WI Jews Fleeing Nazis Welcomed More

[John Fredrick Parker]

What if, in the 1930's, Jews fleeing Germany and Europe were received in greater numbers in countries that avoided Nazi occupation (USA, UK, etc)? Political plausibility aside, how many more could have fled to these countries (ie how many Jews wanted to flee in this timeframe, but couldn't)? And what would be the effect of that many making it to said sanctuaries?

 

[Mitchell Hundred]

How many Jews could flee at least feasibly if allowed? From the period of 1880 until the immigration restrictions in 1925 some 2.8 million Jews immigrated to the US so the US was not a stranger to relatively large scale Jewish immigration. The easiest way to get more Jews into the US at least pre WW2 is for the 1924 immigration act to not be enacted with the cap greatly limiting immigration.

The effect would be less Jews remaining in Europe at the onset of the Holocaust and potentially all of European jewry exterminated due to the more limited numbers remaining.

 

[raharris1973]

What if, in the 1930's, Jews fleeing Germany and Europe were received in greater numbers in countries that avoided Nazi occupation (USA, UK, etc)? Political plausibility aside, how many more could have fled to these countries (ie how many Jews wanted to flee in this timeframe, but couldn't)? And what would be the effect of that many making it to said sanctuaries?

With a 1930s PoD as opposed to a 1920s PoD, how many more?- definitely thousands, maybe tens of thousands, but probably not hundreds of thousands.

Preferred destinations for a majority of those fleeing will likely be neighbors of Germany that ended up getting occupied, Austria, Czechoslovakia, the Low Countries and France.

 

[Salem_Saberhagen]

Preferred destinations for a majority of those fleeing will likely be neighbors of Germany that ended up getting occupied, Austria, Czechoslovakia, the Low Countries and France.

Would it be so? In OTL the preferred destination of most Jews were the New World settlement countries (USA, Argentina, Canada, Australia and New Zealand), and to a lesser extent also the UK, Brazil and South Africa.

If these countries remain completely open to Jewish immigration then I can imagine several thousand more paying for the Transatlantic trip, thus saving their lives from the Holocaust.

 

[John Fredrick Parker]

So FWIG, over 100,000 Jews emigrated from Germany and Austria alone in 1938 and 1939; however, most of these were to places the Nazis would conquer in the coming years (France, the Lowlands, and Denmark).

1939 also marked the first time to United States filled its combined German-Austrian quota (which now included annexed Czechoslovakia). However, this limit did not come close to meeting the demand; by the end of June 1939, 309,000 German, Austrian, and Czech Jews Jews had applied for 27,000 places available under the quota.

From 1933 to September 1939 some 95,000 Jews had emigrated to the United States.

So what if the U.S. had responded to the crisis of 1938 by rising the quota for the number of immigrants it would take from Germany, Austria, and Czechoslovakia in 1939? If the number of applicants is anything to go by, there doesn't seem to be anything (aside from politics) preventing the U.S. alone from taking another 100,000 plus refugees.

 

[raharris1973]

Alright- I made a gut guess that was probably wrong.

Ah well then with those numbers you actually could get 280,000 more German Jews escaping the Holocaust. Maybe a few ten thousand more if success encourages more applicants.

But, other countries would still be popular destinations - France, as a country of immigration, the Netherlands and Switzerland as traditionally neutral and safe countries, with open economies and with more cultural similarities to pre-Nazi Germany. Another attraction of European destinations is that one iscloser to Germany and any abandoned property or clients in case things turn around in a few years.

It is also interesting that the German quota went unfilled between 1933 and 1938, despite the Nuremburg Laws. Despite segregation many probably hoped until 38 that things would "blow over".

The main effect of opened immigration to the US or enlarged quotas therefore could have been substantial. Mainly to the benefit of German Jews as opposed to Jews of other European countries that ended up occupied, like Poland, the Baltics and the western Soviet Union.

As Mitchell Hundred suggests, with a PoD preventing the immigration restrictions of the 1920w, over a million or more European Jews (and other nationalities and religions) would emigrate from Poland and the Baltics and other parts of Europe for personal and economic reasons, inadvertently saving themselves since they are not expecting the Holocaust or a war.

 

[CaliGuy]

As Mitchell Hundred suggests, with a PoD preventing the immigration restrictions of the 1920w, over a million or more European Jews (and other nationalities and religions) would emigrate from Poland and the Baltics and other parts of Europe for personal and economic reasons, inadvertently saving themselves since they are not expecting the Holocaust or a war.

Would such a PoD be possible with a Hughes victory in 1916? After all, weren't Democrats traditionally the more pro-immigrant party (at least for immigrants from Southern and Eastern Europe)?

