancouver’s small Jewish community. The non-

Jewish press is represented by the Victoria Daily Colonist; and to a smaller degree, two rural

weekly papers in the Prince George Citizen and Chilliwack Progress.

From 1933 to 1939, Vancouver Jews responded to their coreligionists’ plight in Germany

and Europe by countering neutral, skeptical, and irregular reporting in the mainstream papers

with consistent, explicit reporting of persecution. The small community of Jews distinguished

themselves among the Jews in Canada and the world by trying to marshal divided Jewish

communities to help European Jews through fundraising efforts, boycotting, and appealing for

open immigration. Sometimes, they broke with strategies set by the eastern-based Canadian

Jewish Congress. When sympathy for Jews peaked in Canada, they adapted their messaging to

appeal to mainstream Canadian views. They called for “refugees” and “immigrants,” not only

Jews, to enter the country, and frequently ran stories to dispel myths about Jews to gather enough

7 Ibid., 861-62.

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support to convince Canada to open its doors. Finally, they began to emphasize that the threat of fascism was a crisis of civilization.

To answer these questions, an archival study of the four newspapers was undertaken. All were in digital archives, but only the Prince George Citizen and Chilliwack Progress had every issue. The Victoria Daily Colonist had twenty out of forty-eight months missing from 1934-1937 while the Jewish Western Bulletin had half of its issues from 1939 missing but had at least two issues each month.8 Where available, I used the Boolean search term Jew* to find all instances of

the words Jew, Jews, Jewish, Jewry, and Jewess in the paper. When this was not available, I

manually searched for these terms. This method necessarily relies on the quality of the search

function to complete the search with accuracy. It is possible that the search engine did not

recognize instances of the word Jew and its variations, and certainly, a search returned several

false positives, most often the word “few.” The Jewish Western Bulletin required a manual

search with the human eye, going through each issue headline by headline as well as a scan

through each column in search of stories relevant to the topic. The trade-off with this type of

search is human error. It is certain that some stories fell through the cracks, though likely only

stories of a secondary nature. Each news story was classified for each paper into several yearly

categories: the total number of stories, short stories (less than three paragraphs), secondary

stories (where Jewish persecution was mentioned but was not the main topic), page one stories,

editorials, and letters to the editor. Additionally, a discourse analysis of each paper was

performed to determine the positions the papers held regarding the persecution of European Jews

and what, if any, the Canadian response should be.

8 The Bulletin’s digital archive at Simon Fraser University was scanned from the original newspapers held by the Jewish Historical Society of British Columbia, and the Colonist digital archive is based on microfilm shot in the late 1940s. 4

The scholarship on Canadian responses to Jewish persecution from 1933 to 1939 is quite limited. Harold Troper and Irving Abella published their ground-breaking 1983 work, None is

Too Many: Canada and the Jews of Europe, 1933-1948, which largely focused on the anti-

Semitic motivations of government officials in the Mackenzie-King administration to keep out

Jewish refugees as well as the Canadian Jewish leadership’s tireless, yet fruitless efforts to make them change immigration policy.9 Naturally, this is a very eastern Canadian focus. Alan Davies and Marilyn F. Nefsky responded to a claim in Troper and Abella’s study that the churches of

Canada were silent on the plight of Jews in their book How Silent Were the Churches? Canadian

Protestantism and the Jewish Plight during the Nazi Era.10 Using the church journals as their

primary source, they focused on the initial adoption of the Aryan Laws from 1933-1935,

Kristallnacht, the refugee crisis in 1939, then the period 1942-1945 when most of the killing

during the Holocaust happened. They found church responses were not universal but depended

on many factors, such as how one defined the Church or historical connections to Germany.

There was no common outcry among the many denominations, but neither was there a universal

silence.11

More recent studies have looked at Canadian press responses. Max Beer’s master’s thesis

examines the response of the Montreal Jewish community, and one aspect of this is the reporting

in the Montreal Jewish press; however, it is not a systematic study of the press, but one aspect of

the community response that largely focused on the early years, then from Kristallnacht

9 Irving Abella and Harold Troper, None Is Too Many: Canada and the Jews of Europe, 1933-1948, 3rd ed. (Toronto: Toronto University Press, 2013). 10 Alan Davies and Marilyn F. Nefsky, How Silent Were the Churches? Canadian Protestantism and the Jewish Plight during the Nazi Era (Waterloo: Wilfrid Laurier Press, 1997). 11 Ibid., 128.

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onward.12 Robin Studnigberg’s master’s thesis focused on the response of the Vancouver press

to Nazi Germany from 1933 to 1935 and explored how British identity among non-Jewish

Vancouverites shaped their anti-fascist response, and the conflicted identity Vancouver Jews experience as both loyal Canadians and Jews.13 Broader Canadian press responses for this period

are included in the edited volume Nazi Germany, Canadian Responses: Confronting

Antisemitism in the Shadow of War. Richard Menkis and Harold Troper studied press responses

to the prospect of an Olympic boycott of the Berlin Games in major Canadian newspapers such

as Toronto’s Globe, the Toronto Star, the Montreal Gazzette, and the Winnipeg Free Press and found coverage was more concerned about an American boycott than a Canadian one.14 In

another chapter, Amanda Gryzb does a systematic review of Globe coverage from Kristallnacht

to the MS St Louis voyage, using it as a baseline to compare and contrast with six major regional

papers in Canada. She found that while the press sympathized with Jewish refugees, the coverage

was event-driven and all but disappeared the summer before the war started.15

American historiography of press responses to the Holocaust has been covered in books

like Robert W. Ross’s So it was True: The American Protestant Press and the Nazi Persecution

of the Jews. He studied four broad categories of liberal, mainstream Protestant, evangelical

12 Max Beer, What Else Could We Have Done?: The Montreal Jewish Community, the Canadian Jewish Congress, the Jewish Press and the Holocaust (master’s thesis, Concordia University), 2006. 13 Robin Elise Studniberg, “One shudders to think what might happen to Germany Jewry’: Vancouver Newspapers and Canadian Attitudes towards Nazi Antisemitism, 1933-1935 (master’s thesis, University of British Columbia), 2011. 14 Richard Menkis and Harold Troper, “Racial Laws vs. Olympic Aspirations in the Anglo-Canadian Press of Fall 1935,” in Nazi Germany, Canadian Responses: Confronting Antisemitism in the Shadow of War, ed. L. Ruth Klein (Montreal: McGill-Queens University Press, 2012): 46-77. 15 Amanda Gryzb, “From Kristallnacht to the MS St Louis Tragedy: Canadian Press Coverage of Nazi Persecution of the Jews and the Jewish Refugee Crisis, September 1938 to August 1939,” in Nazi Germany, Canadian Responses: Confronting Antisemitism in the Shadow of War, ed. L. Ruth Klein (Montreal: McGill-Queens University Press, 2012): 78-113.

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conservative, and fundamentalist papers and found that the papers’ obsession with threatened religious freedom of Christians in Germany superseded coverage of Jewish persecution, and most reporting on Jews concerned those who had converted to Christianity.16 Deborah

Lipstadt’s’ book, Beyond Belief: The American Press and the Coming of the Holocaust 1933-

1945, relied heavily on the Press Information Bulletin, a creation of the Division of Press

Intelligence that curated news and editorials from five hundred of the biggest newspapers in the

U.S. for the White House to gauge public opinions.17 This allows an examination of a breadth of views, but sacrifices depth. There is no sense of what the overall coverage was of any one paper.

Moreover, the book largely glossed over press reactions to Jewish persecution before 1938, and instead focused on the climate American journalists worked under in Nazi Germany as well as the Olympic boycott campaign. As the title indicates, the American press was skeptical of the reports of Jewish persecution, and while sympathy and condemnation manifested themselves at times, a large majority of the press rejected the notion that America ought to accept more refugees and refused to get involved in European affairs.18 Laurel Leff’s book, Buried by the

Time: The Holocaust and America’s Most Important Newspaper, gives a critical account of the

coverage of the New York Times, finding that the paper’s Jewish owners went out of their way to

not cover Jewish persecution or attach themselves or the paper to any Jewish cause for fear of

being called a Jewish paper. Leff covered even less of the pre-war period, dedicating a single

chapter that is mostly biographical information of the Times’ owners, not its coverage.19

16 Robert W. Ross, So it was True: The American Protestant Press and the Nazi Persecution of the Jews (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1980). 17 Deborah Lipstadt, Beyond Belief: The American Press and the Coming of the Holocaust 1933-1945 (New York: The Free Press, 1986), 4-5. 18 Ibid., 106-108. 19 Laurel Leff, Buried by the Time: The Holocaust and America’s Most Important Newspaper (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2005).

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Robert Shapiro’s edited volume, Why Didn’t the Press Shout? American and

International Journalism During the Holocaust, contains two entries that covered the pre-war press responses. Abraham Brumberg and Chevy Chase assessed the role of two of the leading

Yiddish newspapers in New York, The Forward and Morning Freedom. Jews of Eastern

European origins ran both papers, but The Forward supported the Social Democrats in Germany, and the Morning Freedom supported the German communists. These political ideologies framed their coverage. As Brumberg and Chase write, both papers were so “mired in their myths” of

socialism and communism that neither “hardly realized that civilization as a whole was on the verge of extinction.”20 A study by Colin Shindler of The Times of London tells that the editors of

the paper believed that the Nazi leadership were readers. Thus, they toned down any reporting on

Jewish persecution to maintain whatever influence they believed the paper had on the leadership.

Additionally, the editors always thought reports about Jews were exaggerated, and never

believed that the Nazis hated the Jews on racial grounds.21

Within the literature, then, there appears to be a greater focus on papers with the highest

circulation in major cities which neglects the responses of newspapers in smaller cities and towns

and those papers with smaller circulations competing in a big city. In Canada, this has also put

much of the research within eastern Canada at the expense of responses in the west.

Additionally, there is a propensity to focus on specific events of the 1930s, such as the Berlin

Olympics and Kristallnacht, over a study of the whole pre-war period which allows for an

20 Abraham Brumberg and Chevy Chase, “Towards the Final Solution: Perceptions of Hitler and Nazism in the US Left-of-Center Yiddish Press, 1930-1939,” in Robert Moses Shaprio, ed. Why Didn’t the Press Shout? American and International Journalism During the Holocaust (Jersey City: Yeshiva University Press, 2003), 36. 21 Colin Shindler, “The ‘Thunderer’ and the Coming of the Shoah: The Times of London, 1933-1942” in Robert Moses Shaprio, ed. Why Didn’t the Press Shout? American and International Journalism During the Holocaust, 152,157.

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examination of the paper’s evolution or lack of. Moreover, very few studies conduct a quantitative analysis of press coverage which can reveal a paper and readerships’ interest more than a qualitative analysis of a handful of editorials and stories can. Finally, none of these studies have looked at responses to Jewish persecution in Europe more broadly, but instead focus only on German Jews and expand their scope only as the Nazis expand their borders. When studying

Jewish newspapers, this neglects a significant aspect of the coverage of Jewish persecution in

Eastern Europe especially.

Increased Jewish persecution in Europe and the creation of hundreds of thousands of

Jewish refugees in need of charity and goodwill from the world came at a time when both were in short supply. In 1933, most countries were still in the thick of the Great Depression, and

Canada was no different. Gross national product was nearly half of what it was in 1929, and

unemployment neared 20 percent. By 1939, many aspects of the economy had nearly reached

pre-depression numbers again, but unemployment still lingered at 11.4 percent compared to 2.8

percent in 1929.22 These conditions were frequently cited as barriers preventing Jewish refugees

from coming to Canada, and this may have been especially true in Victoria. There, Peter

Stursberg, a young reporter for the Victoria Daily Times in the 1930s, described in his memoir

relief camps close to the city, filled with young, single, unemployed men.23 However, high

unemployment does not wholly explain attitudes towards certain immigrants.

In 1930s Canada, antisemitism was widespread. Canada considered itself a Christian

country and Jews were expected not to meddle in Christian morality or impose their religious

22 Margaret Conrad, Alvin Finkel, Donald Fyson, eds., Canada: A History, 3rd ed. (Toronto: Pearson, 2013), 332. 23 Peter Stursberg, Those Were the Days: Victoria in the 1930s (Winnipeg: Horsdal and Schubart Publishers, 1993), 15.

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ways on society.24 Indeed, Louis Rosenberg argued that neither Canadians of British origin nor

French Canadians viewed Jews as belonging to either group.25 This sentiment existed regardless

of the fact that nearly 44 percent of Jews in Canada had been born there.26 In fact, it is expressed

in a poem that appeared in the Chilliwack Progress:

There are so many races Of this earth’s humanity, But the fact that I am British Is the best of luck to me.

