Lest Canadians fall prey to the illusion that our ancestors were guiltless in the atrocities perpetrated against the Jewish people in Europe between 1933 and 1945, we would do well to read this morning’s Globe and Mail article “From Daniel Libeskind, a machine of shame.” The article announces the unveiling today of a memorial in Halifax that is intended to keep alive the memory of the refugee boat the MS St. Louis that was turned away from Canadian shores in 1939.
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/national/atlantic/from-daniel-libeskind-a-machine-of-shame/article1876375/
In an associated opinion piece Irving Abella explains the plight of the MS St. Louis.
On May 15, 1939, 907 desperate German Jews set sail from Hamburg on a luxury liner, the St. Louis. They had been stripped of all of their possessions by the Nazis, hounded out of their homes, their businesses and now their country. Their most prized possession was the Cuban entry visa each carried. Yet they considered themselves lucky – they were leaving a country where living as a Jew had become impossible.
Tragically, the ship was turned away from Cuba and when it sailed off Canadian shores, we too refused the passengers entry into our country.
Be sure to look at the pictures that accompany the article. http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/national/atlantic/ms-st-louis-the-ship-that-was-forced-to-return-its-passengers-to-the-holocaust/article1876651/
Look at the faces. These were real people: children, mothers, fathers, grandparents, aunts, uncles, and friends. They left Germany seeking refuge from a vicious totalitarian regime which had as one of its primary goals the destruction of these people for absolutely no reason other than the fact that they happened to have been born Jewish.
We Canadians were unable to find room in our hearts to welcome these victims of discrimination and growing violence. We refused them entrance to our country and sent them back to a dark and chaotic Europe, where in some cases they suffered torture and eventually death in a death camp.
As a country, Canada did not have many opportunities to respond directly to the horrors that were unfolding in Germany starting in 1933. The MS St. Louis offered us one opportunity to respond with compassion to the terrible events beginning to unfold in Germany. By the most basic standards of human decency, our response was a dismal failure.
It has been argued that people in the late 1930′s did not know what was happening in Germany. But the evidence was everywhere. Voices of protest in the face of the atrocities that were mounting against the Jews were being raised. If we did not know, it is because we did not want to know.
Look at an outline of events relating to the Jews in Germany from early 1933 to May 1939, a period during which international media and diplomats had free access to every level of German society.
1933
March 27 – A gigantic anti-Nazi rally, organized by the American Jewish Congress, is held in New York City. 55,000 people attend threatening to boycott German goods if Germans carry out their planned permanent boycott of Jewish-owned stores & businesses.
April 1 – Nazi boycott of Jewish owned shops, also Jewish physicians, lawyers and merchants takes place. Jewish students forbidden to attend schools and universities. There is international outrage.
April 7 – Hitler approves decrees banning Jews and other non-Aryans from the practice of law and from jobs in the civil service.
May 17 – A petition is submitted to the League of Nations protesting Germany’s anti-Jewish legislation.
Sept – The Nazis establish the Reich Chamber of Culture, excluding Jews from the arts.
Sept 29 – Jews are prohibited from owning land.
Oct 4 – Jews are prohibited from being newspaper editors.
Oct 19 – Germany resigns from the League of Nations.
1934
May 17 – Jews are not allowed national health insurance.
1935
May 21 – Jews are banned from serving in the military.
Sept 15 – Hitler announces the Nuremberg Laws, stripping Jews of civil rights as German citizens and separating them from Germans legally, socially, and politically. Jews are also defined as a separate race under “The Law for the Protection of German Blood and Honor.” Hitler warns darkly that if this law does not resolve the problem, he will turn to the Nazi Party for a final solution.
1937
Jan – Jews are banned from many professional occupations including teaching Germans and being accountants or dentists. The are also denied tax reductions and child allowances.
1938
April 26 – Jews ordered to register their wealth and property.
June 14 – Jews ordered to register their businesses.
July – 32 The League of Nation’s Evian Conference, specifically convened to help Jews flee Hitler, results in no action as no country agrees to accept Jews, expressing “regret” they cannot take in more Jews.
