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Canada to formally apologize in November for turning away German Jews in 1939

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September 7th 2018
statue, prime minister William Lyon Mackenzie King, Parliament building, Ottawa,
A statue of former prime minister William Lyon Mackenzie King looks over the Parliament buildings on Friday, September 13, 2013 in Ottawa. File photo by The Canadian Press/Adrian Wyld

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Prime Minister Justin Trudeau says Canada will formally apologize in November for turning away a boat of German Jews seeking asylum in 1939, which led to the deaths of more than 200 people.

Trudeau says it was a moral failure on the part of the government of the day.

The MS St. Louis ship had 907 Jews, who were fleeing Nazi persecution, aboard when it was turned away from both Cuba and the United States before a group of Canadians tried to convince then-prime minister Mackenzie King's government to let it dock in Halifax.

King was unable to convince Frederick Blair, the director of the immigration branch of the federal Department of Mines and Resources, to allow them into the country.

The ship returned to Europe and many found safety in countries like Holland, the U.K. and France, but 254 of those on board eventually died in the Holocaust after returning to Germany.

Trudeau says he announced the date for the apology on a call Thursday with the Canadian Rabbinic Caucus, a national body of rabbis.

The prime minister says the government will make the apology in the House of Commons on Nov. 7.

September 7th 2018

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David | September 7th 2018, 12:32 pm

I do wish someone more sincere could make the apology. October 2019.

Betsy Cornwell | September 8th 2018, 05:43 pm

At the time the Canadian action was par for the course in a world that casually accepted bigotry and violence toward their favorite scapegoats - a convenience to church and state for thousands of years. Blame the Jews!.

Scapegoats come and go - now we have an overabundance of them - how dare they try to salvage their lives by fleeing to safety? It appears that humans have very little room in their self centered little brains for empathy, compassion, or even tolerance.. I guess evolution did not reward compassion in the violent stakes for survival so the reptile brain wins again.