When I read about the Spaniards, The Germans, Japs, and Jews, The aggressor and the tortured, To be British I would choose.

Oh we of good old British stock Of none are envious, We are proud to own the Union Jack, God keep it over us.27

Jews in the economic sector faced considerable discrimination. At the time, it was commonplace for application forms to require an applicant’s religious affiliation, nationality, and ethnicity.

24 Ira Robinson, A History of Antisemitism in Canada (Waterloo: Wilfred Laurier Press, 2015), 60-61. 25 Louis Rosenberg, Canada's Jews: A Social and Economic Study of Jews Canada in the 1930s (Montreal: McGill-Queens University Press, 1993), 300. 26 Ibid., 71. 27 G.M. David, “Dei Gratia,” Chilliwack Progress, December 30, 1938, 7.

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Sometimes, advertisements simply said “Gentiles only” or “Christians only.”28 Louis Rosenberg

claims that when in competition for a job with a non-Jew, a Jew needed to be “ten times as good as the average applicant” to have a chance.29 In taxpayer-funded education, Jews were shut out

completely from teaching positions, very few hospitals permitted Jewish staff, and nation-wide

corporations only hired one or two token Jews for minor positions to avoid a charge of anti-

Semitism.30

This anti-Semitism also informed Canadian immigration policy. From 1933 to 1938,

Canada accepted just 4,422 Jewish immigrants, and 1,779 of those came from the United States

while the remaining 2,643 were from overseas.31 These low numbers were due to new

immigration policies established in 1930 that banned all but those few immigrants with enough

money to start their own farms, then the next year they extended the legislation to nearly

exclusively allow British and American would-be farmers. If those were in short supply, Central

and northern Europeans were acceptable, and “Jews, Blacks, and Orientals” were at the bottom

of the hierarchy.32 This new-found immigration policy was not only due to the Great Depression,

but what Abella calls the fear of “mongrelization” within the country and the belief that Jews,

supposedly “city people” and overwhelmingly communists, did not fit with a vision of Canada as

a country of farmers.33

This obsession with protecting the purity of the white race was a mission that some politicians in the B.C. Legislature took seriously. Both Mary Ellen Smith, the first female MLA

28 Rosenberg, 304. 29 Ibid. 30 Ibid. 31 Ibid., 136. 32 Abella and Troper, 5-6. 33 Irving Abella, A Coat of Many Colours: Two Centuries of Jewish Life in Canada (Toronto: Lester & Orpen Dennys, 1990), 186.

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in BC and the Attorney General, Alexander Manson, followed the eugenicists of the period in their concern over producing “clean children” that ensured the “survival of white British

Columbia.”34 She was also one of the supporters of the sexual sterilization law that passed in the

B.C. Legislature in 1933, only one of two provinces in the country to pass such a law.35 This

obsession with racial purity was largely directed against the “Yellow Peril,” the notion that

Japanese and Chinese immigrants were taking over the province. Very few Jews lived in B.C.,

just 2,743 in 1931, and 2,433 of them lived in Vancouver out of a population of 156,726 in

Canada. Nearly all Canadian Jews lived in Quebec and Ontario.36 It is likely that their low

numbers saved them from some of the worst anti-Semitism seen in Quebec, where newspapers printed The Protocols of the Elders of Zion long after it had been proven a fraud and organized boycotts against Jewish businesses even before the Nazis came to power.37

An ideal medium through which to view responses to Jewish persecution in Europe is

through the newspapers, for they are both tools to express public opinion, but also shape public

opinion. As Arnold Edinborough relates in Mass Media in Canada, a paper, no matter how large its circulation, is concerned with local affairs, and wants to appeal to as broad an audience as possible. At a time when the newspaper still ruled the media, it was the place where all local concerns were decided upon. 38 Moreover, it was the medium through which people accessed

international news. At this time, many newspapers had ostensibly dedicated themselves to hyper

34 Scott Kerwin, “The Janet Smith Bill of 1924 and the Language of Race and Nation in British Columbia,” BC Studies no. 121 (Spring: 1999): 91. 35 Ibid., 92. 36 Rosenberg, 20, 114. 37 Gerald Tulchinsky, Canada’s Jews: A People’s Journey (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2008), 301-2. 38 Arnold Edinborough, “The Press” in Mass Media in Canada, John A. Irving, ed. (Toronto: The Ryerson Press, 1962), 18.

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objectivity after a loss of trust following a foray into propagandizing during the First World War.

However, as British Journalist Claud Cockburn noted: “All stories are written backwards – they are supposed to begin with facts and develop from there, but in reality they begin with a journalist’s point of view, a conception, and it is the point of view from which the facts are subsequently organized.”39

Beyond the way a story is framed, the language used, and the level of detail, there are

other ways this is done. What an editor decides to include in the paper is obviously the first step.

Canadian dailies had access to not only the Canadian Press. Through reciprocal agreements, they had access to the Associated Press, Reuters, the Jewish Telegraph Agency, Wolff in Germany, and the British United Press among others.40 With more news than any one paper can print, an editor prioritizes what the public wants to read, but from their own point of view. How that news is arranged in the paper can both raise an issue to prominence or relegate it to obscurity. The front page is the most important as it is the first page a reader sees, while pages toward the back of a paper become increasingly specialized, focusing on sports, societal news, business, etc., and

do not have relevance for everyone.41 A reader will at least look at the front page of a paper 97

percent of the time, whereas the likelihood that a page from the middle of the paper to the last

page will be opened drops by more than 30 percent in most cases.42 Moreover, news buried in

the middle or back of the paper would indicate to the reader its relative unimportance compared

to front page news. The Jewish Western Bulletin made the purpose of its weekly paper no secret.

39 Claud Cockburn, In Time of Trouble, quoted in Deborah Lipstadt, Beyond Belief: The American Press and the Coming of the Holocaust 1933-1945 (New York: The Free Press, 1986), 10. 40 “World-Wide Service,” Daily Colonist, December 10, 1933, 55. 41 Leo Bogart, Press and Public: Who Reads What, When, Where, and Why in American Newspapers (Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, 1989), 161. 42 Ibid.

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In an April 1933 editorial marking the fourth anniversary of the newspaper’s founding, it said it wanted to be the mouthpiece of the Jewish Community of Vancouver, to connect Jews living there to Jews throughout the world in a unified purpose. Moreover, it wanted to spur its readers to sympathize with and aid persecuted Jews in Europe. More than this, it wished to be a catalyst for change, to prompt its readership to “civic, philanthropic, and educational service.”43 This

mission is one they more or less followed during the most trying period in Jewish history. This

fledgling Jewish newspaper was not merely a newspaper in that its function was not merely to

publish news. Operated by the Vancouver Jewish Community Centre, its goals were, as they saw

them, the betterment of Vancouver Jews, the broader Jewish community, and society in general.

Comparatively, the non-Jewish papers had been established for decades at this point and were not as overtly idealistic but did reflect the biases of their times as already discussed.

43 “Editorial,” Jewish Western Bulletin, April 13, 1933, 2.

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Chapter I | First Impressions and the Search for a Unified Answer

At the beginning of 1933, Germany was still in political limbo. An election had taken place that saw the Nazi Party win a plurality of seats in the Reichstag, but with no one in a majority. It took until January 30, 1933, for Hitler to be named chancellor in a coalition with conservatives. Nonetheless, the news of attacks against Jews was already being reported on, and what this would mean for their future in Germany was already being speculated upon in the papers. After the Enabling Act and Reichstag Fire Decree put power firmly in the hands of the

Nazis, the prospects for Jews looked dire. Purges of Jews in the professions, government, industry, culture, and a boycott against Jewish businesses as well as frequent violence and imprisonment became the status quo.

Reporting among British Columbia’s newspapers of Jewish persecution in Europe during

1933 varied in quantity, depth, and tone depending on the paper. Predictably, the Jewish Western

Bulletin printed the most stories at 347, and 152 of those were on the first page. Additionally, twenty-six editorials appeared on the subject. Victoria’s Daily Colonist ran comparatively fewer articles, with eighty-four during the year, twenty on page one, and a single editorial. Fewer still, the Prince George Citizen published thirteen articles, just two on page one, and no editorials.

Finally, fewest of all was the Chilliwack Progress. They printed six articles on Jewish persecution, but none glimpsed the front page or the editorial column. The depth of reporting was, moreover, far from equal among the papers. The Bulletin had just 64 short stories, less than

20 percent of the 347 articles for 1933, while the Colonist approached nearly 40 percent with 33 short articles, and the Prince George Citizen and the Chilliwack Progress had 8 and 2,

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respectively.44 Additionally, The Bulletin wrote twenty-six editorials on the topic in 1933, more than one every other week, while the Colonist wrote one and the other papers wrote zero.

Early reporting shows that B.C. Jews in Vancouver were guardedly hopeful that attacks against German Jews would cease soon, and life would be bearable for them. They believed that either Hitler was not truly anti-Semitic and only using Jews as a scapegoat to gain power, or that currents of anti-Semitism in Germany were due to the poor economy. This did not stop them from reporting on attacks against Jews, giving explicit details about what occurred, and naming the victims. This reporting contrasted the often-vague reports of “alleged” attacks against Jews as well as reports sympathetic to the Nazi position in most of the mainstream papers. In response to the Nazi government’s boycott against German Jews, Vancouver’s Jews attempted to both coordinate with Canadian Jews and Jews throughout the world but also distinguish themselves.

They called for a boycott against German goods, started fundraising for German Jews, and tried to mobilize disunited Jewish communities. They went against the consensus established by

Jewish MPs who coordinated with the Canadian Jewish Congress to quietly lobby the government behind the scenes and instead made a public case to take in refugees when popular support was low.45

The first story of 1933 on Jewish persecution in Europe in the Jewish Western Bulletin

came on January 12. Surprisingly, it was not about German Jews, but British ones, and did not

even make the front page. Titled “The Fascist Movement in England ‘Revenged At Last,’” the

nearly column-length article is flippant in its response to the Yorkshire Fascist Table Tennis

Club’s declaration that they would, henceforth, no longer share a tennis table with the Jews.46

44 Short stories are classified as those with three or fewer paragraphs. 45 Abella and Troper, None is too Many, 21. 46 “The Fascist Movement in England ‘Revenged At Last,’” Jewish Western Bulletin, January 12, 1933, 2. 16

“Hitlerism has struck one grand blow against the dominance of the accursed Jew,” mocked the paper.47 The article went on to say that these fascists could be easily dismissed as “poor” and

“simple-minded.”48 While at the time of writing, this incident would understandably appear ridiculous to observers, it was the first of such boycotts that would gain ground in so many

European countries that would attempt to erase the Jews from social life. This casual tone is an outlier among the many articles and in stark contrast to the first reporting in the Daily Colonist.

The first hint of Jewish persecution reported in the Colonist came on February 14. They

reported only two sentences on a meeting of Jewish unions in Berlin concerning strategies to

safeguard Jews amid the new realities they faced after Hitler’s appointment as chancellor.49

More than two weeks later, however, they ran a reprint of a story from the London Daily Herald:

“Rumors are Persistent: Germany’s Jewish Population Reported in Shadow of Imminent

Massacre.” This story claimed to have uncovered a conspiracy to round up Jews, under the guise

of their Communist or Marxist affiliations, for a slaughter in the tens of thousands. It called on

the world to mount pressure against Germany to avoid disaster.50 This story turned out to be

false, in the short term, and an “atrocity report” according to the Nazis.51 An atrocity report was

propaganda manufactured during the First World War that entailed false reporting on mass

slaughter or atrocities. These reports had led many newsrooms to be especially skeptical of the

veracity of such outlandish reports.52 The Jewish Western Bulletin did not reprint this story,

perhaps wise enough to know a backlash would follow if it was proven false. This false report,

47 Ibid. 48 Ibid. 49 “German Jews in Convention for Safety Measures,” Daily Colonist, February 14, 1933, 1. 50 “Rumors are Persistent: Germany’s Jewish Population Reported in Shadow of Imminent Massacre,” The Daily Colonist, March 3, 1933, 1. 51 “Foreign Correspondents Warned to Watch Their Reports,” Daily Colonist, March 24, 1933, 1 52 Laurel Leff, Buried by the Times, 7.

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and others like it, lent credibility to Nazi claims that all reports telling of violence against Jews were “atrocity reports” invented by the foreign press to defame Germany.53 The Daily Colonist

would show greater skepticism in their reporting on Jews and report on the Nazi perspective in

the coming months.

