Most people have some idea of what happened to European Jews during the Holocaust. There's evidence for both sides of the story, but for now, we'll accept as fact that over six million Jews were killed in Nazi concentration camps during the course of the war. Now, I was listening to the radio as I often do, and I heard some people speaking of the horrible Germans. The topic was immigration, and the caller said something like "We should let more immigrants in, we don't want to do what the Germans did to the Jews in the Holocaust, you know." Excuse me? And this is pretty indicative of the attitude of many Canadians I think. The Germans were the bad guys. Which is not wrong, the Germans of course did horrible horrible things. But maybe Canada can take a look at itself in the mirror for once. What's the real story behind it? It is this: Canada took in the fewest Jewish refugees of any Allied power during World War II. The fewest. Canada took in 5000 refugees. The United States took in 200000. A slight imbalance perhaps? How many lives did Canada forfeit during those dark years? 100000? 200000? Who knows. But certainly, Canada was a complete disgrace.
Why did this happen? Well, Canada was virulently anti-Semitic at the time. In particular, two men, Frederick Charles Blair and Mackenzie King. Blair was the immigration minister, King the prime minister. Both were anti-Semitic. It is no wonder Canada let in so few Jews. But these two men were simply representative of Canada as a whole. Most of Canada hated Jews, it was simple as that. Canada instituted many anti-Semitic laws of her own. For example, schools, universities and medical schools limited the number of Jews permitted. Jews were not permitted to vacation at some places, and were not permitted entry to many establishments. They were publicly discriminated against. King himself admired Hitler, thinking him a saviour. Why isn't this stuff in the history books?
Anyways, there was an incident in 1939 that was particularly telling. A group of Jewish people had gotten together enough money to hire a ship to take them across the Atlantic. They came and tried to land in Canada. We refused them. They tried the United States. Refused there. In fact they were refused in every single port where they landed. They finally were left with no place to go. They were forced to return to Germany where they were promptly taken to a concentration camp and summarily executed. A Canadian official stated that "even one is too many" when asked about the quota of Jews permitted to enter.
This sad chapter in Canadian history is one of the reasons why I don't put a lot of stock into Canada's multicultural policies. And people who criticize other people or countries for being prejudiced and racist. They disgust me so much that I want to throw up. Canada has been an extremely racist place in the past, and remains so today, no matter what people say.