Perspective: Race Restrictions

To the nation's disgrace, official discrimination against Jews would forever be symbolized by the failed attempts of refugees aboard the ocean liner St. Louis to find refuge in Canada in 1939. Some 900 in number, they had earlier sought entry to Cuba and been denied. Other south and Central American ports then rejected them. Next came the United States. Finally, the Canadian government refused asylum for the ship's crew and passengers, who had to return to Germany.

The Canadian government promised little assistance during the 1938 Evian Conference, which deliberated the fate of the 300,000 refugees then fleeing Nazi occupied countries. Although 80,000 Sudetan, Czechoslovakia refugees fled following the Nazi occupation in 1938, only 303 families gained entrance to Canada. Indeed, Canada would accept fewer than 5,000 refugees during the Second World War.

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