July 23 – Jews over age of 15 are ordered to apply for identity cards from police.
July 25 – Jewish doctors are prohibited from practicing medicine.
Aug 11 – Nazis destroy a synagogue in Nuremberg.
Oct 5 – A law requires Jewish passports to be stamped with a large red “J”.
Oct 20,21 – First deportation of Jews from Vienna, Hamburg, and Prague to Poland takes place.
Oct 27,28 – Germany expels 17,000 Polish Jews. Poland denies them entry.
Nov 9, 10 – “Night of Broken Glass” (Kristallnacht). Nearly 1,000 synagogues are set on fire, 76 destroyed. More than 7,000 Jewish businesses and homes are looted, about 100 Jews are killed and as many as 30,000 Jews are arrested and sent to concentration camps.
Nov 12 – Jews are fined one billion marks for damages related to Kristallnacht.
Nov 15 – Jewish children are expelled from all non-Jewish German schools.
Dec 3 – A law is passed for compulsory Aryanization of all Jewish businesses.
Dec 14 – Hermann Goring takes charge of resolving the “Jewish Question”.
1939
Jan 30 – Hitler gives a speech in Reichstag in which he states:
And one more thing I would like now to state on this day memorable perhaps not only for us Germans. I have often been a prophet in my life and was generally laughed at. During my struggle for power, the Jews primarily received with laughter my prophecies that I would someday assume the leadership of the state and thereby of the entire Volk and then, among many other things, achieve a solution of the Jewish problem. I suppose that meanwhile the then resounding laughter of Jewry in Germany is now choking in their throats.
Today I will be a prophet again: If international finance Jewry within Europe and abroad should succeed once more in plunging the peoples into a world war, then the consequence will be not the Bolshevization of the world and therewith a victory of Jewry, but on the contrary, the destruction of the Jewish race in Europe.
May – The M.S. St. Louis, crowded with 930 Jewish refugees, turned away by Cuba, the US, Canada, and forced to return to Europe
These actions were not done in secret. They were carried out with the knowledge of the international community. It was possible to read about the events taking place over this six year period in the morning paper and to hear them reported on the radio. Certainly, the international diplomatic community was thoroughly aware of what was happening to the Jewish community in Germany.
Canada knew what was taking place in Germany and chose to look away.
Our refusal to accept the Jewish refugees on the MS St. Louis was merely the most visible manifestation of a stream of antisemitism that ran strongly through Canadian society in the first half of the twentieth century.
Marianopolis College history professor Claude Belanger describes Canadian attitudes in the 1930′s saying,
A particularly important factor in the plight of Jewish refugees was the widespread presence of Anti-semitism in Canada. This factor cannot be ignored or underestimated, although its impact is also sometimes overestimated. Historian David Rome wrote in Clouds in the Thirties (Vol. 11, p. 510): “The reluctance of the Canadian government to admit Jewish refugees in any great numbers was a fair reflection of public opinion [...] which was a strong Anglo-Saxon nativism permeated with Anti-semitism”. … Jews had few friends in Canada and many enemies.
In 1935 Frederick Charles Blair served under Prime Minister William Lyon Mackenzie King as Director of the Immigration Branch of the Department of Mines and Resources. Blair raised the amount of money immigrants must have to qualify to enter Canada, from $5,000 to $15,000, and declared that new immigrants had to be farmers. Since the majority of European Jews were urban residents, whose government had seized their possessions and forbade them from taking any wealth abroad, these restrictions made it nearly impossible to find refuge in Canada.
In a letter to a supporter of his anti-Jewish immigration policies, Blair wrote,
I suggested recently to three Jewish gentlemen with whom I am well acquainted, that it might be a very good thing if they would call a conference and have a day of humiliation and prayer, which might profitably be extended for a week or more, where they would honestly try to answer the question of why they are so unpopular almost everywhere…I often think that instead of persecution it would be far better if we more often told them frankly why many of them are unpopular. If they would divest themselves of certain of their habits I am sure they could be just as popular in Canada as our Scandinavian friends are.
