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November 12, 2004
Seeking a safe haven from the Nazis
Kristallnacht lecture recalls Canadian failure in helping war's
refugees.
PAT JOHNSON SPECIAL TO THE JEWISH BULLETIN
When a massive mobilization was undertaken in the 1930s to find
safe havens for Jewish scholars who had been banned from teaching
at German universities, Canada stood by, nearly silent.
Canada's shameful role in the process of employing displaced scientists
and other scholars was among the topics addressed Sunday night at
the Vancouver Jewish community's annual Kristallnacht commemorative
program, which took place at Beth Israel Synagogue.
Canada's failure on this front is reminiscent of other prewar failures,
including the refusal of Canada to allow the refugees on the ship
the St. Louis to find haven here, as well as a generally closed-door
policy toward Jewish refugees from Nazi persecution, an approach
typified in the infamous statement by a Canadian immigration department
official that "none is too many."
But the latest chapter in the sad history of Canada's failure to
assist European Jewry is also one of the most damning. Prof. David
Zimmerman, a University of Victoria historian, is a scholar of military
affairs, and his interest in this field stemmed from a chance detail
he encountered while researching the development of radar in prewar
Britain. Almost as soon as the Nazis had come to power in Germany,
an organization emerged in the United Kingdom to arrange passage
for fleeing academics from Hitler's regime. Originally called the
Academic Assistance Council, the group was low-key and apolitical.
One of the guiding lights was Sir William Beveridge, a British academic
who after the war would become known as the father of the British
welfare state for his report on social reform. Early on in the life
of the organization, the British government and the Academic Assistance
Council concurred that they would do what they could to save the
refugee scholars of Germany without overtly criticizing the Nazi
regime.
"Protests butter no parsnips," Beveridge is quoted as
saying. But that attitude changed after the Nuremburg Laws were
introduced and the full scope of Nazism's intentions became clearer.
About the same time, the name of the group changed to the Society
for the Protection of Science and Learning. By the time the borders
became impermeable and the fate of German Jewry was determined,
in 1941, the society had helped 900 scholars find sinecures in haven
countries.
Canada accepted only five and not one of those was salaried from
Canadian sources.
Zimmerman recounted some of the blatantly anti-Semitic correspondence
that went between the society in London and Canadian universities,
especially McGill University, where the top administrators said
they'd like to help but only if they could obtain gentile scholars
fleeing persecution. Earlier scholarship has shown some of the contributions
made by the refugee scholars to their host countries. Names no less
notable than Albert Einstein were among those who fled Europe at
this time. Countries for whom bigotry trumped humanity found themselves
in retrospect having missed enormous opportunities. One single example
is Gerhard Herzberg, a Hamburg-born chemist who was one of the five
scholars admitted to Canada. In 1971, he won the Nobel Prize in
chemistry.
The scholars who fled Europe enriched the scientific and academic
life of countries around the world, including pre-Israel Palestine,
which accepted the fourth-largest number of refugee scholars. Britain
accepted the most refugee scholars, the United States was second
and, improbably, a new university in Istanbul accepted so many that
Turkey became the third most welcoming new home for fleeing professors.
Canada ranked 15th, behind Egypt, India, Brazil and Australia, which
had a much smaller university system than Canada's at the time.
"Canada did virtually nothing to help the refugees," Zimmerman
said. Part of the problem was the rampant anti-Semitism on Canadian
campuses, which Zimmerman contends was more prevalent than on campuses
in Britain or in the United States.
Zimmerman's presentation was the keynote address of this year's
Kristallnacht commemoration. Nov. 9 marked the 66th anniversary
of the "Night of Broken Glass." Though sometimes depicted
as a spontaneous anti-Jewish pogrom, historians now concur that
Kristallnacht was a carefully orchestrated Nazi program of terror
against Jewish people, institutions and property. From the beginning
of the Nazi regime in 1933, Jews progressively had their human rights
curtailed, but outright violence against Jews was rare. With Kristallnacht,
the legislated inequality transformed into violence and murder,
signifying that there was no turning back from the Nazis' plan to
seek the elimination of the Jewish people from Europe. In one night,
almost 100 Jews were killed, 30,000 arrested and sent to concentration
camps, hundreds of synagogues and thousands of Jewish businesses
were destroyed. Nov. 9, 1938, is remembered annually by Jewish communities
around the world as a cautionary reminder and as a turning point
in history.
Six survivors with six other community members lit six candles in
stirring commemoration of the victims of the Holocaust.
Prof. Chris Friedrichs, a University of British Columbia professor
and one of the convenors of the event, said there have been genocidal
catastrophes since 1945, but the lessons of the Holocaust remain
vital.
"The Holocaust was and is the template for much of what followed,"
he said. German and other Nazi-dominated societies during that period
have been analyzed, with special attention to the roles played by
rescuers – ordinary people who risked their lives to protect
Jews – and bystanders – ordinary people who did not. Friedrichs
claims that the rescuers did not generally represent any special
characteristics, but when the moment came to act on humanitarian
impulses, they responded in heroic ways.
"None of us want to be put to such a test," he said. "But
the future is never certain, even in Canada."
Friedrichs urged participants at the Sunday evening event to help
create an environment where, when faced with a crisis, we will be
a society of rescuers and not bystanders.
Pat Johnson is a B.C. journalist and commentator.
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