North America and the Jewish Refugee Crisis

North America and the Jewish Refugee Crisis None Is Too Many, the book I wrote with around for information. There are hun- not care, is that of all the democracies, Professor Harold Troper, began fortui- dreds of articles and books about Can- of all the Western nations, of all the tously. We received from a student at ada and the Second World War; there immigration countries in the world, the Public Archives of Canada two are biographies of Canadian politi- our Canada had arguably the most ap- documents. The first was a telegram, cians, and books and articles about palling record in providing sanctuary dated June 5, 1939, addressed to the Canada in the 1930s. Yet, not a word to European Jewry at the time of its Prime Minister of Canada, Mackenzie about the Jews. If you look through greatest need. Our Canada, which in King. It read very simply, "Please take these various officialbiographies, and 1956 took overnight some 40,000 Hun- us in. Canada is our last chance. If you the official records of the Department garian refugees, which in the 1960s and say no, you will be signing our death of External Affairs and the Depart- 1970s took thousands of Czechs and warrant." And it was signed, 'The Pas- ment of Immigration - at least the Ugandan Asians, which up to the pres- sengers of the ship St. Louis". This was printed records - you will scarcely find ent has resettled almost 100,000 Viet- of course the famous Voyage of the a word about the Jews. namese refugees, could find no room Damned, the boat full of a thousand We decided that this was worth check- in our bosom for more than a handful German-Jewish refugees who had ing out, and headed to the Public Ar- of the tormented Jews escaping the been packed on board by the Nazis, chives of Canada to see if there was a Nazis, looking for life, desperately their only possession being an entry story behind these two documents. looking for a haven. visa to Cuba; everything else had been What we found shocked us, and un- What we discovered in the Archives taken away from them. doubtedly has shocked many Cana- were files full of letters from Jews des- When they got to Cuba, of course, the dians who have read our book. And perate to escape the Nazis. One of the Cuban government forbade them en- not only shocked them, but perhaps first we found was addressed in 1939 try. For the next few weeks they sailed shamed them. And, more importantly, to the Immigration Department, and up and down the coast of South and forced them to ask some questions it read: North America, looking for a place about their country. Gentlemen, to land. Every country said "no", the We are all Canadians and are proud to In great distress and need, a refu- Americans even sending out a Coast be Canadians. We are proud of our gee family addresses itself to you Guard vessel to make sure that the ship heritage and of our traditions. And we for help and rescue. Our distress, did not get close enough to shore so are extraordinarily proud of our myths. particularly that of our children, that a Jewish passenger might slip over- And if there is a pervasive Canadian a nine-year-old boy and a seven- board and swim to safety. myth, it is that we are a country of im- year-old girl increases daily and It turned out that the last opportunity migrants, a country with a long history there is nothing left for us but sui- to save the passengers from the St. of welcoming refugees and dissidents, cide. In our desperation we appeal Louis was Canada. There had been no of always being in the forefront of to you for a permit to enter your mention of Canada in the book about accepting the world's oppressed and country. Surely there are people the Voyage of the Damned - nor in the dispossessed. Racism, bigotry and left in this world, people who will movie, for that matter. antisemitism, most Canadians like to have pity on us, people who will The second document from our source believe, are European or at least Amer- save us. My wife will refuse no in the Archives also sparked our in- ican in origin, and play little part in the work. We will farm, we will keep terest. It was a memorandum from the Canadian psyche, Canadian tradition house, we will do anything in Deputy Minister of Immigration, F.C. or Canadian history. We believe we are order to enter your country. Please Blair, which rejected the admission of a country of vast open spaces, of im- do not let our cry for help go these hopeless refugees in stark words. measurable wealth, a country that has unheeded. Please save us before "No country", wrote Blair, could "open always been in the forefront of accept- it is too late. its doors wide enough to take in the ing those proverbial huddled masses It was signed, Jacob and Cecilia Stein. yearning to be free. hundreds of thousands of Jewish peo- This letter is an example of the thou- ple who want to leave Europe: The line Yet, the recent literature in Canadian sands that poured into the Department must be drawn somewhere." The line history - not only None Is Too Many, of Immigration and into various Jewish drawn, the passengers' last flickering but also books about our treatment organizations throughout this country. hope extinguished, the Jews of the St. of other groups, Chinese, Japanese, There were requests for admission Louis headed back to Europe where Eastern Europeans and Indians - has, from doctors, bankers, lawyers, mathe- many of them died in the ovens of the I think, punctured a hole in this myth. maticians, scientists, merchants, capi- Third Reich. No longer can Canadians sit smugly in talists, people with money, precisely These two documents shocked us. Had judgement of others without taking the people we needed in Canada in the Canada really been so cold-hearted into account their own record. 1930s to help us get out of the economic and so callous? It was the first time What our history books until recently morass we were in. This was unlike any that we had heard that Canada was in- did not mention and what few Cana- immigration group that had ever ap- volved in any way with the Holocaust. dians talked about, perhaps because plied to this country before. We were Troubled by this, we began looking they did not know or even worse did being asked to accept the best that Europe had to offer. This was the cream Jewish businesses and Jewish public there was not one single Jewish full- of European society. Those countries officials and to prevent Jews from time professor at any university. If you which did accept them benefitted enor- coming into Canada. think about the great names in law, mously. Unfortunately, these people science, medicine and music through- were Jews and Jews were not accepted But anti-Jewish prejudice was not out the world, you could see what we in Canada in the 1930s. limited to Quebec. In English Canada, were missing. Our universities in this according to a report by the Canadian country were Judenrein. When we were And to each of these letters the Jewish Congress commissioned in offered German Jews - many of them response from the Department of Im- 1938, which was never released be- famous researchers - and-we were migration was the same to the one cause it was so frightening, there were offered them free, because the Car- appended to the letter from the Steins. massive quotas and restrictions. This negie Foundation would pay the salary It read: report stated that few of this country's of any Jewish immigrant who was hired Dear Sir, principals and teachers were Jewish; in a Canadian university - scarcely Unfortunately, though we greatly that banks, insurance companies, large any were hired, with the notable excep- sympathize with your circum- industrial and commercial interests did tion of Gerhardt Herzberg, our one stances, at present the Canadian not hire Jews; and that department Nobel laureate in science, who was not government is not admitting Jews. stores did not hire Jews as sales people Jewish but had married a Jew. Cana- Please try some other country. - they could work in the back but they dian universities argued that since they were not allowed to serve customers. were not hiring Canadian Jews, why And, of course, for the millions of Jewish doctors could not get hospital should they hire foreign ones. The Steins there was no other country. appointments. Congress report also said that it was Why was Canada so obsessive about impossible for Jewish nurses and archi- keeping Jews out of our country? Ob- Dear Siv, tects and engineers to find jobs in their viously it was a time of depression and fields and'they often succeeded in get- no country wanted to accept large Unfortunately, though we ting jobs only when they changed their numbers of job-hungry immigrants. greatly sympathize with your names and adopted Christian ones. But other countries suffered far worse circumstances, at present the If Jews found it difficult to find jobs, it from the Depression than did Canada was perhaps even more difficult for and accepted far more. The answer to Canadian government is not them to find a place to live or to vaca- why Canada was closed to Jews was admitting Jms.

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