The first few issues of the Bulletin, starting on February 2, 1933, after the appointment of

Hitler as Chancellor of Germany, took a more pessimistic view of Jewish life in Germany but

held out some hope of a future. They lamented the few opportunities young Jews had for

employment, even when a business was run by Jews; however, they at least hoped once the

economy improved Germans would have no need to scapegoat them.54 On the other hand, there was a fear that if the Nazis remained in power for long the children steeped in Nazi ideology would be its future judges, lawyers, doctors, and teachers.55 Still, there was hope that there could

be “Hitler without Hitlerism,” that the violence preached against Jews “[would] very likely not

constitute the programme of the government,” and “German Jewry will be [largely] spared.”56

This attitude is in line with an editorial printed on March 9, 1933, which made the case that modern attacks against Jews were hardly anything new, but part of a history that goes back to the days of ancient Persia, when Haman, as related in the Book of Esther, accused the Jews of unifying against the king and sough their destruction. Similar to the charges of an international

Jewish conspiracy in modern times, the editor believed that German Jews “[knew] how to treat this circumstance just as Jews in all ages past have been able to outdistance Haman.”57 Indeed,

53 “Foreign Correspondents Warned,” 1. 54 “The Difficult Problem the Jewish Youth in Germany are Facing,” The Jewish Western Bulletin, February 2, 1933, 2. 55 “Taking up the Challenge of Anti-Semitism,” The Jewish Western Bulletin, March 16, 1933, 2. 56 “Hitler Without Hitlerism?” Jewish Western Bulletin, March 9, 1933, 1. 57 “Purim: Haman’s Accusations—Are They True?” Jewish Western Bulletin, March 9, 1933, editorial, 2.

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the Prince George Citizen shared this opinion and printed an article that claimed the conservative forces in the governing coalition would ensure Hitler would not have a free hand and, moreover, the responsibility of governing could temper his radical positions.58

The Bulletin started drawing attention to the violence against Jews in Germany on March

16, 1933, by giving detailed reports on attacks and naming victims; a strategy to humanize them and form some connection with the far away Jewish community and publicize what non-Jewish papers would not. In one story, the American ambassador to Germany demanded the German

Foreign Office answer for attacks against American Jews living there. The article gave their names, a Nathaniel Wolf and Henry Sattler, and described how the two were punched in the face, forced to sign a document that said they would leave Germany, and then abandoned in the woods.59 The next week, an article appeared based on a telegram sent from A.H. Goldberg, a

Jew living in Calgary, who sent a letter to Prime Minister Bennett pleading that he do everything to “save civilization” and prevent what he believed would result in the extermination of German

Jewish men, women, and children.60

The Daily Colonist had a different take on these reports. Even when they reported the

same stories, such as the issues raised by the American ambassador, they named no one and gave

no details of the attacks, only that the ambassador was “seeking detailed information from the

German Government about reports of mistreatment of Jews by Hitler’s followers.”61 This also

implied that the Nazi leadership was not to blame, but merely followers taking measures into

58 “Adolf Hitler is Entrusted with Chancellorship,” Prince George Citizen, February 2, 1933, 1. 59 “American Ambassador Protests to German Foreign Office,” Jewish Western Bulletin, March 16, 1933, 2. 60 “A.H. Goldberg of Calgary Starts Action to Aid German Jewry,” Jewish Western Bulletin, March 23, 1933, 1. 61 “U.S. Jewry Aroused by Hitlerites,” Daily Colonist, March 22, 1933, 1.

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their own hands. Of course, this vigilantism does occur, but the report ignored the anti-Semitic atmosphere fostered by the Nazi leadership that made casual violence against Jews permissible.

The only regret by the Nazi leadership in this case was likely that they were American Jews.

Likewise, the Chilliwack Progress had a single sentence referring to the “alleged anti-Semitic

activities by the followers of Hitler.”62 The apex of these particular articles came on March 26,

1933, with an article in the Colonist that extensively quoted Hermann Goering’s remarks to

foreign journalists during a prison inspection. Goering insisted that any Jews in prison were in

“protective custody,” and he would never allow anyone to be harmed just because they were

Jewish.63

The Jewish and non-Jewish press also diverged on reporting from Jewish sources in

Germany. On March 24, 1933, the Colonist published an uncritical article based on the statement

of the Central Union of German Citizens of the Jewish Faith as well as the Patriotic Society of

National German Jews that vociferously denied that any Jews in Germany had been harmed or

even poorly treated. They called the reports in the foreign press blackmail against Germany.64 It

is very curious indeed that the Colonist would report as gospel a Jewish-sourced story when the message was nothing was happening to German Jews, but pepper articles on Jewish persecution with caveats. The Jewish Western Bulletin also ran articles like these, but to debunk them, to show that Jews outside Germany did not believe them. On April 6, 1933, for example, they titled an article that reported on German Jews who insisted they had done everything to stop the

62 “Local and General,” Chilliwack Progress, March 30, 1933, 5. 63 “Correspondents see Arrested Communists Well and Uninjured,” Daily Colonist, March 26, 1933, 1. 64 “Jews in Berlin Correct Report,” Daily Colonist, March 25, 1933, 1.

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foreign lies about Jewish persecution as “German Jewry’s Pathetic Appeal to Hindenburg and

Hitler.”65

After the Nazis started a boycott against German Jews on April 1, 1933, Jews from many

countries started their own boycott against Germany to pressure the Nazis to desist from their vile treatment of Jews. More than that, the boycott was an attempt to unite Jews towards a common cause. The Jewish Western Bulletin reported on several stories from all over the world to show there was a consensus among them that a boycott was a sensible thing to do. Over one million Jews in the US protested Germany and planned to boycott; in Paris, the paper reported the Jews would no longer watch German cinema, and doctors would not use German medications; and in England, the Jews would boycott fur, toys, and silk from Germany.66 A

Bulletin editorial officially endorsed the boycott on April 27, 1933, and called on the world’s

Jews to use the weapon Germany was wielding against the Jews: “To the cry of ‘Perish Judea’!

Let the answer be ‘Jewry Awake.’”67 One editorial quoted Rabbi Abba Hillel Silver, who said

“it is the moral duty…of every Jew…to boycott German products.”68 This was taken seriously

indeed, with one report of Orthodox Rabbis who excommunicated Jews from the faith for

breaking the boycott.69 The boycott received scant attention in the Prince George Citizen, which

said that Jewish Americans were protesting – without mention of the one million reported in the

Bulletin - and the only information of persecution available came from people who had left

Germany. This implied it was based on first-hand Jewish accounts.70 That this needed to be

65 “German Jewry’s Pathetic Appeal to Hindenburg and Hitler,” Jewish Western Bulletin, April 6, 1933, 1. 66 “One Million Jews Protest Nazi Attacks; Boycott Arranged,” Jewish Western Bulletin, April 6, 1933, 7. 67 “Editorial,” Jewish Western Bulletin, April 27, 1933, 2.; Bold in original. 68 “Editorial,” Jewish Western Bulletin, November 9, 1933, 2. 69 “Orthodox Rabbis Pronounce Excommunication on Jews Handling German Goods,” Jewish Western Bulletin, September 21, 1933, 9. 70 “Jewish Residents in United States Protest Persecution,” Prince George Citizen, March 30, 1933, 4.

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pointed out speaks to how undervalued those accounts were, and their veracity were not beyond doubt. The Daily Colonist, for their part, only reported on a proposed boycott by Jews in East

London.71 The non-Jewish papers probably reported on the anti-Nazi boycott during this time

because it had the potential to affect non-Jews if the boycott went beyond the Jewish community.

At the very least, Jewish import businesses refusing to traffic in German goods would affect the

Canadian economy.

The Bulletin, in contrast, tried to portray a consensus of support for the Jewish cause

outside of the Jewish community. They reprinted editorials from other newspapers, such as the

Vancouver News, which said non-Jews were “justifiably indignant” at Jewish treatment in

Germany, too.72 They reported that the Winnipeg City Council had sent a petition to Prime

Minister Bennett, entreating him to take all action to ensure all citizens of Germany had their

rights and freedoms guaranteed.73 This occurred in Vancouver, too. A meeting of one thousand

five hundred Vancouverites of all religions and classes gathered to protest “in the name of

humanity.”74 The gathering resolved to send a letter, as the Winnipeg Council had done, to the

Prime Minister. An editorial expressed the belief that the world now sympathized with the

Jews.75 Indeed, another article saw Jewish persecution as an opportunity and stated that the Jews

would not repeat the past and take this persecution without a fight because now they “stand

shoulder to shoulder” in this with non-Jews.76

71 “Condemn Action of Nazis,” Daily Colonist, April 11, 1933, 1. 72 “The Jewish Protest,” Jewish Western Bulletin, April 6, 1933, 6. 73 “Winnipeg Council Protest Against German Atrocities,” Jewish Western Bulletin, April 6, 1933, 8. 74 “Hitler and His Propaganda Denounced at Meeting of Vancouver Citizens,” Jewish Western Bulletin, April 13, 1933. 1. 75 “Editorial,” Jewish Western Bulletin, April 13, 1933, 2. 76 “Jewish Opportunity,” Jewish Western Bulletin, April 13, 1933, 4.

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This unabashed optimism proved unwarranted even within B.C. During the same time the

Vancouver’s Jews believed everyone was with them and against Jewish persecution, the Victoria

Daily Colonist printed stories and letters indicating the opposite. One letter writer to the Colonist on April 18, 1933, wrote that “…the [Jew]…retains the characteristics of his race, and he has never been, nor will he ever be, assimilated by other nations.”77 An article written the following

day implied some of the Jewish persecution was due to “the outstanding peculiarity of an almost

aristocratic social exclusiveness” characteristic of Jews.78 Most troubling of all was a letter from

one Philip Juston Fisher, a Victoria resident who was a spokesperson for many fascist groups

operating in Canada and the U.S., such as the Silver Shirts and Canadian Fascists. He claimed

that Hitler and all fascist groups were not against Jews, but only those Jews who controlled

communism and international finance, as well as the ones who had caused the Great War and the

Depression.79 Anti-Semitic views such as these spread in Canada during the 1930s, drawing the

focus of Canadian Jews away from their embattled coreligionists in Europe.

In reality, there was no Jewish consensus on what the response to persecution should be.

Vancouver Jews were even called out by name for being “silent” on the issue of Jewish

persecution, for not forming its own organizations when Montreal, Toronto, and Winnipeg had.80

Some Jews believed the anti-German boycott was the answer to German hostility toward

German Jews, but others thought it was a distraction from what Jews ought to be doing: aiding

their coreligionists in Germany. The latter was the position of Rabbi Jonah B. Wise, a prominent

rabbi in New York City, who was labeled a “defeatist” by pro-boycott Jews.81

77 “Letter to the Editor,” Daily Colonist, April 18, 1933, 4. 78 “Persecution of Jews,” Daily Colonist, April 19, 1933, 4. 79 “Fascists in Victoria,” Daily Colonist, May 30, 1933, 4. 80 Mordecai Jaffe, “Why are Vancouver Jews Silent?” Jewish Western Bulletin, June 1, 1933, 4. 81 “Vigorous American Boycott: To Be Relentlessly Pursued,” Jewish Western Bulletin, June 22, 1933, 2.

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Jews could not even agree on one of the causes of the German Jews’ plight in Germany.

A Rabbi Kahanovitch blamed the assimilation of German Jews and their abandonment of Torah teachings for their persecution.82 Rabbi Jessie Schwartz also blamed assimilation, but because

German Jews became successful and non-Jewish Germans never viewed the Jews as Germans, it

bred jealously that caused a backlash.83 A third opinion printed in the Bulletin, not of a Jew, but

of Dr. A.O. McRae who spoke locally on the subject, was closer to the view in the Daily

Colonist. He said hostility to the Jews existed everywhere because of their “refusal to be

nationalized or assimilated” due to an “unextinguishing feeling of superiority in their religion

and an undisguised hostility to Gentiles in the days before their dispersion.”84 It is difficult to say

why the Bulletin printed this seemingly harsh evaluation of the Jews. In one respect, it went

against editorials and many articles in the paper that were against assimilation. However, it was

also congruent with professed feelings of superiority by some Jews, such as the March 16, 1933,

article that argued for a new strategy of acceptance in the world. Jews should not argue that they

should be accepted because they are like everyone else, but because they are “better citizens

because [they are] Jews.”85

The Bulletin’s stance on the issue of Jewish refugees’ immigration into Canada further highlighted the disunity in Jewish society. The paper favoured openly calling for Canada to take refugees, whereas the Jewish position in Eastern Canada, where almost all of Canadian

Jews lived, preferred what Irving Abella and Harold Troper call “quiet diplomacy.”86 Many of

82 “Rabbi Kahanovitch Declares Hitlerism is Tragic Object Lesson to Assimilationists,” Jewish Western Bulletin, August 17, 1933, 1. 83 “United Palestine Appeal; Keren Heyesod Drive,” Jewish Western Bulletin, November 16, 1933, 1. 84 “Hitler Depends on Anti-Semitism,” Jewish Western Bulletin, January 14, 1934, 1. 85 “Taking up the Challenge of Anti-Semitism,” Jewish Western Bulletin, March 16, 1933,2. 86 Abella and Troper, None is Too Many, 21.