 

[raharris1973]

Would such a PoD be possible with a Hughes victory in 1916? After all, weren't Democrats traditionally the more pro-immigrant party (at least for immigrants from Southern and Eastern Europe)?

From prior discussions with David Tenner it sounds like restrictionism was unthinkable for decades before it happened but it became all but inevitable in the decade it happened.

American politicians in this era perhaps moved more by consensus. In the early 20th century it was a time of bipartisan support of free immigration, there was growing bipartisan support for fighting Germany over the course of WWI, then there was bipartisan backlash against it, a bipartisan red scare and then a bipartisan consensus to restrict immigration.

 

[CaliGuy]

From prior discussions with David Tenner it sounds like restrictionism was unthinkable for decades before it happened but it became all but inevitable in the decade it happened.

Actually, a literacy test for immigrants almost passed in 1913 and again almost passed in 1915 before passing in 1917; then, when literacy tests weren't enough to restrict immigrants (due to greater literacy in Europe), more stringent immigration measures were passed.

Now, I agree that some restrictionism during the 1920s is probably inevitable; however, perhaps the scope of it could have been less severe with a Democratic President during this time. For instance, perhaps the Soviet Union could have been targeted a lot while countries such as Italy and Poland would have been somewhat--but less--targeted than the Soviet Union.

American politicians in this era perhaps moved more by consensus. In the early 20th century it was a time of bipartisan support of free immigration, there was growing bipartisan support for fighting Germany over the course of WWI, then there was bipartisan backlash against it, a bipartisan red scare and then a bipartisan consensus to restrict immigration.

There doesn't appear to have been a total bipartisan consensus on literacy tests for immigrants in 1913 and 1915, though--in spite of such tests having the support of almost two-thirds of the U.S. Congress during this time!

 

[raharris1973]

fair points on the details.

By the way, how many people from the Soviet Union trying to get asylum in the United States who claimed persecution by the Communists were turned away during the 1920s and 1930s? I know some Tsarist nobility made it to New Jersey without going over the quota limit.

 

[CaliGuy]

fair points on the details.

OK; good.

Indeed, even a somewhat less restrictive immigration bill might result in, say, a couple million additional people immigrating to the U.S. in the 1920s (after which point immigration will probably become even more restricted due to the Great Depression--unless that is somehow butterflied away in this TL); frankly, some of these couple million people could be Jews--indeed, maybe a couple hundred thousand of them.

By the way, how many people from the Soviet Union trying to get asylum in the United States who claimed persecution by the Communists were turned away during the 1920s and 1930s? I know some Tsarist nobility made it to New Jersey without going over the quota limit.

I honestly don't know; however, I doubt that it would have been very many considering that there weren't that many wealthy people (including royalty and nobility) in Russia to begin with and considering that the Bolsheviks were extremely hostile towards emigration!

 

[CaliGuy]

Also, for the record, while immigration restrictionism was less popular before the 1910s, it nevertheless wasn't unheard of even in the 1880s and 1890s; indeed, prominent Republican Henry Cabot Lodge advocated immigration restrictionism (for non-Nordic/non-Teutonic peoples) as early as the late 1880s and early 1890s--and without getting pushed for this by his voters, to boot! :

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henry_Cabot_Lodge#Immigration

 

[Admiral Beez]

What about Britain opening up Palestine?

 

[sloreck]

The fact the German quota was not filled during the 1930s did not affect German Jews - Jews were separately described for quotas ("Hebrews"). The reality is the majority of the Jews who died in the Holocaust were those who were unable to emigrate as they were in countries occupied by Germany after the war started. Only a small number of Jews from occupied countries were able to leave where they were and get to someplace where they could, even theoretically, get to someplace the Germans were not going to occupy.

It is difficult to get a handle on how many Jews from countries that had some level of increasing antisemitic policies/history in the 1930s tried to emigrate to one of these countries outside of continental Europe (including Palestine). Hungary, Baltic States, Romania, Italy, and Poland would be some of these. None of these listed "safe" countries would be very welcoming for immigrants from the USSR except under special circumstances. To the extent the Jews of those countries would be willing to emigrate between 1933 and 1939, that would represent those who could be saved from occupied countries. Very few Jews in France, Holland, Belgium, Denmark, Norway were looking to emigrate before WWII so changing quotas would have little effect on those unfortunates.

If you push the POD back to the 1920s, then of course not having Jews as a separate category would make a big difference for the USA. Likewise the UK opening up Palestine would make a big difference. Sadly, IMHO, both of those would require intervention of Skippy the ASB.