In this video, Professor Harold Troper and Professor Adara Goldberg outline the key events between 1933 and 1939 in Nazi Germany, and the increasing persecution of German Jews. Canada remains a closed door for most Jewish refugees as a result of the Great Depression. Source: Montreal Holocaust Museum, 2016
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Video begins with the title “1933-1939” in white text on a black screen while instrumental music plays and fades into the next frame.
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Cut to University of Toronto Professor Harold Troper sitting in front of a dark wall that displays text, which is out of focus. Professor Troper looks towards the right of the camera. The camera shows a medium shot of his upper body as he speaks during an interview conducted at the Montreal Holocaust Museum in April 2016. The name “Harold Troper” and underneath, “Professor at the University of Toronto” temporarily display in white text in the bottom-left corner of the frame.
>> Harold Troper: Hitler assumed power in Germany in 1933 and almost immediately began introducing legislation and regulations prohibiting the activities of Jews and restricting their activities in Germany.
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Camera angle changes to a close-up shot of Harold Troper.
>> Harold Troper: By 1935, with the Nuremberg Laws, Jews had their citizenship and all their rights under the law removed from them. Several years later, the Jews were prohibited access to public institutions, their children were driven out of the public school system, they no longer could practice their professions. Jews were entirely marginalized in German society.
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Cut to Historian Adara Goldberg, sitting in front of the dark wall. Dr. Goldberg looks towards the right of the camera. The camera shows a medium shot of her upper body as she speaks during an interview conducted at the Montreal Holocaust Museum in April 2016.
>> Adara Goldberg: But the final straw for Germany's Jews came on November 9-10, 1938, in an event we know today as Kristallnacht, or the Night of Broken Glass.
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Camera angle changes to a close-up shot of Adara Goldberg.
>> Adara Goldberg: During this night of state-sanctioned violence, more than 30,000 Jewish men, many of them who had fought bravely for Germany in the First World War, were arrested and deported to concentration camps.
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Cut to close-up shot of Harold Troper.
>> Harold Troper: In the middle of the 1920s, the Canadian government began introducing restrictions on immigration, most especially against Jews who were seen as the least desirable immigrants that Canada could possibly get. In 1931, with the beginning of the Depression, the government introduced an Order-in-Council, a regulation under the Immigration Act…
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Camera angle changes back to medium shot of Harold Troper.
>> …that excluded virtually everybody from Canada except those who were Americans and British subjects. The only Jews that were admitted to Canada were those few Jews who qualified as immediate family of those who were already in Canada: unmarried brothers and sisters under the age of 18.
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Cut to close-up shot of Adara Goldberg.
>> Adara Goldberg: With Jews categorized as one of the least desirable immigrant groups, these new regulations, coupled with the fact that Jews had to have investment capital to come to Canada, shut most refugees out.
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Camera angle changes back to medium shot of Adara Goldberg.
>> Prime Minister Mackenzie King once wrote that the “Jews were Germany's problem, not ours.” And despite strong efforts by Canadian Jews and prominent non-Jews to influence policy change, only a few thousand Jews were allowed into Canada between 1933 and 1939.
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Camera angle changes to a close-up shot of Adara Goldberg. Instrumental music plays for the remainder of the video.
>> This was the smallest number in the Western world.
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Credit pages appear in white text on black screen. Instrumental music continues.
Interview conducted by Laurel Ovenden, Montreal Holocaust Memorial Centre, April 2016
Directing, Camera, and Editing: Helgi Piccinin; Colorization: Michaël Gravel; Assistant Director and Sound: Philippe Dubois; Audio Mix and Original Music: Pierre-Luc Lecours. [Logo for Chaire de recherche du Canada en patrimoine ethnologique]
Montreal Holocaust Memorial Centre, copyright 2017.
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End of transcript.