Wednesday 27 March 2013

MS St. Louis

In 1939 the Ocean liner the MS St. Louis left German with 937 Jewish refugees who were trying to escape death in the holocaust and find a new safe home. The MS St. Louis was headed for Havana, Cuba but when they arrived the Cuban government denied them access to dock there. After this they tried to dock in the United States and then Canada and both countries denied them.  Canada didn't allow the ship to dock because of many reasons. One reason was that most of the English population in Canada at this time was
anti-semitic, which means they had a hatred of Jewish people, so if King let in all of the Jewish people he was worried he would lose the next election because most of English  would be angry that he let in 937 Jewish people and not vote for him. Another reason is that both Prime Minister King and the immigrations officer were both anti-semitic so they didn't want the refugees either. This reveals that a lot of Canadian's had the same hatred against Jewish people as Germany did during this time period but they didn't go the the level that Hitler did.

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6 comments:

  1. Sarah Le1 April 2013 at 18:18

    Joel, you provided a good overview of the MS St. Louis crisis. I agree that King didn't accept the refugees for political reasons. I think that it is sad that maintaining political power was more important than helping people.

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  2. Anonymous10 April 2013 at 07:57

    Yes I also believe that it is disappointing that someone would think that maintaining political power would be more important than saving peoples lives who are just trying to find a safe place for them and there children.

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  3. Anonymous10 April 2013 at 08:02

    I agree that King was anti-semitic what was the reason for this did he think their religion was wrong? Also why didn't the cubans allow them to dock?

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  4. Anonymous10 April 2013 at 08:10

    The Cubans didn't allow them to dock because they couldn't get the right papers or Visa's that they needed so they weren't allowed to dock

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  5. Anonymous16 April 2013 at 18:34

    Are there still some Anti-Semitism today? If so, what have been done to prevent this? If not, How did Anti-Semitism stop?

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  6. Sarah Le18 April 2013 at 07:51

    There is still anti-Semitism in Canada. A few years back a synagogue in Toronto was defaced. Additionally, some synagogues have tight security measures because of anti-Semitism. For example, some synagogues require guests to sign in and out.

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