Timeline of World War II and the Holocaust

Timeline of World War II and the Holocaust

Even though you may leave this History course not remembering a single date, name, or place, timelines help us understand how events in history came to be. For example, Hitler and the Nazis would not have been able to annihilate Jews of Europe if ideas of anti-Semitism had not existed beforehand. Similarly, if the Allies had not declared war on Germany after Hitler invaded Poland, the study of World War II might not be quite the same.

Your Task:

-Throughout the unit, you will be expected to keep a working timeline filled with significant events and ideas that come to light. For example, since it was presented that anti-Semitism had existed in Europe for thousands of years, this might be a good starting point.

-During work periods in class, Ms. Miranda will come around to see how your timeline is proceeding and provide you with feedback based on how you have chosen to sequence the ideas and events you have selected.

-On Monday, April 24, 2006, you will hand in a final version of this timeline. You are encouraged to be creative in presentation and to really think about the sequencing of your inputs.

Your Evaluation:

Note: You will not be marked for completion each time Ms. Miranda comes around to check on your progress, but if you are not keeping up, she cannot provide you with feedback, which may result in a lower mark.

You will be evaluated on your final copy of the timeline, according to the following:

Historical Accuracy...... /10

Creativity...... /5

Presentation (i.e. neat, easy to follow)...... /5

Total...... /20

Canadian Immigration Policy in the 1930s

In 1936 Chaim Weizman wrote: “The world seems to be divided into two parts – those places where Jews cannot live, and those where they cannot enter.” Canada fell into the latter category. Of the more than 800,000 Jews seeking refuge from the Third Reich in the years from 1933 to 1939, Canada found room within her borders for approximately 4,000. In a world that was decidedly inhospitable to refugees, Canada was no exception. Yet even by the standard of the time, Canada stood virtually alone in the [extent] of her contribution. Argentina, for example, admitted 22,000; Australia 10,000 and was preparing to receive 15,000 more when war broke out; Brazil 20,000; China 15,000; Great Britain 85,000; Palestine 100,000; the United States 140,000; even Mexico and Colombia had each accepted about 20,000.

That Jews were not welcome in Canada during the 1930s is not surprising; no one else was either. With a third of its people out of work, Canada was understandably not receptive to the notion of accepting more job-hungry immigrants. That the economic consequences of the Depression throttled immigration cannot be denied. What should be stressed, however, is that the Depression also afforded the dramatic opportunity for Canadian officials to complete a process of restriction begun in the boom years of the 1920s.

Canadian immigration policy had always been as ethnically selective as it was economically self-serving. When economic necessity dictated the admission of non-British and non-American immigrants, it was always in descending order of ethnic preference. Following British and American immigrants, preference was given Northern Europeans and then Central Europeans. At the bottom were the Jews, Orientals, and Blacks. Those “non-preferred immigrants” were acceptable as long as they were out of sight, risking life and limb in the mines and smelters of the West and the more marginal areas of the western wheat frontier. Those who escaped this life for perhaps the even worse one in Canada’s urban centres to compete for jobs with native or British-born artisans were less acceptable. And to immigration officials, the worst culprits were the Jews. Jews, according to Blair [The Director of Immigration at this time], were “city people”. To almost every request to admit Jewish farmers or agricultural workers, Blair had the same response: it was impossible to keep them on the farm or in the bush. Every attempt to do so had failed. Jewish workers, he claimed, could not “eat Gentile food” and so took the “earliest opportunity” to leave for the city “which is about he only place they can find their fellow countrymen”.

The onset of the Depression gave the government the opportunity to complete drawing the restrictionist circle around Canada. In 1930, an order-in-council was introduced allowing in only those immigrants with enough capital to establish and maintain themselves on farms. In the following year, another order-in-council effectively banned all non-agricultural immigrants who were of non-British or non-American stock. For all intents and purposes, just at the time when she was most needed, Canada shut herself off from the rest of the world. For the remainder of the decade – and indeed beyond – a determined Canadian government fought every attempt by the wretched European refuges to breach this protective wall of orders-in-council.

