The Holocaust took the lives of at least six million people, the majority of them Jews. A handful might have escaped the Nazi killing machine if Canadian officials hadn’t been so rabidly anti-Semitic.
Hitler’s Campaign to Wipe out Jews
By the late 1930s, it was clear Adolf Hitler intended to deal brutally with the Jews who lived in Germany and, eventually, the rest of Europe.
For many the evidence of Hitler’s intentions was clear earlier but Kristallnacht, the Night of Crystal, made his plans obvious to all. The United States Holocaust Memorial Museum states that on the nights of November 9 and 10, 1938 Nazi thugs and their followers went on a rampage against Jews: “Kristallnacht owes its name to the shards of shattered glass that lined German streets in the wake of the pogrom-broken glass from the windows of synagogues, homes, and Jewish-owned businesses plundered and destroyed during the violence.”
Jewish men were beaten and women raped. Now, it was very clear where this was leading.
Ship Chartered to Escape the Coming Nazi Horror
Some Jews could see the horror coming, left Germany, and tried to get into countries such as Canada as refugees.
One group chartered the passenger liner the S.S. St. Louis and planned to sail to Cuba where they would wait until they were able to enter the United States. The ship had room for 900 people but the cost of the voyage was very steep.
Jewish Virtual History explains that many Jews had been forced out of their jobs by the Nazis as well as being compelled to pay exorbitantly high rents. “Some of these passengers had money sent to them from relatives outside of Germany and Europe while other families had to pool resources to send even one member to freedom.”
St. Louis Sails from Hamburg
On May 13, 1939 the St. Louis steamed out of Hamburg on her way to Cuba.
However, as writer Marilyn Henry has described “When the ship arrived…Havana - and the U.S. - refused to admit them. The St. Louis sat in the harbour for days.
"Desperate relatives packed motorboats and approached the anchored liner, shouting messages to loved ones. All awaited the outcome of frantic international negotiations to allow the refugees to disembark.”
Only a handful of passengers were allowed off the ship before she was ordered to leave.
No Welcome for Jewish Refugees in Canada
The St. Louis headed north along the eastern seaboard of the United States. The plan was to dock in Halifax, Nova Scotia and hope the Canadian government would agree to take them in.
At the time, Frederick Blair was director of Canada’s immigration program. Mr. Blair was notoriously anti-Semitic and he did all he could to block the immigration of Jews into Canada. That story has been told by Irving Abella in his 1986 book None is too Many.
In 1938 Frederick Blair wrote that Canada had fought to keep people out who had become stateless as a result of the First World War “for the reason that coming out of the maelstrom of war, some of them are liable to go on the rocks and when they become public charges, we have to keep them for the balance of their lives.”
St. Louis’ Passengers Turned Back to Face Holocaust
Frederick Blair did not lack for willing helpers. Thomas Crerar was the only member of Prime Minister William Lyon Mackenzie King’s Liberal Cabinet to support Jewish immigration to Canada. Even he fell in with his colleagues and supported the unofficial ban on letting Jews from Europe into Canada.
The St. Louis was denied entry to Halifax Harbour. She returned to Europe, was allowed to dock in Antwerp, Belgium, and several countries took some of her passengers in as refugees.
However, The United States Holocaust Memorial Museum records that, “532 St. Louis passengers were trapped when Germany conquered Western Europe. Just over half, 278, survived the Holocaust.”
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