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the Jews in positions of power, such as the three Jewish MPs, believed that if the Jewish community publicly pressured the Canadian government, the government could not appear to succumb to Jewish pressure, and so would do nothing to help Jewish refugees.87 The Bulletin

rejected this notion, and early on started printing articles to make the case for Jewish refugees,

which was not a popular position among mainstream newspapers or Canadians at the time. On

May 4, 1933, an editorial noted that France, Holland, and Greece had “opened [their] doors” to

Jewish refugees and, while Canada had yet to announce anything, they should take “immediate thought and action.”88 They printed stories that showed refugees in a good light, such as the call

from Lebanon asking for Jewish refugees because it would improve their economy, or the fact

that many experts in professions such as medicine were going to Palestine.89 Additionally, they

ran stories of US political figures calling for Jewish refugees, such as Alfred E. Smith, former

Governor of New York and Democratic presidential candidate, who said “the test of

neighborliness is made in time of want and trouble.”90 In late 1933, an editorial outright

disagreed with this quiet diplomacy that worried that a “forceful Canadian Jewry” would cause a

backlash.91 They countered by asking a rhetorical question: what did the principle of

“submission and laissez faire” do for German Jews?92

Vancouver’s Jews did try to push back against accusations that they were disunited with the rest of Canadian Jews in their effort. Indeed, this perception did not escape the

87 Ibid. 88 “Editorial,” Jewish Western Bulletin, May 4, 1933, 2. 89 “Send Us German Jews, Lebanon Merchants’ Plea,” Jewish Western Bulletin, June 15, 1933, 1; “Palestine Modern,” Jewish Western Bulletin, December 21, 1933, 1 90 “Alfred E. Smith Urges U.S. To Admit German Refugees,” Jewish Western Bulletin, December 14, 1933, 2. 91 “Editorial,” Jewish Western Bulletin, November 30, 1933, 2. 92 Ibid.

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paper’s editor. They tried to get Vancouver Jews engaged by pointing out the random chance that they, Vancouver Jews, were living in relative safety and comfort compared to their German coreligionists whose lives as they knew them were ruined. To this end, they recognized that protests and resolutions passed in Vancouver had accomplished nothing for the German Jews.93

They announced a fundraising campaign that would go door to door to collect from the

Vancouver Jewish community, and their expectations were clear: “GIVE, even if you have to

deprive yourself to do so. Few realize how great the need is… DO NOT LET IT BE SAID

THAT VANCOUVER JEWRY FAILED TO DO THEIR DUTY.”94

During this same period, the Colonist, while still reporting on Jewish persecutions in

Germany, also reported stories that downplayed their severity and framed what was happening to

the Jews as justice. When sympathies were expressed, they did not call for practical action. This

kind of balancing act played by the press was directly condemned in a Bulletin editorial:

“Journals may proclaim their impartiality in this struggle. They are as short-sighted as the politicians they often so glibly denounce. And sooner or later they will see where their

‘impartiality’ has taken them.”95 On June 6, 1933, the Victoria Daily Colonist issued a short

story on the conditions in Germany according to a local reverend, Albert Shormann, who used to

live in Germany and recently returned from a trip there. In it, he claimed reports of Jewish

mistreatment contained a “good deal of exaggeration.”96 About two weeks later, another story came from a German delegate at a postal conference in Victoria, who contended that the Nazis were only doing what was fair to Germans who had been shut out from many professions

93 “The Special Emergency Meeting: Vancouver Must do its Share,” Jewish Western Bulletin, September 21, 1933, 16. 94 “The Coming Campaign,” Jewish Western Bulletin, September 28, 1933, 1. 95 “Editorial,” Jewish Western Bulletin, November 23, 1933, 2. 96 “Gives Address,” Daily Colonist, June 6, 1933, 5.

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dominated by Jews. If Jews wanted to be good citizens, he said, they needed to work in other jobs as well.97 When they reported Jews being rounded up into concentration camps, the reason

reported was the one given by the Nazis: the Jews were provoking Germans, and the camps were

for the Jews’ protection.98 All these reports made the German government’s actions appear

almost reasonable, and if anything, the Nazis were protecting undeserving Jews bent on stirring

up hatred against themselves.

The paper reported the Canadian government’s official stance that unemployment was

too high to accept any refugees.99 However, it is more likely that the insistence by many in

Quebec that no Jews should be allowed into the country played a greater role in government

decision making.100 The Council of the City of Quebec had recently passed a resolution against

allowing Jewish refugees into the country, and Montreal newspapers were warning against an

“invasion” of Jews.101 That this story made the paper’s front page signalled the editor’s, and

likely most Victorians’ acceptance and perhaps agreement with the government’s position.

Nonetheless, the Victoria Daily Colonist did come out with its first editorial on the

subject of the Jews in October of 1933 and endorsed a petition in circulation that entreated Prime

Minister Bennett to bring up Jewish persecution with Germany.102 However, this required no

effort, and no commitment and the paper proceeded to publish content such as the Rev. Michael

Billester’s speech, which said Hitler’s handling of the Jews was for the common good, as they

were all communists; or views by Dr. C.R. Hennings, a lecturer on tour in Victoria, who said

97 “Germans have Right to Live,” Daily Colonist, June 17, 1933, 16. 98 “Jews Are Taken to Concentration Camp,” Daily Colonist, August 31, 1933, 2. 99 “Canada Not Prepared to Accept German Jewish Refugees,” Daily Colonist, October 7, 1933, 1. 100 “Canadian Groups Demand Doors be Double-Locked to Bar Refugee Immigration,” Jewish Western Bulletin, September 21, 1933, 12. 101 Ibid. 102 “Editorial,” Daily Colonist, October 8, 1933, 4.

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Jews in Germany controlled the economy and the important executive positions in the country; and that in Great Britain, all the Jewish doctors who were refugees from Germany were taking jobs that should have gone to the British.103

The Jewish Western Bulletin continued to combat viewpoints such as these in the mid

1930s and continued to raise awareness about the Jewish plight in Europe as they searched for

ways to engage Canadian Jews and the population at large to help the persecuted, yet protect

themselves from what they saw as a global uprising of anti-Semitism that threatened Jews

everywhere.

103 “Communists Make First Move of Intimidation,” Daily Colonist, October 27, 1933, 6; “Jews are a Real Power in the Land,” Daily Colonist, November 7, 1933, 5; “Doctors Protest to Home Office,” Daily Colonist, December 24, 1933, 29.

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Chapter II | Fading Interests and an Eastern European and Domestic Threat

From 1934 to 1937, Jewish persecution in Europe continued to worsen. The Nazis chipped away at the wealth of the German Jewish community through their ongoing boycott and exclusion from a growing list of professions that forced the Jewish community to increasingly rely on charitable Jewish organizations within Germany and without. The populations in the concentration camps, consisting of Jews and anyone else the regime labelled an enemy, continued to expand from about 3,800 in the summer of 1935 to 7,746 at the end of 1937.104 The

most notorious piece of legislation passed by the Nazis during this time was the Nuremberg

Laws on September 15, 1935, which stripped all German Jews, defined by the state as an

individual with three or more grandparents of Jewish heritage, of German citizenship. They also

banned marriage between Jews and non-Jews and made sexual relationships likewise illegal.

These laws made what had been in many instances informal Jewish persecution into state

policy.105 In many more European countries, where anti-Semitism was already common, fascists

and nationalists were emboldened by Nazis in Germany and gained more political power in such

countries as Austria, Poland, Hungary, Ukraine, and Romania that lead to anti-Jewish legislation

and pogroms against Jews.106

Reporting during the period 1934-1937 on the issue of Jewish persecution declined across all four of the examined papers overall, but coverage of Eastern Europe increased in the Jewish

Western Bulletin. The Bulletin published 635 articles over the period, or about 158 on average

104 Nikolaus Wachsmann, Kl: A History of the Nazi Concentration Camps (New York: Farrar, Straus, and Giroux, 2015), 134.; It is not known exactly how many of these prisoners were Jews. 105 “NUREMBERG RACE LAWS: DEFINING THE NATION,” United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, accessed January 15, 2017, https://www.ushmm.org/information/exhibitions/online-exhibitions/special- focus/nuremberg-race-laws-defining-the-nation. 106 Walter Laqueur and Judith Tydor Baumel, eds, The Holocaust Encyclopedia, 23-25.

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each year, down from the high of 347 in 1933. Still, this was a substantial number for a weekly, four-page journal, and the proportion of front page articles actually increased by 11 percent, 343 over the four years. The Victoria Daily Colonist coverage dropped considerably during the same

period. This is explained in part by an incomplete archive, with only twenty-eight of the forty-

eight months available, but it does not wholly explain it. During these available months, just

seventy-two articles appeared, and sixty-one of those were either short or secondary in nature.

That is an average of eighteen articles a year compared to eighty-four in 1933, and the number of

short or secondary articles was proportionately much higher at 85 percent compared to 48

percent in 1933. The Prince George Citizen and Chilliwack Progress continued their low output

of coverage, but even their yearly output at this time was, on average, half their output of 1933.

The Bulletin continued to dominate in editorials over this time, writing forty-five over the four-

year period, but this was down from their high of twenty-six in 1933. In the non-Jewish papers,

the Colonist produced three editorials, the Progress one, and the Citizen none.

As the mainstream B.C. press started to lose interest in covering Jewish persecution in

Germany, Vancouver Jews tried to maintain coverage through the Bulletin, but with more

censorship in Germany, they increasingly turned their focus to the spread of anti-Semitism and

fascism across Europe and even within Canada. Their frustrations mounted over lacklustre B.C.

and Canadian Jewish contributions to the effort as well as over what the Jewish response should

be to these dangers and the growing refugee crisis.

From 1934 to 1937, Vancouver Jews broadened their concern to include not only German

Jews, but Jews in Canada as they saw increased anti-Semitism in the country and in their own

province. The answer to this concern was the Canadian Jewish Congress, established in 1919 but

long disbanded. It reformed in 1933 to, ostensibly, allow Canadian Jews to speak with one voice

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on the issue of German Jewish persecution.107 By late 1933, however, the Congress became a

general lobby for the concerns of Canadian Jews. A Bulletin editorial justified its reformation

based on the rising anti-Semitism in Canada, and rhetorically asked if Canadian Jews should, like

the Germans did, “wait like lambs till it is too late?”108 This dual role was stressed in another

editorial on March 1, 1934. The B.C. branch of the Congress was instructed that its job was to

both do its part for Jews in Germany and to guard against fascism and anti-Semitism at home.109

When the Congress announced its plan of action, aiding Jews in Europe was literally last on the

agenda, which the Congress admitted as a shameful failing by Canadian Jews. They had raised

just thirty thousand dollars among its one hundred sixty thousand Jews over the same period that

British Jews had raised two million dollars among their population of three hundred thousand.110

Vancouver Jews had reason to fear rising anti-Semitism in Canada, an issue made

apparent in their reporting and in the coverage of the other B.C. papers. On February 22, 1934,

they reported on groups in BC loyal to the Nazi cause, such as Friends of the New Germany. The

paper described their meetings as opening with the Horst Wessel song, one of the German

anthems named after the murdered Nazi stormtrooper, and closing with a Hail Hitler. These

groups reprinted such literature as the known forgery, the Protocols of the Learned Elders of

Zion and the Jewish Peril, among many other pieces of anti-Semitic literature.111 Indeed, the

General Secretary of the Canadian Jewish Congress described an encounter with this literature

when, during a visit to Vancouver, a young woman in the street gave him a pamphlet: “Judaism

107 Abella and Troper, None is too Many, 10. 108 “Editorial,” Jewish Western Bulletin, December 21, 1933, 2. 109 “Editorial,” Jewish Western Bulletin, March 1, 1934, 2. 110 H. N. Caiserman, “Canadian Jewish Congress,” Jewish Western Bulletin, July 19, 1934, 2. 111 “Western Jewry Faces Anti-Semitism,” Jewish Western Bulletin, February 22, 1934, 6.