Even if Jews met Canada’s stringent immigration requirements, they were often turned away. Following Kristallnacht, in 1938, the Canadian Jewish Congress allocated funds to financially sponsor 10,000 Jewish refugees. The Canadian government rejected their proposal.
Our refusal to allow the M.S. St. Louis to land on our shores was not an isolated incident. It was not an aberration. It embodied a widely held Canadian attitude towards people against whom we held and unwarranted and ignorant prejudice.
It would be naive to assume for one minute that, given the same circumstances today, we would have made different decisions. It is certainly always easier to see the errors of history more clearly from a distance than when embroiled in the confusion of the moment. But the human community is never well served when we choose to forget or deny the errors of past generations.
If there is one slim silver lining to this dark cloud, it is that seventy-two years after the event we are finally willing to remember. One may hope and pray that as we remember, we will redouble our determination that we will not repeat the reprehensible choices of the past towards people who through no fault of their own find themselves in terrible danger.
21 comments
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January 20, 2011 at 6:18 pm
Harry Eerkes
Shame indeed – and the discrimination continues here today against all sorts of people – the poor, First Nations peoples, refugees, immigrants …
- all seen as second or third class people. And we continue to go to war and buy new weapons – spending billions on them when a few of those billions would give every homeless person a warm, dry place to lay their heads with a ggod meal as well.
I could go on with my rant, but a friend sent me this today – it brought tears to me eyes, and sent shivers up my back – have a look and listen …
http://changents.com/
http://www.pbs.org/wnet/gperf/episodes/pete-seegers-90th-birthday-celebration-from-madison-square-garden/we-shall-overcome/820/
Some of us remember, coming out of the horrors of war, the day we thought we could change things – and did!
You are right, Christopher, history and self-examination is important, but not just the history or terrible wrongs, also the history of when things took a right turn ….
Harry
January 21, 2011 at 5:55 am
inaspaciousplace
Thanks for the video clip Harry. It is beautiful and tremendously moving.
But, being the person I am, I must admit it made me feel a bit sad. What happened to all that idealism? Why did that belief in the possibility of change disappear? It seems it got sucked into the vortex of concern for RRSP’s and Mutual Funds.
January 21, 2011 at 9:35 am
Harry Eerkes
Yes, and it made me sad too for the same reason. I wonder where some learned that changing things to gain justice for others was not only needed but also possible?
When/how did seeking of security at all levels, financial and otherwise, national and personal, become the overriding issues of the day? What frightens us?
I have no answers to any of these questions, but one thing I hope your reminders of the past horrors will do is open our eyes to present injustices, and open our hearts with compassion for the victims of our present systememic injustices. And with heart and eye newly opened, we may find some way of standing up …
Harry
January 21, 2011 at 9:49 am
Tress
And how long will it be before the rest of Islam will be also bevillified and ultimately hounded and terrorised because of a factor within their nombers that are terrorists, as the jews were terrorised because of the financial and acquisative attributes of some that made them an object of envy and hatred.
or is that in progress right now?
Shall we ever learn the consequences of misunderstanfing , envyand hatred?
January 21, 2011 at 11:12 am
jaqueline
‘the jews were terrorised because of the financial and acquisative attributes of some that made them an object of envy and hatred.’
They excelled in those areas because it was all they were allowed.
Jews were restricted to those occupations …money lending, market speculation etc because those were considered too base for “Christians”…God and Mammon and all that…Jews were useful to keep the economy going for the Medieval Christian Princes and Governors who banned them from other occupations. Those restrictions did not begin to be lifted until mid 19th Century.
Force a people to live in mud and then hate them for shining better than you..nice one.
January 22, 2011 at 3:14 pm
inaspaciousplace
the really important thing is to ask the right questions. and you ask just the right question – “What frightens us?”
January 21, 2011 at 10:06 pm
Dennis L.
