The Holocaust is one of the most tragic events in human history. Between approximately 1939-1945 The German government murdered 6 million Jews and 5 million others in an attempt to create a master race.
What is lesser known about the Holocaust is the fact that the Germans did not immediately start out with the intent to kill Jews. The original plan was to deport them to other countries. One plan was called the Madagascar Plan, which would have expelled all German Jews to the island off the African coast.
The only problem was that no country wanted to accept the Jews of Germany. According to this article I found:
During the 1930s, before Germany launched the "final solution,'' Hitler attempted to deport all Jews. He offered to pay their passage to America. But the United States was more bigoted and segregated in those days, and President Roosevelt feared a political backlash if he accepted the offer. America welcomed celebrities such as Albert Einstein, but few others.
Britain likewise refused to let Germany's Jews move to Palestine. An international conference was held to find sanctuaries for the endangered people, but it produced nothing.
The story of the ship St. Louis tells it all: Hundreds of German Jews thought they had obtained visas to move to Cuba. They booked passage on the St. Louis -- but when they reached Havana, they were forbidden to land. The ship headed for America, but the Coast Guard forced it to stay offshore. Finally, it returned to Europe with its unwanted, doomed passengers.
After the war, when Adolf Eichmann was on trial as a war criminal, he contended that Germany wouldn't have begun its annihilation program in 1940 if other nations had been willing to receive Jews.
Canada also refused to take them in, with an immigration officer famously saying None is Too Many.
This of course does not excuse the German killing of Jews. However, it is interesting to think how many would have survived if Western democracies would have opened their doors.
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