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and Bolshevism: A Challenge and Reply.” After spending a few days in the city, he declared

B.C. was “…a hot-bed of Jewish Hatred…which competes with Quebec!”112

Indeed, this anti-Semitic feeling was evident within the other B.C. newspapers at this

time, and there seemed to be some appetite for it as well as fascist ideas within the province. On

May 29, 1934, the Colonist reported on a speech given at the Chamber of Commerce in Victoria

by General Blakeney, a founder of the British Fascist Party who had spoken at many meetings

since arriving in the city. This particular lecture attracted many people beyond the eight hundred

capacity lecture hall, who came to listen to the General lecture on what the paper described as a

“calm and well-reasoned address.”113 He spoke on the “Synagogue of Satan,” a secret

international cabal of Jews who controlled the British press and would have had “all Europe in

flames” if not for Hitler’s intervention.114 More local reporting came from Reverend G.A.

Reynolds, who returned to Victoria after a trip to Germany. He praised Hitler for tearing the nation free from the “stranglehold” of Jewish commerce and banking and described the Germans as “superior people with a rather Spartan spirit.”115 An anti-Semitic joke in the Chilliwack

Progress illustrates the ubiquity of this Jewish stereotype linking Jews to money and greed:

Two Jews went to North Wales on holidays. They took a tramp among the hills. ‘I vish,’ said one, ‘that I owned that tallest mountain over there and that it vas solid gold.’ ‘That’s a lovely thought,’ said the other. ‘Ike, if that mountain was solid goal and you owned it, vould you give me part of it?’ ‘Certainly I vouldn’t!’ said Ike. ‘Vish yourself a mountain.’116

112 H. N. Caiserman, “Jew Baiting in British Columbia,” Jewish Western Bulletin, January 23, 1936, 2. 113 “Police Guard Lecture Hall,” Daily Colonist, May 29, 1934, 2. 114 Ibid. 115 Rev. G.A. Reynolds, “Hostile Feeling in European Countries Keeps Peace at Bay,” Daily Colonist, September 2, 1934, 6. 116 “Help Yourself,” Chilliwack Progress, September 27, 1934, 7.

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The Bulletin saw this anti-Semitic rhetoric in Canadian life as poisonous discourse that needed to be exposed. It was “the solemn duty of the Jewish Press, wherever we find it and whatever its language may be, [to] print things just as they are.”117 The Canadian Jewish Congress also tried

to actively dispel such myths by commissioning Louis Rosenberg, a well-known statistician, to compile data on Jewish economic, educational, social, and political life in Canada.118

The Bulletin changed tack with Jewish refugees during this period by adopting a new approach to lobby for their admission to Canada by shaming the country, rather than solely

trying to convince Canadians that it was morally right or an economic benefit. They reported on

the remarks of the League of Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, James McDonald, who

said Christians of all denominations were shirking their duty by ignoring the plight of refugees.

The refugee problem, he said, was a problem for all those who believed in “liberty and freedom

of the conscience.”119 This seemed to bring about responses from Christian groups, who formed

the Christian Committee to Aid German Jewish Refugees, although they emphasized refugees

were not only Jews, but Christians too.120 They also ran stories that framed Canadian feelings on

the issue in a bad light, such as the comparatively tiny Holland deciding to set aside seventeen

thousand acres of land for German Jews.121 In others, they outright condemned the Canadian

position, such as in the Canadian Jewish Congress petition to the Prime Minister:

117 “Editorial,” Jewish Western Bulletin, October 23, 1936, 2. 118 H. N. Caiserman, “Canadian Jewish Congress,” Jewish Western Bulletin, July 19, 1934, 1.; see Louis Rosenberg and Morton Weinfeld, Canada's Jews : A Social and Economic Study of Jews Canada in the 1930s (Montreal: McGill University Press, 2014). 119 “McDonald asks aid of Non-Jews in U.S. for German Refugees,” Jewish Western Bulletin, February 1, 1934, 1. 120 “Christian Committee Formed to Aid German Jewish Refugees,” Jewish Western Bulletin, June 21, 1934, 1. 121 “17,000 Acres of Filled in Zuyder Zee set Aside for German Exiles,” Jewish Western Bulletin, July 2, 1936, 1.

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It is inconceivable that the Canadian government should stand passively by and fail to lift its voice against these assaults upon humanity, or to utter its condemnation of the violation of the fundamental principles of human rights. Our country has traditionally recognized its moral and legal rights, as well as its duty, to speak in behalf of those persecuted for their religious beliefs and for minority groups or races deprived of their just rights.122

Meanwhile, they noted that “Other countries, with empty spaces the size of empires…remain hermetically closed,” as hundreds of thousands of penniless German Jews remain in Germany.123

The paper also began to champion the cause of Zionism as a solution for the Jewish refugees as they likely realized the Western democracies could not be counted on to admit them but could be counted on to shift the burden of responsibility onto the British. An editorial also emphasized that Jewish persecution had made Jews more Jewish, religiously speaking, thus making rural Palestine an easier sell for Jews used to urban life.124 Indeed, even Prime Minister

Bennett went out of his way to campaign for more Jews to be allowed into Palestine, realizing that due to “Recent political and social upheavals in Europe,” thousand of Jews were destitute, and Palestine was likely their “only haven of refuge.”125 Despite the Prime Minister’s obvious obfuscation of what drove the Jews from their countries, and the fact that the Prime Minister had the power to bring many of them to Canada, the Vancouver Jews took whatever help they could get. Similarly, they publicized the pressure from Christian leaders in the US, who shifted any responsibility for the refugees onto Great Britain to increase the Palestine immigration quota.126

During the mid 1930s, the non-Jewish B.C. papers promoted Palestine as a destination for Jewish

122 “The Petition Presented to Premier Bennett,” Jewish Western Bulletin, April 7, 1936, 123 “Half Million Remain,” Jewish Western Bulletin, April 7, 1936, 16. 124 “Editorial,” Jewish Western Bulletin, January 11, 1934, 2. 125 “Canadian Premier Joins in Zionist Appeal,” Jewish Western Bulletin, April 12, 1934, 4. 126 “Americans Appeal For Jewish Refugees,” Jewish Western Bulletin, June 12, 1936, 2.

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refugees, too. In 1934, the Victoria Daily Colonist printed stories with such headlines as

“Palestine Only Refuge for Jews,” and the Prince George Citizen’s only mention of refugees during this time was in the context of a plan by Jews to raise money for settlement in

Palestine.127 It is likely that they ran such stories because almost all Canadians opposed allowing

Jewish refugees at this time. Framing the refugee crisis as an issue that Britain could easily solve by opening up Palestine to nearly unlimited Jewish immigration helped to deflect from Canada’s closed immigration system.

The Bulletin continued to report on the persecution of Jews in Germany during this period, but the news of ongoing and new persecutions became more infrequent and incomplete.

This was likely due to censorship of the press, which the paper noted, as well a decrease in the

number of Jews fleeing Germany because they could find no place to temporarily take them,

with the surrounding countries having taken in so many already. Additionally, their increased

destitution prevented entry to countries that required immigrants to have a certain amount of

capital. Moreover, as much as the Nazis wanted the Jews to leave, they prevented them because

they wanted their money; however, many Jews did not want to leave their assets behind and

could not leave if they had no money. Thus, most news of what was going on in Germany did

not reach the press unless it was from Jews who fled to Palestine. There, Zionists had made the

controversial Haavara Agreement with the Nazis that allowed German Jews going to Palestine

to use their money to purchase German goods. Thus, they did not have to leave their assets

behind and could leave Germany. However, this did break the anti-German boycott. Nonetheless, they reported such indignities suffered by Jewish schoolchildren forced to give the Hitler salute

127 “Palestine Only Refuge for Jews,” Daily Colonist, March 5, 1934, 1; “Movement Started to Raise $15,000,000 for Jews in Germany,” Prince George Citizen, January 9, 1936, 5.

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each time a teacher entered or exited the room, to conditions in concentration camps where Jews had to subsist on any food scraps left over by non-Jewish prisoners.128 They also reported on the

Nuremberg Laws, although their initial mention of them came in a reprint of a weekly review of

events put out by The Times almost three weeks later that consisted of a short sentence about loss

of citizenship and the marriage ban between Jews and non-Jews.129 A week later, they had no

more details of what the laws were, only that they would further “politically, socially, and

economically ostracize” the Jews.130 Only in late November did they report that Jews, as defined by the Nazis, were those with at least three Jewish grandparents, and that because of their loss of citizenship, many thousands of Jews still employed would be forced out of work by the end of the year.131

For its part, the Colonist gave a more infrequent, less complete picture of what life was

like for German Jews compared to the Bulletin. Perhaps this is because, as one editorial put it,

the Hitler regime was about to “fizzle out,” and therefore, the Jews would return to the old state

of affairs.132 However, the paper’s framing of persecution seems to maintain that the Jews in

Germany were a problem for the Jews but not for Christians, as they said Hitler’s treatment of

Jews had “engendered resentment” from all Jews.133 Certainly, it was the hope of Vancouver’s

Jews that it would go beyond Jewish resentment. Some coverage was only obliquely related to

Jews, such as their editorial on religious freedom in Germany, which was surprisingly not about

Jews’ freedom, but the freedom of Christianity under threat because the Nazis were meddling

128 “Jewish Children Ordered to Give Hitler Nazi Salute,” Jewish Western Bulletin, January 4, 1934,1; ““Jewish Prisoners Starved in Concentration Camp,” Jewish Western Bulletin, January 18, 1934,1. 129 “Review of Events,” Jewish Western Bulletin, October 3, 1935, 1 130 “Hope of Reich Jews Dimmed By Events,” Jewish Western Bulletin, October 10, 1935, 1. 131 “One million Jews lose citizenship,” Jewish Western Bulletin, November 21, 1935, 1. 132 “Editorial,” Daily Colonist, July14, 1934, 4. 133 Ibid.

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with Jewish references in the Old Testament, and had banned Jews who converted to Christianity from the Church.134 They reported on new measures against Jews, like Goebbels’ ban against

Jews in cultural life, and they mentioned one man was sent to a concentration camp; but what

these actions meant for Jews, destitution and death in many cases, was never reported. There is

no mention of the now infamous Nuremberg Laws in September or October. However, due to an

incomplete archive, the month November is missing. It may be that the paper reported on them at

that time, like the Chilliwack Progress did on November 21, 1935, on page five. In their report,

they only mentioned the law revoking citizenship of Jews, and did not define what a Jew was

according to the Nazis.135 The Prince George Citizen was no better at capturing what was

happening to the Jews in Germany, and seemed to conflate racial persecution with religious

persecution, as they compared the Jews to the Huguenots of France. Perhaps they were unaware

that Jews who converted to Christianity were subject to the same Nazi laws as secular Jews and

Jews practicing Judaism.136

To fill the vacuum left by German news and draw attention to their plight, the Bulletin

increasingly reported on the news of worsening conditions for Jews in Eastern European

countries. An editorial in March 1934 pointed to terrible conditions in Eastern Galicia, Ukraine.

There, a boycott against Jews made the German boycott appear “amateurish.” They reported that

priests denied services to boycott breakers, who were also attacked by their fellow Christians.

They burned Jews’ homes to the ground, ruined their crops, and poisoned their livestock; all

encouraged by politicians and the papers.137 Conditions in Poland were said to be worse than in

134 “Editorial,” Daily Colonist, January 24, 1934, 4. 135 “Chilliwack Progress,” Chilliwack Progress, November 21, 1935, 5. 136 “Exodus of German Jews Recalls That of the Huguenots,” Prince George Citizen, January 23, 1936, 2. 137 “Editorial,” Jewish Western Bulletin, March 1, 1934, 2.

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Germany, too. In an editorial, the Bulletin wrote that attacks on Jews there had created an atmosphere of fear, exemplified in an incident of a gentile woman handing out candy to Jewish children. One Jewish mother warned that the candy could be poisoned, which triggered a stampede of mothers coming to their children, followed by gentiles to defend the woman. In this case, a pogrom was avoided.138

By 1936, the reports from Poland were dire and more frequent. One report said the homes

of forty-six Jewish families burned to the ground and one family was murdered in their sleep

while Christians watched. Two weeks later, they reported that the Polish government petitioned

the League for a territory to expel their three million Jews.139 The same year, the University of

Vilna was closed because of anti-Semitic rioters who demanded segregated classes, and also

attacked Jewish students with knives and sticks.140 Similar incidents and closures at multiple

universities were reported in the following months. In late 1936, the Endeks, the National

Democratic Party in Poland, started paying people to picket Jewish shops.141 An editorial

described the Polish government as beholden to these anti-Semitic elements that would soon be

in power. The only difference between the Endeks and the Nazis was, “the Endeks want to drown

the Jews in the ocean; the Polish Nazis want to drown them in blood.”142 Vancouver Jews

received a second-hand accounting of the situation in Poland from the famous Jewish playwright

and novelist Sholem Asch, just returned from the country and on a speaking tour in Canada. In

an article titled “Don’t Let Them Die!” he described them as “having been buried

138 “Editorial,” Jewish Western Bulletin, June 21, 1934, 2. 139 “A Tale of Destruction,” Jewish Western Bulletin, October 9, 1936, 2.; “Polish Jewry Faces Crisis,” Jewish Western Bulletin, October 23, 1936, 1. 140 “Vilna University Closed Indefinitely,” Jewish Western Bulletin, November 27, 1936, 1. 141 “Aftermath of Pogroms,” Jewish Western Bulletin, December 4, 1936, 1. 142 “Editorial,” Jewish Western Bulletin, July 2, 1937, 2.