Point of correction. The League of Nations did not set up the Evian Conference. Rather, it was the idea of Franklin D. Roosevelt. A number of motives have been ascribed to his decision. Chief among them was the belief that, in the words of Under-Secretary of State Sumner Welles, it was better to “get out in front” of the criticisms of certain journalists (especially Dorothy Thompson) and certain Jewish members of Congress. It was a win-win situation for FDR. Their was little political cost to be paid. The annual immigration quotas from Germany and Austria were not going to be increased but merely combined. The invitation to the conference was based on two important elements: the costs of immigration of refugees would have to be borne by private organizations and no country was expected to change its particular immigration policies. This indicated to the 31 other countries attending the conference that nothing meaningful would be accomplished. Each delegate arose to state that his country was sympathetic to the plight of Jewish and non-Aryan refugees but there was nothing they could do due to local economic and employment conditions (a cover oftentimes for official anti-Semitism). The Canadian delegate, Hume Wrong, was specifically instructed by Prime Minister MacKenzie King to remain silent but to block any move that looked like it might result in a positive accomplishment. The net result of the conference: the Nazis realized that, despite rhetoric to the contrary, no one wanted the Jews. The fact that Kristallnacht occurred four months later was no coincidence. FDR believed that an organization separate from the League was needed as Germany refused to have any negotiations with the League at all.
January 22, 2011 at 6:18 am
inaspaciousplace
Thanks for the correction and for fleshing out this desperately sad part of the story.
A glance at the comments section attached to the Globe and Mail article I mention in this post, seems to indicate that things have not changed substantially in our enlightened day.
January 22, 2011 at 10:26 am
jaqueline
‘the destruction of these people for absolutely no reason other than the fact that they happened to have been born Jewish.’
I see this written often in these explorations of the horrible murder. I would like to address this idea that it is simply prejudice based on race.
As a non Church friend reminded me recently..the persecution of the Jews was motivated not by race but by their rejection of the divinity of Christ. And further that Jews were wholly blamed for the death of Christ.
The prejudice is based on what being Jewish means to Christendom. Calvin and Luther and earlier Chritian leaders were proponents for their eternal damnation , on earth and in hell. They believed that there was no redeeming the Jews. They believed that in allowing Jews in a society there was a deeply held belief that you were risking inviting God’s wrath upon your town, village, country , whatever. Note the timing of Pogroms….when disaster or misfortune would visit a society , the Jews were murdered and driven out, homes burned etc etc.
‘It was not an aberration. It embodied a widely held Canadian attitude towards people against whom we held and unwarranted and ignorant prejudice. ‘
By the 20th century this belief was so ingrained and so part of the collective that it was a fact of life and attitude… Allowing Jews into you society was death and damnation for that society..yet by the twentieth century European and American Jewish people were all but indistinguishable from other Europeans and North Ameircans, prejudice toward them was in effect “Dear God I really don’t like these people, I am putting up with them just because I am civilized, please don’t damn me along with them”.
But to actually allow sympathy and refuge was I think impossible after nearly 2000 years of of ingrained fear and false belief. To change attitudes about Jews was the equivalent of starting to believe the earth revolved around the sun.
After the disaster of and WW1 and Versailles to allow Jews in Germany might be even unconsciously be a risk one could not allow. For nearly 2000 years any disaster in the west was followed by a pogrom and this was a very very big disaster. Was the riling up of the people about the Jews an act of waking them up from their acceptance of them?? In the context of 2000 years of Christian prejudice that connection is not a far off conjecture.
Sadly, horribly, it took the Holocaust, to make the west wake up to it’s horrible dark murderous self righteous shadow and make antisemitism a phrase of disgust……
I am not sure we should begin calling waking up to that darkness a silver lining though.
January 22, 2011 at 3:41 pm
inaspaciousplace
“the persecution of the Jews was motivated not by race but by their rejection of the divinity of Christ. And further that Jews were wholly blamed for the death of Christ” – I would be surprised if this was true for Hitler. I don’t think Hitler gave a rip about the Jews’ “rejection of the divinity of Christ” or about how Jesus died.
While not wanting in any way to discount Christianity’s culpability in the rise of antisemitism, there is evidence of antisemitism that predates Christianity – see the Hebrew Book of Ruth.
I am also not sure it is possible to maintain an easy distinction between the Jews as race and Jewish faith.
