Presented by: Radhika AggarwalWendy ThomasKaitlyn TrujilloPer: 5

REACTIONS TO THE HOLOCAUST IN THE AMERICAS

Canada’s Reaction to HolocaustN

ot very sympathetic.•4

,000 Jews were let in before the war•U

.S. accepted 240,000 Jewish refugees•U

nmoved and hostile towards Jews which caused the Anti-Semitism movement to rise

•Very few Jewish professionals- if they were hired they would have to hide their true identities

•Canada’s immigration restricted Anglo Saxon descent; however, British and American was preferred

•Example :• St. Louis incident 1939 Jewish immigrants denied

entry• 907 Jews denied were forced to return to Europe

and many died in concentration camps.

Canada’s Reaction •I

n the late 1930’s Canada only took in 8,000, or one percent of the 811,000 Jewish refugees admitted into countries across the world.

•Mackenzie King (Prime Minister of Canada) stated that the crisis was not a “Canadian problem”.

•Between 1941 and 1951 16,275 Jewish immigrants were admitted into Canada

•During the period of 1946 and 1960, 46,000 Jewish immigrants were admitted into Canada.

Canada continued…•C

anadian officials admitted that they knew that 2 million Jews were murdered, but argued the solution was to defeat German militarily and not admit the refugees

•Little support for the refugees, strong Anti-Semitism

•The Canadian National Committee of Refugees faced opposition from Nativists and Anti-Judaic groups

•In 1947, 8,000 refugees were let into Canada under few programs for orphans, first-degree relatives, and needle trades/fur workers

Canada’s Policies •A

lso followed appeasement policy:•C

anada went to war not because of Hitler or concentration camps but because Britain had gone to war.

•Not disturbed by the Holocaust.

•Minister of immigration (Frederick Blair) in Canada felt that “none is too many" so he shut the door towards Jews

•The murdering of 6 million Jews and 5 million other undesirables were not a primary concern of the Canadians during the war.

•In 1942 when the information detailing the slaughter of Jews came available to the allies the Canadian Jewish Congress organized protests and publicly raised awareness of the issue and to allow refugees into Canada.

United States•B

efore the war• Roosevelt's administration of immigration was less restricted• the state department officials issued all the visas available

under the combined German-Austrian quota of 27,000

•Hesitation on rescuing Jews

•The Emergency Committee To Save the Jewish People of Europe turned to pageants, rallies and newspaper advertisements to force Roosevelt to create a government agency to devise ways to rescue European Jewry.

United States continued…•S

ecretary of the Treasury Henry Morgenthau, Jr. who was Jewish helped form the Executive Order 9417 creating the War Refugee Board: estimation of number if Jews saved as many as 200,000.

•They refused to bomb Nazi concentration camps or the railroads leading to them U.S. also denied St. Louis

Holocaust survivors photographed. How reliable is this source?

Excerpt from St. Louis •“

Of course, the fear was that we would go back to Germany. That was the big thing you know…We were just sitting and waiting what's going to happen, you know, and uh here again the committee tried everything and sent telegrams all over the world trying to get us in but it was.... Everyday they had like newsletters printed and put out on board to tell us what's happening and everyday there was another country we were supposedly going to go, but we never...and nothing came about until finally at the...we were already...well, first we came to, to the coast of Miami and we thought we could, you know...I heard later that the captain had agreed that we make some kind of a forced landing or something but we didn't know anything about it. We just saw the uh Coast Guard boats surround us near Miami to make sure that we wouldn't even come close to the border, to the...to shore, so that was out. So we saw the lights of Miami. We saw the lights of America and that was it. So we slowly sailed back to Europe” (Gerda Blachmann).

U.S. actions towards the Holocaust •January 22, 1944, President Roosevelt issued Executive Order 9417, creating the War Refugee Board.

•The WRB refused to bomb Nazi concentration camps or the railroads leading up to them.

•Throughout their rescue efforts the WRB may have saved as many 200,000 Jews.