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alive…skeletons of skin and bone, crippled, [and] candidates for the grave…” Jews even went out of their way not to improve their terrible conditions, lest the anti-Semites target them.143

The Bulletin reported less visceral accounts of persecutions in Hungary and Romania, but it was clear that Jews in those countries were still suffering at the hands of anti-Semites. In 1936, the Hungarian government began applying Nuremberg-type laws that forbade marriage between

Jews and non-Jews.144 Moreover, they endured a campaign to make it illegal for Jews to use any

language other than Hebrew in schools, newspapers, public meetings, and documents.145 In

Romania, the paper reported on the persecution Jews suffered at the hands of the Iron Guard,

fascist leader Alexander Cuza, and their supporters. An anti-Semitic rally put on by Cuza and the

Iron Guard attracted two-hundred thousand people in October of 1936, more anti-Semitic

measures came in the following weeks.146 On November 6, they released a short report on the

ban of teaching Judaism in schools, which the country’s vice president had directed.147 On New

Year’s Eve, the paper revealed that the Romanian government banned non-citizens from working

in the professions and trades. This would leave destitute the hundreds of thousands of Jews that

Romania had denied citizen after Bessarabia had joined the country after the First World War.148

The Bulletin not only reported on these inhuman conditions because they were

newsworthy for Jews, and might, moreover, sway the opinions of any non-Jewish readers. The

paper also used these reports as a fundraising tool to move Vancouver Jews to not only

sympathize with their coreligionists but to open up their bank accounts as well. On September

143 Sholem Asch, “Don’t Let Them Die!” Jewish Western Bulletin, May 14, 1937, 2. 144 “Foreign Flashes,” Jewish Western Bulletin, February 20, 1936, 1. 145 “Foreign Flashes,” Jewish Western Bulletin, July 2, 1937, 1. 146 “Romanian Jewry Fears New Outbreak,” Jewish Western Bulletin, October 30, 1936, 1. 147 “Foreign Flashes,” Jewish Western Bulletin, November 6, 1936, 4. 148 “Romanian Jews Panicky Over Anti-Alien Law,” Jewish Western Bulletin, December 31, 1936, 1.

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13, 1934, the paper announced an upcoming fundraiser and expressed disappointment with the community’s “lacking national conscious and solidarity” towards the suffering Jews in Europe.

The following week, the Bulletin printed two articles, the first criticizing Jewish leadership for doing nothing when there were no headlines in the news, for being reactionary.149 The second

article announced a mass meeting and fundraiser scheduled for September 25, 1934, at the

Vancouver Jewish Community Centre:

We know as facts that our people in Europe are suffering and dying from want and starvation. Now is no time for apathy and indifference. If you who read this appeal and have the slightest sympathy and regard for the very lives of our persecuted and suffering people, you cannot ignore and turn a deaf ear to their pitiful appeal for help. We must be human and not selfish and self centered. Do you want our own people to perish? Your indifference and absence from this meeting will indicate that you do not care and have not the slightest interest. THAT is not Judaism. The paper went on to list twelve facts retelling the horrors Jews in Europe were facing, such as the “disaster, degradation, and death” faced by children in Germany and the “ONE MILLION

JEWS” in Poland with no resources whatsoever.150 They also pointed out that Canadian Jews

had not done any fundraising during a period when Jews in England had raised two million

dollars.151 Clearly, the leaders of the Vancouver Jewish community had difficulty persuading

some of its members to feel responsible for the Jews in Europe.

Indeed, fundraising, along with the boycott and the Zionist cause continued to be issues

that prevented a united Jewish response. Whether such a response was ever possible, it was

certainly believed that it ought to be. The already mentioned Haavara Agreement was a

contention at the World Jewish Congress, where Rabbi Wise both condemned the suggestion that

149 “What Jews are Thinking,” Jewish Western Bulletin, September 20, 1934, 1. 150 “MASS MEETING, TUESDAY, SEPT. 25TH,” Jewish Western Bulletin, September 20, 1934, 1. 151 Ibid.

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Jews should lift the boycott against the Nazis to negotiate with them and criticized Zionists for collaborating with the Nazis.152 On July 18, 1935, the Bulletin ran a full front-page column calling for Jews to unite in the fight against Hitler. It admitted that Jews had been united against

Germany, but not united in action, which led to inaction against a regime, it was now clear, was bent on wiping the “seed of Abraham from the earth.”153 Divisions only worsened, however, as

the Joint Distribution Committee and the United Palestine Appeal, two of the biggest Jewish aid

agencies, decided to split up their joint funding based on disagreements over how much money

should go to helping suffering Jews trapped in Europe and how much should go towards

relocating Jews to Palestine.154 An editorial on August 21, 1936, concluded that if Jews expected

help from others, they must learn to help themselves first.155

This conclusion was not necessarily the case, however, as acts of once unimaginable

cruelty in Austria and Germany in 1938 and 1939 would capture the attention of Canadians, Jews

and non-Jews alike, as it never had before.

152 “Congress Report,” Jewish Western Bulletin, September 6, 1934, 12. 153 “How Do We Stand With Hitler?” Jewish Western Bulletin, July 18, 1935, 1. 154 “Jewish Life Torn With Controversies,” Jewish Western Bulletin, February 13, 1936, 2. 155 “Editorial,” Jewish Western Bulletin, August 21, 1936, 2.

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Chapter III | From Anschluss to the Second World War: A Cause for Civilization

From 1938 to 1939, the Nazi regime undertook its most notorious pre-war actions against the Jews during the German annexation of Austria in March 1938, the Anschluss and

Kristallnacht. During the Anschluss, thousands of Jewish homes and businesses were looted, and thousands of Jews were sent to concentration camps or put on the border, forced into Hungary or

Czechoslovakia. To avoid the terror, hundreds committed suicide. Moreover, rapid Aryanization of Jewish property resulted in the takeover of twenty-five thousand businesses.156 Violence and

destruction reigned for two days during Kristallnacht, November 9 to 10, 1938. Approximately

7,500 Jewish businesses were ransacked and looted, 267 synagogues were burned down, 30,000

Jews were sent to concentration camps, and 91 Jews were killed. In the following days, the Nazi

regime held the Jews in its borders collectively responsible for the destruction and fined them one billion Reichsmarks (400 million US dollars in 1938). New anti-Jewish legislation came

quickly as well. Aryanization, already taking place in Austria, came to Germany, and

opportunities for employment were restricted further. Moreover, the Nazis expelled Jews from

the education system and banned them from social centres such as the theatre and cinema.157

These two events reinvigorated the interest of the public and the newspapers in British

Columbia even beyond the levels reached in 1933. The Jewish Western Bulletin in Vancouver

published 377 articles related to Jewish persecution from the beginning of 1938 to the start of the

Second World War in September of 1939. These totals did not reach the 1933 high of 347, but

this can be explained in part by the unavailability of about half of the year 1939 in the archive.

156 Laqueur and Baumel, eds, The Holocaust Encyclopedia, 46-47. 157 “Kristallnacht: A Nationwide Pogrom,” United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, accessed February 3, 2017, https://www.ushmm.org/wlc/en/article.php?ModuleId=10005201.

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The Victoria Daily Colonist increased their coverage of stories as Jewish persecution finally captured the mainstream, sustained attention that it had not achieved beforehand. They wrote 179 articles over the same period, and 95 of those stories made page one. Sixty-six stories out of the total 179 were short in nature, which is a slightly smaller ratio than in 1933. Additionally, secondary stories where the paper mentioned Jewish persecution in articles that otherwise had nothing to do with it increased. There were thirty-four secondary stories over this period compared to just eight in 1933, and there were 11 letters to the editor in 1938, more than doubling the 1933 total. These numbers speak to how much Jewish persecution became a greater concern to non-Jews more than in years past. Even the low output of the Prince George Citizen

and the Chilliwack Progress grew during this time. The Citizen carried twenty-two stories, but only three made the front page. However, the ratio of short articles shrank compared to 1933, accounting for less than one in five, while secondary mentions made up six of the twenty-two.

Their first editorials and letters to the editor on the subject also appear during this period.

Likewise, the Chilliwack Progress had fourteen articles, four of them short and five of them secondary; however, just one made page one and no editorials or letters to the editor appeared.

Indeed, this overall growth in interest was not exclusive to these papers, but in papers across

Canada. As reported by the Colonist, the Editors of Canada picked Jewish persecution as the fifth biggest world news story of 1938.158 The Bulletin ran twenty-eight editorials during this

time, consistent with its output after 1933. The Colonist’s editorial output exploded as it carried

eleven compared to the three editorials in all years prior since 1933. The Prince George Citizen

had two editorials, while the Chilliwack Progress had none.

158 “Editors of Canada Pick Threat of War as Leader in News,” Daily Colonist, January 6, 1939, 2.

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Reporting of Jewish persecution following the Anschluss and Kristallnacht became one

of the biggest stories of the year in the mainstream newspapers, and sympathy for Jews was

never higher as the many letters to the editor and articles indicated. Still, anti-Semitic sentiments

remained, especially towards potential Jewish refugees. In response the Bulletin changed

strategies and made the issue of persecution not only about Jews or Canadians, but about

civilization. Again, using new tactics, they called for Canada to take “refugees” or “immigrants,”

and frequently pointed out that many other religious groups were affected. The mainstream

papers mirrored this new approach shortly after. Additionally, they ran many stories on what a

success refugees had been for other countries and emphasized what an economic boon they

would be for Canada, a selling point pro-refugee papers started to use which tried to counter

some lingering mainstream opinions about refugees and the economy.

The initial reporting on the coming annexation of Austria mirrored the reporting of

Hitler’s rise to power in 1933: a naïve belief among the B.C. papers that the situation for

Austrian Jews would not be much worse after Hitler annexed the country. The Bulletin’s first

story on 4 March 1938 did report that Austrian Jews worried for their futures despite assurances

from Austrian Chancellor Schuschnigg, who invited Nazi members into the government a week

before the annexation.159 However, an editorial the same day insisted that the rights of the Jews in Austria were limited already, so the Nazis could not do much more to harm them. Moreover, if they brought in Nuremberg-like laws, the Jews could appeal to the League of Nations.160

Likewise, the Victoria Daily Colonist on February 20, 1938, printed the assurances of the

159 “Schuschnigg Fails to Allay Alarm of Austrian Jews,” Jewish Western Bulletin, March 4, 1938, 1. 160 “Change of Events,” Jewish Western Bulletin, March 4, 1938, editorial, 2.

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Austrian Chancellor, that the Jews “could face the future with full confidence.”161 Attitudes such as these did not last long.

On the day of the Nazi coup, March 11, 1938, the Jewish Western Bulletin captured the ominous weeks ahead with a chant recited by Nazi students at the University of Vienna: “Judah, jump the twig. Go hang yourselves. When Jewish blood drips from our knives everything will go well.”162 Soon, the paper was filled with stories of horror, such as “Thousands of Jews Jobless in

Austria as Nazi Axe Falls: Terror Reigns in Jewish Quarter; Wave of Suicides Reported.”163 On

April 1, the Bulletin ran a large headline on page one: “1700 Jewish Suicides Reported in

Vienna,” and within the story they gave a long list of prominent doctors, lawyers, professors, and

community leaders who had killed themselves, and more who had been arrested.164 They also

reported on events that showed the indignities Austrian Jews suffered by the Nazis, such as shop

owners forced to stand by while seven to ten-year-old children with Swastika armbands looted

candy and toys from their stores.165

About a month before Kristallnacht, the Bulletin printed a most interesting and

unexpected story addressing the perception of the times they lived in:

The past year has been more than usually production of news of Jewish suffering and persecution so much so in fact, that the historian of the future consulting the Jewish press…will get the distorted impression that every man’s hand was raised against the Jew,

161 “Austrian Jews are Reassured,” Daily Colonist, February 20, 1938, 1. 162 “Nazi Students Stage Anti-Jewish Demonstration in Vienna,” Jewish Western Bulletin, March 11, 1938, 2; jump the twig is an idiom similar to “kick the bucket.” 163 “Thousands of Jews Jobless in Austria as Nazi Axe Falls: Terror Reigns in Jewish Quarter; Wave of Suicides Reported,” Jewish Western Bulletin, March 25, 1938, 1. 164 “1700 Jewish Suicides Reported in Vienna,” Jewish Western Bulletin, April 1, 1938, 1; Modern estimates of Austrian Jewish suicides are 220 in March 1938. See Walter Laqueur and Judith Tydor Baumel, eds, The Holocaust Encyclopedia, 46. 165 “Swastika-Wearing Children Loot Jewish Candy Stores in Vienna,” Jewish Western Bulletin, April 1, 1938, 4.