As I said earlier, the comments section of the Globe and Mail attached to the article I mentioned, does not convince me our society is entirely agreed that “antisemitism a phrase of disgust.”
January 22, 2011 at 8:02 pm
jaqueline
‘I would be surprised if this was true for Hitler. I don’t think Hitler gave a rip about the Jews’ “rejection of the divinity of Christ” or about how Jesus died……I am also not sure it is possible to maintain an easy distinction between the Jews as race and Jewish faith. ‘
Witnessing even in my own small life the deep prejudices other races have toward each other..it seems that it is a fact of life that people are prejudiced..pick a candidate, any candidate.
That other races too were targeted for annihilation points to a racially based philosophy and motivation…but were other races blamed for the misery of the German people?
I am rather inclined to be with you about whether the denial of Christ mattered to Hitler…But we cannot deny he was brought up in a Christian society. I do think he used the latent and ancient and dormant fear/ prejudice to his advantage.
Antismeitism was so ingrained in our culture would the prejudice to Jews in particular have been so specific and vehement and them so demonised without the Christian history? A friend knowledgeable in these things made the point that research shows that power will aggravate a prejudice in a society that is already there…in order to form a negative centre for unity.
I have difficulty with the claims that Hitler was a Christian.
The ordinary Christians I encountered in ” They Thought They were Free” and ” A Backward Look” did not recognise him as such and felt they had committed a blasphemy in taking an oath of loyalty to the party. And Martin Niemöller although at first a Hitler sympathizer because he thought Hitler was pro-Christian saw through it..and ended up in prison and penning that famous verse ” First they came…”
Hitler used Christianity and it’s ingrained prejudice and desire for a new world to the advantage of his vision. But it is quite clear that it is Christianity serves HIS purpose and not the other way around.
But it’s a struggle, Christopher, just discovering Luther’s recommendations is very disturbing…..I had read Calvin’s though a couple of years ago…… It is difficult to find a way to justify or explain our religion’s attitude to the Jews and I am not sure I want it to wriggle out of facing the responsibility it’s leaders and it’s society have had promoting the persecution of the Jews.
It is too indescribably sad.
January 22, 2011 at 11:40 pm
jaqueline
” I do not think that the Jews got ahead by capitalizing on victimization. I know that Jews got ahead in society DESPITE being victims. Many of our holidays commemorate the evils of the past. Remembering the past has allowed us to survive (with great difficulty at times) the rise and fall of ALL the great civilizations.”
this was one of the replies to the very first comment ..what true optimism, born from the depths of evil.
They have, they have…survived!
January 22, 2011 at 11:43 pm
jaqueline
sorry, I meant a reply to “a fed up with them playing victims” comment ( the first one we can read ) in the article you have a link to.
January 22, 2011 at 11:53 pm
jaqueline
‘We should have memorials to remember the bad as well as celebrate the good. Whether it was the abuse of the Irish during the famine or the Jews in the 30s we can all reflect. Let’s remember though the sacrifice of ordinary Canadians in WW II that rescued the Jews of Europe.’
And then we have the idea that the War was about rescuing the Jews…oh dear….no lovey…the War was fought when the rest of the world was afraid, when it was under threat…the rest of the world fought for itself only.
The St Louis is evidence that the world was prepared to let the Jews rot.
January 23, 2011 at 12:48 am
jaqueline
and then there is this….
“It is interesting to note that during the 12 years of the Third Reich 250,000 European Jewish refugees gained legal entry into the United States. This means that over 210 boats landed successfully. Perhaps it is time to put the SS St Louis incident in perspective and celebrate the 210 positive stories.”
but does that really mean that one boatful of people who died because does not deserve memorial?
I read people so ill informed and closed to the plights of those different from themselves. I have criticised elsewhere our allowing this story of the Holocaust to cause us to be blind to the suffering of others….but what I am reading here, is calling forth the suffering of others to ignore the suffering of the Jews…!!!
There are lots of complaints about our focus on the Jews making us ignore the plight of Rwanda, Darfur, Palestians etc ..but does anyone think that a group of people who cannot accept this memorial the sort of people who would actually do something about Darfur etc???