Publication of the Holocaust •I

n August 1942, the Department received a cabled report, sent by Gerhart Riegner, the representative in Geneva of the World Jewish Congress (WJC). The report revealed that the Nazis planned to murder Europe's Jews.

•On August 28th,1942 Rabbi Stephen S. Wise, one of Americas most prominent Jewish leaders, was informed of the Nazis plan through a cable from Britain.

•On December 17, 1942, the United States, Great Britain, and ten other Allied governments issued a declaration revealing and denouncing Hitler’s intention to murder the Jews of Europe.

Publication cont. •T

hroughout the rest of the war, the Times and most other newspapers failed to give prominent and extensive coverage to the Holocaust. During World War I, the American press had published reports of German atrocities that subsequently turned out to be false. As a result, journalists during World War II tended to approach atrocity reports with caution.

OPVL on Political Cartoon

OPVL on Political Cartoon

“Give me you’re tired, your poor… send those the homeless…”

Latin America•A

fter the Nazi seizure of power in Germany, resistance to acceptance of Jews and other foreigners increased

•Latin American governments officially permitted only about 84,000 Jewish refugees to immigrate between 1933 and 1945, less than half the number admitted during the previous fifteen years.

•As a result an official investigation in Argentina was opened into the collaboration between the government and Nazi officials during and after the World War II

Refugees aboard the "St. Louis" wait to hear whether Cuba will grant them entry. Off the coast of Havana, Cuba, June 3, 1939.

Latin America Continued…•G

rowing Anti-Semitism was undoubtedly one reason, as was fear of economic competition.

•There was resentment of the fact that some Jewish refugees who were admitted on the condition that they work in agricultural regions later drifted to the cities.

•Anti-Semitic attitudes were reflected in increasingly tight immigration laws introduced throughout Latin America in the late 1930s

• (Mexico in 1937; Argentina in 1938; Cuba, Chile, Costa Rica, Colombia, Paraguay, and Uruguay in 1939)

•Denied St. Louis immigrants as well as passengers on the ships Orduña, Flandre, and Orinoco

•Brazil proposed to take in several thousand non-Jewish refugees from Finland and German controlled territory, including Catholics defined as “non-Aryans” under the Nazi racial classification system

Latin America Continued…•L

atin America was an important destination for many survivors of the Holocaust.

•More than 20,000 Jewish displaced persons immigrated to the region between 1947-1953• Their primary destination was Argentina, which became home to at

least 4,800 Holocaust survivors. Others settled in Brazil, Paraguay, Uruguay, Panama, Costa Rica, among other countries.

Jewish Immigrants in Latin America.

Distribution of Jewish Immigrants 1933-1939

•Total of 226,000 Jewish immigrants were accepted into the Americas (about 71%)

•Canada- 4,000 (1.8%)

•U.S.- 140,000 (62%)

•Brazil, Mexico, and Columbia each admitted 20,000 (8.8%)

•Argentina-22,000 (9.7%)

•Approx. 29% were sent back to Europe

Works Citied•"

American Response to Holocaust." History.com. History Channel, n.d. Web. 7 Nov. 2012. <http://www.history.com/topics-american-response-to- holocaust>.

•Abella, Irving, and Harold Troper. "'The Line Must Be Drawn Somewhere': Canada and Jewish Refugees 1933-9." Genocideeducation.ca. 2001. Web. 07 Nov. 2012.

•"Canada." Virtual Jewish History Tour. The American-Israeli Cooperative Enterprise, 2012. Web. 7 Nov. 2012.

•Forner, Eric, and John Garraty. "American Response to the Holocaust." History.com. A&E Television Networks, 1991. Web. 08 Nov. 2012.

•"Holocaust History." Stephen S. Wise (1874-1949). United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, 11 May 2012. Web. 08 Nov. 2012

•"Personal Histories." Personal Histories. United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, Web. 07 Nov. 2012.

•"Refuge in Latin America." United States Holocaust Memorial Museum. 11 May 2012. Web. 7 Nov. 2012.

•"World Response to the Holocaust." Jewishvirtuallibrary.org. The American- Israeli Cooperative Enterprise, 2012. Web. 1 Nov. 2012.