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that nowhere were there any signs of humanitarianism toward him, that the entire picture of Jewish life was black and forboding.166 Yes, they said that anti-Semitism had “made great strides,” but “good will kept pace with it.”167

The writer did not mean sympathetic words about Jews now common in the papers, but “good will in action,” especially by those in Europe who risked their very lives or livelihoods by giving succor to Jews168 What followed in the story was three full-length columns recounting such good

deeds as Christian neighbours of Jews in Vienna, horrified that Jews were forced to wash streets

and walls, and joined them in protest; Neighbours who gave food to Jews when no one would

sell to them, and to those Jews too poor to buy it; the many Germans who refused to boycott

Jewish stores and helped send Jewish children to other countries; and Polish professors who

refused to teach ghettoized classes and resigned in protest.169

The Victoria Daily Colonist started carrying stories of Jewish persecution in Austria the

day after the coup and told of hundreds of Jews trying to flee the country.170 However, the Jews

were reported as but one group who the Nazis might target along with others, like Catholics and

socialists.171 On March 15, they printed two contradictory stories. One on page two about the

British government saying they had assurance from Germany that Jews, Catholics and socialists

would be handled with “a sense of moderation.”172 The other story, a secondary one on page 17

(continued from page 1) reported thousands of Austrian Jews tried to flee, doctors and lawyers

banned from practice, stores looted, and Jews assaulted and imprisoned.173 Stories of persecution

166 Bernard Postal, “Good Will in Action,” Jewish Western Bulletin, October 7, 1938, 3. 167 Ibid. 168 Ibid. 169 Ibid. 170 “Threat of Invasion Gives German Nazis Control of Vienna,” Daily Colonist, March 12, 1938, 2. 171 “Defies World to Break New Union,” Daily Colonist, March 13, 1938, 2. 172 “British Representation,” Daily Colonist, March 15, 1938, 2. 173 “Tumultuous Welcome in Vienna,” Daily Colonist, March 15, 1938, 17.

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became frequent front page material starting in late March and continued throughout the summer. Daily Colonist readers read that Herman Goering wanted Austria free of Jews within four years, and that all Jews in Germany had their property and wealth stolen by the Nazis.174

They read of scenes in American and British consulates in Europe, where officials turned away

so many Jews who openly wept and threatened to kill themselves; and they read quotes from Der

Stürmer: “…extermination of the Jews [is] the only solution [to] the problem” of Jews who could

neither leave nor support themselves.175

Reporting in the small local papers of the Prince George Citizen and Chilliwack Progress was less thorough. In the Citizen, there was a full column story on the German invasion of

Austria, but only a mention of the imprisonment of hundreds of Jews in the final sentence.176 The

Progress’ editor wrote about the invasion but made no mention of the Jews’ plight. They noted

that the news was filled with propaganda of what had been happening, and lamented that it had pushed news of Spain as well as Japan and China off the front page.177 The only story of Jewish

persecution in the first seven months of 1938 was a report on a German spa that would no longer

allow Jews to use its restaurants, tennis courts, or swimming pools.178

News of Kristallnacht reached the pages of the Jewish Western Bulletin on November 18,

1938. Surprisingly, the editor thought the massive violence was a sign of the end of Nazi

Germany. They described the pogrom as “Robbery with violence, terrorism, cruel inhuman

torture, murder, all these things…inflicted tenfold on our people during the past few days, on the

174 “Tells Jews to Leave Austria”, Daily Colonist, March 27, 1938, 1; “Jews to Lose All Property,” Daily Colonist, April 28, 1938, 1. 175 “Jews Suffer Daily Raids,” Daily Colonist, June 18, 1938, 1; “To Rid Berlin of Every Jews,” Daily Colonist, June 21, 1938, 1. 176 “Germans Invade Austria – Take Over Country,” Prince George Citizen, March 17, 1938, 1. 177 “Left Speechless,” Chilliwack Progress, March 16, 1938, editorial, 4. 178 “Tough on Jew Guests,” Chilliwack Progress, July 13, 1938, 4.

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very flimsiest pretext.”179 The paper reported that many Jews had killed themselves and an

estimated fifty thousand were put in concentration camps.”180 The editor believed that because

this horrible crime had turned the stomachs of even the Nazi apologists in America and Britain,

“out of all this chaos there may come a new era which will see us in brighter and happier

circumstances.”181 Certainly, it had renewed the interest and sympathy of Vancouverites, who

came out in force to a mass meeting that included community leaders like the Mayor of

Vancouver, Archbishop Duke of the Roman Catholic Diocese of Vancouver, and President of the

Trades and Labour Council.182

The reporting in the Daily Colonist on Kristallnacht was as good and perhaps more

detailed than even the Bulletin. The page one story said the German Jews had been “victims of a

nation-wide day of vengeance” that caused Jewish property damages in the millions, twenty-one

synagogues in Vienna burned, Jews sent to concentration camps, and many suicides, and noted

similar scenes of violence happened in many cities.183 In a follow up two days later, they reported the fine of four hundred million USD, amounting to one-quarter of all Jewish wealth in

Germany, the total devastation of Jewish business, and at least twenty thousand Jews in Vienna sent to concentration camps.184 An editorial the same day noted that almost all countries in the

world were deeply disturbed by the actions of the German people, and would likely make official

179 “Is It the Beginning of the End?” Jewish Western Bulletin, November 18, 1938, editorial, 2. 180 “Anglo-Americans Plans for Settling of Jewish Refugees in Africa and American Being Discussed,” Jewish Western Bulletin, November 25, 1938, 4. 181 Ibid. 182 “Strong Protest Made By Vancouver Citizens Against Germany’s Inhuman Treatment of Jews: Prominent Citizens, Heads of Churches Take Part in Mass Meeting” Jewish Western Bulletin, November 25, 1938, 1. 183 “Jews in Germany Victims of Nation-Wide Day of Vengeance,” Daily Colonist, November 11, 1938, 1. 184 “Nazis Wipe Out Jewish Business in Their Country,” Daily Colonist, November 13, 1938, 1.

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protests.185 The Prince George Citizen and Chilliwack Progress did not report on Kristallnacht,

but the population was obviously aware of it from other sources as it was referenced days later in

a story about Chilliwack Boy Scouts, who reportedly prayed for the German Jews “in their

plight.”186

With sympathy rising for the suffering Jews in Austria and Germany, the Jewish Western

Bulletin began to change their framing of the refugee crisis. As stated in past chapters, the

Bulletin always championed the Canadian government admitting Jewish refugees, but now

Bulletin frequently called for the admittance of refugees or simply immigrants in general. This

was an attempt to rebrand the immigration debate. While many Canadians were against

admitting Jews, they would be less likely to refuse refugees, who included any number of people

or different ethnicities and faiths. Further still, an immigrant shed any stigma associated with

refugees, who conjured up images of poor people in need of charity. Immigrants were,

potentially, people who wanted to come to a country to work hard, just like so many Canadians

had once done.

They also continued to debunk myths about Jews that appeared in other papers. In

January 1939, the paper was hopeful that the Canadian government would change their refugee

policy and allow “refugee children,” and told its readers that the Jewish community would

conduct a survey of families, especially relatives, who would take them.187 They countered

misleading statements that suggested Jews would take over cities and congregate in Eastern

Canada by printing statistics that showed the highest proportion of Jews in any Canadian city

185 “Persecuting the Jews,” Daily Colonist, November 13, 1938, editorial, 4. 186 “Boy Scout News,” Chilliwack Progress, November 16, 1938, 8. 187 “Important Notice Regarding Refugees,” Jewish Western Bulletin, January 20, 1939, 1.

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was a mere 6 percent, and that while 80 percent of Jews did live in Eastern Canada, so too did 70 percent of all Canadians.188 Over the next few months and no movement from the Canadian

government on the refugee file, they printed criticism from MP J.S. Woodsworth against Prime

Minister Mackenzie King, who believed Canada needed to take its share of refugees.189 On June

23, 1939, the editors reminded everyone that all Canadians were immigrants at one time, and refusing to take in more immigrants left Canada’s wide open spaces and resources undeveloped.190 On July 21, 1939, the Bulletin reported a breakthrough. In a rare page one editorial, right down the centre, the paper recapped its long efforts to show how beneficial more immigrants would be to Canada. With pride and joy coming through the printed page, the editor informed its readers that the Vancouver Daily Province, a major newspaper, had written an editorial that they were joining the fight to admit “European Refugees” into Canada.191 They

reprinted the Province’s editorial in full, which praised a planned rayon silk plant worth three

million dollars and would employ one thousand, started by refugees who fled Nazi

persecution.192

The Victoria Daily Colonist increased their reporting on the issue of allowing refugees

into Canada, with their last story being the Canadian government line that they had no plans to

change policy in October 1933.193 While reporting increased, the paper released no editorial

calling for Canada to take in Jews, refugees, or immigrants like the Province had. Indeed, the

thought does not seem to have even occurred to the editor, who instead wrote an editorial

188 “Present Trends and Future Possibilities in Jewish Economic Life in Canada,” Jewish Western Bulletin, February 17, 1939, 1. 189 “J.S. Woodsworth Urges Govt. Share Refugee Burden,” Jewish Western Bulletin, March 31, 1939, 5. 190 “Canadians All – Immigrants All,” Jewish Western Bulletin, June 23, 1939, editorial, 2. 191 “Editorial,” Jewish Western Bulletin, July 21, 1939, 1. 192 Ibid. 193 “Canada Not Prepared to Accept German Jewish Refugees,” Daily Colonist, October 7, 1933, 1.

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praising Great Britain for taking the lead in refugee resettlement.194 They continued to give both

sides of the debate a voice like they had done in the past. They relied on government messaging

again, printing the excuses of Immigration Minister Thomas Crerar, who said Canada was “very

sympathetic” to Jewish refugees, but there existed difficulties with visas and “other things” that

prevented government action.195

However, what set off public sympathy in Victoria was Kristallnacht. The public

meetings and resolutions that happened in Vancouver five years previously were now happening

in Victoria for the first time. At the Chamber of Commerce, once host to the fascist General

Blackeney, was a public meeting to protest German treatment of the Jews.196 However, the

article advertising the meeting was on page eleven. Four days later, the report of the meeting said

they had resolved to petition Prime Minister Mackenzie-King to follow Britain’s example and

allow Jews to settle in Canada. This news was on the last page, page eighteen.197 If placement

within the newspaper is any indication, the editor did not believe this story was very important.

On December 7, 1938, the paper ran a front-page story from the Canadian National Committee

on Refugees and Victims of Political Persecution that praised the government for allowing

economically beneficial refugees into the country but asked the government to lower the bar.198

In a way, this fit with the argument the Bulletin had been making for years, but it also

whitewashed the Canadian government policy and implied it had been doing its fair share. As

Abella and Troper write, by December 1938 the Canadian government regularly rejected

194 “Home for the Jews,” Daily Colonist, November 22, 1939, editorial, 4. 195 “Asking Haven for Refugees: Canadian Government Sympathetic with Problem Advanced by Jews,” Daily Colonist, June 16, 1938, 1. 196 “Protest Meeting on Sunday Night,” Daily Colonist, November 25, 1938, 11. 197 “Against Nazi Persecution,” Daily Colonist, November 29, 1938, 18. 198 “Urges Bars Be Lowered,” Daily Colonist, December 7, 1938, 1.

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European Jews worth $20,000, and in 1939, they rejected someone worth $170,000 on the basis that they would compete with Canadian businesses. Frederick Charles Blair, director of the

Immigration Branch of the Department of Mines and Resources, and all immigration policy in practice, believed that any Jews with such sums of money were frauds, given money by wealthy

Jews who would repossess the money after these Jewish immigrants entered the country.199 One

letter to the editor shamed the Refugee Committee and the government for only taking wealthy

Jews: “We have Jews in our midst. Do you say to them ‘we pity your brethren and want to help

them as long as it is to our material advantage?”’200 Indeed, they said that Victoria ought to take

in ten of the “poorest, most pitiable” Jewish families from Europe as an example.201 Sadly,

appealing to a common humanity had not gotten Canadian Jews far since 1933.

