Anti-Semitism and the MS St. Louis: Canada’s Anti-Semitic Immigration Policies in the Twentieth Century

And so, as described in the above excerpt, the fate of the 937 Jewish passengers on board the MS St. Louis was sealed. The anti-Semitism in Europe they hoped to escape by hiring the ship was waiting for them across the Atlantic, and it finally sent them back to have their fate decided by Hitler. Any hopes they had of finding safety in the United States or Canada were dashed by racist tropes that permeated both societies, and the wandering souls were refused entry.
The St. Louis returned to Europe, dropping 218 passengers in England and the rest in France, Belgium and the Netherlands. Of those who debarked on the continent, 254 adults and children, guilty of nothing other than belonging to a maligned religious group, were murdered in concentration camps.

This shameful chapter in Canada’s and the world’s history is clearly explained in Anti-Semitism and the MSSt. Louis: Canada’s Anti-Semitic Immigration Policies in the Twentieth Century, the seventh title in the excellent “Righting Canada’s Wrongs” series published by James Lorimer & Company.

Prolific novelist and nonfiction writer Rona Arato (The Ship to Nowhere: On Board the Exodus, www.cmreviews.ca/cm/vol23/no30/theshiptonowhere.html
The Last Train: A Holocaust Story www.cmreviews.ca/node/1490 and more) summarizes the history of the Jewish people, some of their customs and the centuries of their persecution as a minority in Europe. It’s this section that could be better developed so readers will understand how anti-Semitism became ingrained in the psychology of society.

As one example, not only were Jews attacked because they did not convert to Christianity, but they were also assailed because of the roles assigned them by ruling classes at various times in various countries. They used Jews scapegoats for rulers’ greed and callous leadership. Rulers restricted Jews to certain professions, including moneylending and money collecting. Jews were sent out to collect taxes and tithes, thereby earning the direct ire and resentment of the poverty-stricken populations, emotions which should have been directed to those who imposed the taxes in the first place and were enriched by them.

As another example, Jews were accused of poisoning wells and causing the Black Plague in the 14th century and were murdered in retribution. Two thousand Jewish citizens of Strasbourg, France, were burned alive in 1349, and, over the period of the Plague, more than 300 pogroms (racist riots) were directed against Jewish communities, resulting in untold numbers of murders. But the plague was spread by unsanitary conditions aggravated by poverty; the fact that Jews were ordered to live apart from the general population and their religious customs included frequent hand washing meant they had a lower incidence of infection.

Furthermore, anti-Semitism was preached from the pulpits of the dominant Catholic Church and was adopted by Protestant denominations after the Reformation. For populations steeped in religion and superstition, the Jew became someone to fear and blame. That mindset continued through the Renaissance, even into the 20th century, as people sought new lives in North American and began to be governed more by science and realism than religious mysticism. Those ideas came with them to North America, and so did Jews, fleeing persecution and uncertainty.

From that point in the book, Arato’s chronicle of Jewish immigration and settlement in Canada is enlightening, assisted by a variety of pictures, posters and cartoons, and depicting Jews who arrived in Victoria in 1858 during the Caribou Gold Rush to the Jewish farm colonists on the prairies to poor Jewish workers crowded in unsafe factories in cities, working for meagre pay. The accompanying captions explain the pictures thoroughly and create a wider understanding of the situation at the time.

Several chapters on the rise of Naziism in Europe and the tolerance of a fascist movement in Canada set the stage for the Canadian government to enforce their “none is too many” policy as the Nuremberg Laws and Kristelnacht foretold disaster.

In the 1930s, many people were out of work, and Canadians were especially afraid of new immigrants taking away their jobs. Anti-Semitism and anti-immigrant sentiments were increasing across the country, fueled by the desire to keep Canada a white Anglo-Saxon country and, in Quebec, to maintain the Roman Catholic majority. These attitudes led to passage of restrictive immigration laws that closed Canada’s door to most Jews. Between January and November 1938, the cost for a Jewish family to enter Canada tripled from $5000 to $15,000. In September 1938, Frederick Blair, Director of Immigrations, sent a letter to Prime Minister Mackenzie King stating, “Pressure by Jewish People to get into Canada has never been greater than it is now, and I am glad to be able to add that, after 35 years experience here, it has never been so controlled.” Blair wrote: “Canada, in accordance with generally accepted practice, places greater emphasis on race rather than citizenship.”

Arato draws a larger picture of racist attitudes at the time by including examples of the Canadian government’s confining citizens of so-called enemy origins - Japanese and Italians - in internment camps and how they also mixed German prisoners of war with young Jewish refugees who did make it to Canada. Many of these German soldiers were fascists, creating a dangerous situation for the Jewish internees.

It was only after World War II ended and immigration eased that Jews who had survived the horrors of the Holocaust were allowed to immigrate. Canada needed an influx of people to support a booming economy, and so Jewish immigration was increased for healthy, skilled workers. Other programs brought teens whose families had been murdered and reunited families with Canadian relatives. In total, about 8,000 Jews arrived between 1945-48, with 40,000 more in the decades following. These people settled into Canadian society and contributed in every sector. Arato features several prominent Canadians with Jewish origins despite fierce anti-Semitism continuing through the 1950s, abating slowly.

It took until 2018 for Canada to acknowledge its role in abetting Hitler’s plans. Prime Minister Justin Trudeau apologized “to the 907 German Jews on aboard the MS St. Louis … and to others who paid the price of our inaction, whom we doomed to the ultimate horror of the death camps. We used our laws to mask our anti-Semitism, our antipathy and our resentment …”

This story and the others in the “Righting Canada’s Wrongs” series should be essential teaching in Canadian classrooms at all grades. Children will rightfully be appalled at the cruelty towards others that has been part of our country’s history. They should know it and be reminded that the racism displayed today - towards Indigenous peoples and people of colour is no different than the racism shown toward the Jews, the Japanese, the Chinese and East Indians in past decades. The four years of the last American president (2017-20) exposed racist attitudes white supremacist, anti-Muslim, anti-Latino and anti-Semitism at many levels in American society. Those attitudes exist within sections of Canadian society as well and require education and vigilance to contain.

Anti-Semitism and the MS St. Louis: Canada’s Anti-Semitic Immigration Policies in the Twentieth Century and its accompanying titles will be valuable tools in this endeavor, so that the lesson of the Holocaust - Never Again - really is never again.