The person entrusted with the task of ensuring that threw as no breach was Frederick Charles Blair. As director o the Immigration Branch of the Department of Mines and Resources during these years, Blair made almost all of the decisions – no matter how small – concerning who got into Canada. And from the point of the European Jewry, this was most unfortunate…his inflexibility, fetish for regulations, and unchallengeable control over immigration matters was a convenience to an administration that had no intention for allowing in Jewish refugees but wished to avoid the stigma of not doing so.

To Blair, the term “refugee” was a code word for Jews. Unless “safeguards” were adopted, he warned, Canada was in danger of being “flooded with Jewish people”… Blair expressed a strong personal distaste for Jews and especially for “certain of their habits”. He saw them as inassimilable, as people apart “who can organize their affairs better than other people” and therefore accomplish more. He complained bitterly that Jews were “utterly selfish in their attempts to force through a permit for the admission of relatives or friends. “They do not believe,” he added, “that ‘No’ means more than ‘Perhaps’.” Furthermore, Jews, he lamented, “make any kind of promise to get the door open but…never cease their agitation until they get in the whole lot.”

…Though it was Blair who gave the final interpretation of government regulations and who acted as the de facto judge and jury on individual request for admission, to blame him alone for Canada’s response to the refugee crisis would be both overtly simplistic and incorrect; after all, he was only a civil servant, albeit a powerful one. As a functionary he simply reflected the wishes of his superiors; it was they who were ultimately responsible for government policy. Not to accept refugees was a political decision, not a bureaucratic one. It was Mackenzie King and his cabinet who, in the final analysis, must shoulder the responsibility.

Early Jewish Attempts to Aid the Refugees

Once Canadian Jews realized that attempting to deal with immigration officials was hopeless, they began flexing their political muscle. Only when it was too late did they discover how flabby it was. Taking charge of the pressure campaign was the organization that was generally recognized as the representative voice of the community on social and political matters, the Canadian Jewish Congress (CJC). Founded in 1919, by the mid-1930s the Congress was a weak and disorganized body. Only in the latter part of the 1938, when the wealthy industrialist Samuel Bronfman became active – he was elected its president in January 1939 – did the Congress become a credible and weighty vehicle for Jewish interests. Indeed, until then it was the Jewish Immigrant Aid Society (JIAS), an organization founded by Congress in June 1920, that served as the voice of the community on matters affecting immigration and that did much to help individual immigrants.

By default, therefore, the task of putting forth the Jewish position fell on the shoulders of Jewish members of Parliament. In the Liberal sweep of the 1935 election, three Jews had one seats: two Liberals, Sam Jacobs from Montreal, the CJC president, and Sam Factor from Toronto, and one representative of the Co-operative Commonwealth Federation (CCF), A.A. Heaps from Winnipeg. The Jewish community saw the 1935 Liberal victory as a harbinger of better things. After all, it was the Bennett government that had introduced the restrictive orders-in-council and snubbed various Jewish delegations attempting to have these orders moderated.

These hopes, however, were dashed almost immediately following the elections. IN a meeting Jacobs and Benjamin Robinson, president of JIAS, were told that there would be no exception made for Germany Jews. Unless applicants met the requirements of immigration – that is, unless they had sufficient capital to establish a successful farm – they would not be allowed in under any circumstances.

This promise was kept. For the next two years almost no Jewish refuges arrived in Canada. And those few who did manage to come entered under specific orders-in-council exempting them from the usual immigration requirements. Most of these were relatives of Canadian Jews. Some orders-in-council, however, were granted as favours to prominent government supporters – including Sam Jacobs – to distribute to a fortunate few in the Jewish community. It was a cynical activity, but it worked. For the most part Canadian Jews, though restive, remained loyal to the Liberal government. They had little choice. Making up just over 1 per cent of the population, Canadian Jews knew they did not have the power to change government policy. And until they did, they would accept what crumbs were thrown their way. After all, saving a few lives was better than saving none. [1]

[1] The two section have been taken and adapted from: Irving Abella and Harold E. Troper’s “The Line Must be Drawn Somewhere”: Canada and Jewish Refugees, 1933-39,” in TheCanadian Jewish Mosiac, pp. 51-56.