The Prince George Citizen was by far the most pro-refugee paper among the non-Jewish

journals. However, like many others it emphasized that a refugee need not mean Jew, and it was

not only a humanitarian mission but also good for the economy. Apart from a short story on June

9, 1938, which mentioned a resident back from London who reported Jews in London had made

“serious inroads” in business, the paper was pro-refugee.202 In January 1939, the paper

summarized a report submitted to the government by Senator Cairine Wilson, which reported

that not mass immigration, but a handpicked selection of the best refugees, even Jewish ones, touted for their intellectual ability, could benefit the economy by bringing in experts in industry that were needed for Canada’s future.203 Three weeks later, the editor wrote an impassioned plea

to permit Jewish refugees and other persecuted groups into Canada: “It should be printed in bold

199 Abella and Irving, None is too Many, 56. 200 Julius W. Hewitt, “Jewish Refugees,” Daily Colonist, December 11, 1938, letter to the editor, 4. 201 Ibid. 202 “Prince Georgian Back From London,” Prince George Citizen, June 9, 1938, 2. 203 “Believe Refugees Create Industry, Work in Canada,” Prince George Citizen, January 26, 1939, 5.

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type in every paper, broadcast over the air, and discussed at every meeting until this country is aroused by the spirit of the Good Samaritan.”204 The repeated refrain of the editorial, “What is

Canada doing?” was used to great effect to show that many countries have accepted tens of

thousands of refugees while Canada accepted a “trifling number,” parliament talked about gun

contracts, and Quebec submitted petitions demanding no refugees, embodying who, the editor

said, Jesus called those “who saw but passed by on the other side.”205 They called for Canada to

accept thousands who, history showed, would benefit the country.206

The Chilliwack Progress wrote few stories on refugees coming to Canada during 1938-

1939, but it is clear the idea was unpopular in Chilliwack due to economic concerns. One article

printed days after Kristallnacht recounted the returning Rev. Roddan’s account of his time in

Vienna. There, he said Jews were forced to scrub streets, and he saw “hideous” posters of Jews

everywhere.207 He said it was too bad only Australia was currently taking in these people but did

not suggest Canada ought to follow suit.208 A month later, the paper printed the opinions of

locals who seemed to believe that Canada had accepted large numbers of Jewish refugees, and

feared they would take jobs from Canadians.209 The Jewish Western Bulletin discussed this phenomenon under the headline “Is Publicity Good for Jews?”210 While it seemed counter- intuitive to dislike mass public awareness of the Jews’ plight, some Jews feared the public becoming “Jew-conscious,” seeing Jews where there were none or had before been

204 “IS IT NOTHING TO YOU?” Prince George Citizen, February 16, 1939, editorial, 2. 205 Ibid. 206 Ibid. 207 “Rev. Roddan Fears For Future of Europe’s Youth,” Chilliwack Progress, November 16, 1938, 11. 208 Ibid. 209 “European Refugees,” Chilliwack Progress, December 14, 1938, 4. 210 “Is Publicity Good for Jews? The Reaction to Newspaper Reports of Pogroms,” Jewish Western Bulletin, August 19, 1938, 2.

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overlooked.211 They believed this awareness of Jews led to such perceptions as those held by the

Chilliwack locals and an English MP quoted in the Bulletin who said he sympathized with Jews,

but fifty thousand of them were taking up jobs. In reality, just five thousand refugees, Jews and

non-Jews, had entered England at that time.212 Becoming “Jew-conscious” led people to see

Jews where there were none and blame them for problems for which they were not responsible.

In the past, The Jewish Western Bulletin had appealed to the Nazi persecution of Jews as

a civilizational issue, one with which all of humanity had to contend. However, they framed it as

a question of how the civilized world, meaning the Western Democracies, could stand idly by

while European Jews were persecuted in the “heart of Europe,” in a civilized country like

Germany.213 This civilizational issue came up again days before Kristallnacht when the paper

recounted a speech at the B’nai B’rith Samuel Lodge given by Rev. Roddan, the same reverend

recently returned from Vienna featured in the Progress. During the speech, which the paper

featured in bold print in the body of the article, he said that it was not Jews alone, but Protestants

and Christians who the Nazis targeted, too. To defend against them, it was necessary for these

three religions to form a “united front.”214 After Kristallnacht, a Bulletin editorial wrote that “It

has at last been recognized that Hitler’s relentless war on the Jews is not a Jewish problem but a

question of humanity that is of deep and abiding concern to the entire civilized world.”215 In the

same issue, the paper reprinted an article by Albert Einstein titled “Humanity on Trial” which

said that “the aim is to exterminate not only ourselves, but to destroy together with us, that spirit

211 Ibid. 212 Ibid. 213 “International Peace League Appeals to All Non-Jews,” Jewish Western Bulletin, January 2, 1936, 2. 214 “Jews and Christians Must Unite, says Rev. Andrew Roddan in Address to Samuel Lodge,” Jewish Western Bulletin, November 4, 1938, 1. 215 “Significance of the Protest,” Jewish Western Bulletin, November 25, 1938, editorial, 2.

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expressed in the Bible and Christianity which made possible the rise of civilization in Central and Northern Europe.”216 This common threat was expressed again in another editorial that

believed the Jews of Europe would soon find “common ground” with the countries of Europe

because those who have persecuted the Jews will themselves soon persecuted by Germany.217

The Victoria Daily Colonist seems to have understood this appeal to a common threat against civilization in both above-mentioned senses. In an editorial titled “Modern Savagery,” they quoted the Bishop of Chelmsford who cited one of the signs of a crumbling civilization was the “shameful persecution of the Jews.”218 The paper summarized a local speech by a visiting

Mrs. Lenore Underwood, San Francisco grand president of the Ladies’ Auxiliary of the

International Order of the B’nai B’rith or Daughters of the Covenant, who was heading a

fundraiser for Jewish refugees.219 In her speech, she emphasized the point that Germany

threatened all civilization.220 Ten days later, in what the paper called an “inspiring address,” Rev.

J.L.W. McLean told the Victoria Rotary Club that Gentiles and Jews needed to come together in solidarity because “they are one in the eyes of the German dictator.” While this was a fundamental misunderstanding of the Nazi’s hatred of the Jews on racial grounds, it appears that many non-Jews were finally prepared to “stand shoulder to shoulder” with them to protect religious freedom as the Bulletin had believed in 1933.221

How this would manifest itself in actions beyond anything more significant than

fundraisers and resolutions, the non-Jewish papers never said. Shortly after Canada seemed

216 Albert Einstein, “Humanity on Trial,” Jewish Western Bulletin, November 25, 1938, 2. 217 “Common Ground?” Jewish Western Bulletin, April 14, 1939, editorial, 2. 218 “Modern Savagery,” Daily Colonist, April 8, 1938, editorial, 4. 219 “Need Funds to Help Refugees From Europe,” Daily Colonist, January 28, 1939, 8. 220 “Makes Plea for Boycott,” Daily Colonist, February 7, 1939, 6. 221 “Jewish Opportunity,” Jewish Western Bulletin, April 13, 1933, 4.

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primed to finally take some significant action to help the Jews, Hitler invaded Poland and the

Second World War became the priority.

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Chapter IV | Conclusion

Similar to most of the mainstream press at the time, including the B.C. press, the Jewish

Western Bulletin did not immediately recognize the new form of anti-Semitism that Hitler and the Nazis had made a pillar of their ideology. Believing it transient and based on economics, religion, or political scapegoating, they hoped they could weather the storm like they had done many times over thousands of years when a people turned against them. Still, they watched with great concern and reported on violence and anti-Semitic laws in Germany to their readers in their attempts to both foster a connection between Vancouver Jews and those in Europe as well as report what mainstream papers were skeptical of or did not believe was worth reporting. The

Bulletin did its part in trying to form a unified Jewish response to Germany’s actions through a boycott of Germany as well as garner allies among the non-Jewish community. However, despite their efforts, they met neither goal in 1933. The international Jewish community was deeply divided on what their response should be: boycott or not; help Jews in Europe or get them to

Palestine; make a lot of public noise or work quietly behind the scenes. Indeed, the Bulletin itself did not live up to its goal to unify when it decided to go against the plan of “quiet diplomacy” set by the Canadian Jewish Congress, ostensibly the voice for all Canadian Jews. Among non-Jews, they no doubt had their sympathy, but none were moved to action.

As the novelty of Jewish persecution in Germany wore off, so too did the coverage of the issue in the non-Jewish press. With no huge anti-Semitic actions or at least none recognized as such, the Bulletin was left alone to continue its weekly reportage of Germany Jews being slowly ground into oblivion. However, even they could only do so much when little news came out of

Germany. They increasingly turned to highlighting the terrible conditions for Jews in Eastern

Europe. Moreover, they perceived this mounting anti-Semitism throughout Europe and even

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within Canada as a potential threat at home. It is difficult to fault Vancouver Jews and Jews in

Canada for connecting the anti-Semitism in Germany to a worldwide wave. After all, various fascists groups and organizations sympathetic to the Nazis were popping up all over Canada, and even in B.C. Certainly, Victoria seemed to have at least some appetite for the message these

groups were spreading. However, it did mean that the paper had become less focused on

European Jews. It seemed to realize this and tried to rouse support among the community during

fundraisers by reminding Vancouver Jews how good their lives were compared to their

coreligionists in Europe. It is possible, however, that their pre-occupation with anti-Semitism in

Canada made some in the community more concerned about the situation at home and less about

the Jews far away. At least, calls for fundraisers were often, to the Bulletin’s frustration, met with

indifference. Surprisingly, this threat did not force Jews to become more united. The Bulletin

continued to forge its own strategy where Jewish refugees were concerned, taking a double-

pronged approach of both shaming Canada and hoping Palestine was the answer to all their

problems.

“Help” seemed to come from the least likely place: Nazi Germany. After the Anschluss

and Kristallnacht, all trace of any opinion that tried to find an excuse for Hitler’s actions or

downplayed them had vanished and was replaced by disgust and condemnation. The Nazi

pogrom against the Jews had made persecution newsworthy again and had united non-Jews behind Jewish Canadians in a way that had not happened in 1933. At least for the non-Jewish papers in this study, this sentiment did not universally translate into calls for Canada to open up the country to Jews. So, the Bulletin largely stopped calling for Jewish immigration or Jewish refugees, and simply started to champion the cause of “refugees” who were essentially immigrants like so many Canadians had once been. Who was to say refugees needed to be Jews?

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The Nazis persecuted everyone who blocked their path and threatened civilization itself. In fact, this was allowing the non-Jewish press to have their way as they had long insisted that Jews were but one of many groups the Nazis had targeted, and therefore were not deserving of special treatment. They likely hoped that with this new strategy many Jews could be saved along with other groups who had become refugees. Moreover, they argued that, contrary to popular belief, immigrants were good for the economy. They did not take jobs from Canadians, they made jobs for them. Arguments like these persuaded most of the non-Jewish Canadian press according to other studies, and even several letters to the editor of the Daily Colonist believed Canada needed to take in the Jews, but only the editor of the Prince George Citizen made a forceful call to admit refugees.

In the end, the call turned out to be too late. With the war starting less than a year after

Kristallnacht, six million Jews in need of rescue perished in the ghettos, by bullets, by gas, and

many other methods. Or perhaps no amount of time to save the Jews would have been enough

for Canada. Even with public opinion seemingly in favour of rescue, on moral and economic

grounds, the government remained unmoved in its position and arguably tightened immigration

against Jews further after the pogrom. Perhaps they were aware that outrage would soon subside, that the stories would become less frequent and move their way to the back of the paper, to be overtaken by other news. Nonetheless, an examination of these four B.C. newspapers has

revealed a nuanced view of Canadian responses to Jewish persecution that does not come

through in a study of large regional papers. This is especially true on the issue of the refugee

crisis, the story that affected Canadians more than any other. Whereas other Canadian studies reveal a practically universal acceptance of refugees at the macro level of large papers, two out of the four papers in this study showed their opposition. Moreover, it shows the degree to which

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small, weekly community newspapers like the Jewish Western Bulletin can be a catalyst for change in the broader community, but also reveals the limits of that change. Undoubtedly, they changed the discourse over Jewish refugees within Vancouver to the point where the Vancouver

Province began to echo the rhetoric from the Bulletin. However, it was no match for an anti-

Semitic, intransigent Canadian immigration policy.

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