My favourite comment is this one:
“I gather that this means this government will never turn away boat loads of refugees at any time in the future.”
January 23, 2011 at 5:50 am
inaspaciousplace
“I am not sure I want it (Christianity) to wriggle out of facing the responsibility it’s leaders and it’s society have had promoting the persecution of the Jews.”
Absolutely!
I think what I take from Christianity’s complicity in the persecution of Jewish people is the unsettling truth that nothing (and no person) is ever totally good or totally bad. We are all a jumble of light and dark. We must never fail to acknowledge the shadow side while at the same time, celebrating the light.
January 23, 2011 at 8:37 am
jaqueline
‘I think what I take from Christianity’s complicity in the persecution of Jewish people is the unsettling truth that nothing (and no person) is ever totally good or totally bad. We are all a jumble of light and dark. We must never fail to acknowledge the shadow side while at the same time, celebrating the light.’
Forgive me, please, because I believe what you say. It occurs to me we can say that about Christianity and yet from what I read and watch we seem to find that so hard to acknowledge that as true for the Germans.
Perhaps if we can look at the German story with that view over our eyes we might actually be able to learn something…how such an evil came to it’s most thorough expression in amongst a people who have given the world so much light? That is the story that might ring true for us..
And I wonder is not Christianity’s role more than complicity…is Chritianity not the major historical instigator and/or promoter of Antisemitism?
April 29, 2012 at 3:29 am
steven
You can’t really compare a bunch of third world countries to Germany. Argueable the most powerful nation on the planet at the time. When you have a super power and a whole nation persecuting one group of people for a decade its very sad that we would send the persecuted back. In situations like third world countries, I think a military solution would be preferrable. With Germany this would have been impossible. Us attacking Germany back then would probably be equivalent to attack the Soviet Union and China at the same time. We just are not capable of that at the time.
January 25, 2011 at 1:07 pm
Rob
Makes one sick when you review our history of persecution of all people across all faiths across all countries as we began to explore beyond our shores in Europe and England.
You become the group depending on our next quest.
Like a film I saw once where on two cliffs overlooking the North Sea (Channel) stand two men of the cloth , holding the Cross of Christ and the Battle Standard of their Country (England and France) exhorting their troops with the battle cry of ‘We fight for Christ, Our fight has been blessed, go forth in his name’, words to that effect.
Yet somehow we had individuals that heard the quiet word of God and in all those years we began to also leave legacy’s such as elimination of Slavery, democratic countries as in the States and Canada, the United Nations, partnership with other faiths, the European Union, a halt to the Arms Race and the list goes on, a peace that we can live in.
God has allowed us to enjoy more good than evil but we must still remain vigilant.
The muse of Rob
January 25, 2011 at 9:52 pm
jaqueline
beautifully put Rob..that encourages me.
April 29, 2012 at 3:15 am
steven
As a Catholic and an American I am ashamed beyond description. The atrocities we have committed as a race are inexcusable. I am beginning to hope there is no God. How we could ever ask for forgiveness, is beyond me. Just watched The Fall of the Third Reich. They said the US, Canada and Cuba sent nearly 1000 Jews back to Europe. The only excuse I can find when looking for reasons are rediculous regulations. There is no way anyone can convince me that there was no way to make an exception. I am beginning to think we are more responsible for what happened to the Jews than the Germans were. They had guns to their heads. What exactly was our excuse? Oh yeah.. immigration policies. The Russians raped over 2 million women in Germany of which half were killed. Most were suicides. The human species is doomed I think. We will one day destroy our planet if we don’t nuke it back to the stone age first. Talk of restitution is rediculous. How to you make it upto someone when they and their entire family line has been erased from existance. They can no longer even forgive you if they wanted to. I don’t believe in religious motivation either. I don’t believe anyone is really that crazy to think God wants them to kill someone. People do it because people are evil. I wish there were a way to gather up all the evil people and kill them so it would no longer be in us but I’m guessing the gene pool left after such a cleansing would not be enough to propogate our species. I wish I were ignorant of this and didn’t watch the History channel. Ignorance is preferrable to knowing what kind of species I belong to.