Antisemitism in Canada

In Berlin, the government consistently highlights and explains the Nazis’ role in the Holocaust. This is evident in the numerous museums dedicated to Jewish life and the Final Solution, as well as in regular museums that focus on the period from 1933 to 1945, rather than commemorating it. Berlin’s streets are adorned with markers, memorials, and statues honouring the Jewish residents who endured persecution and death during the Nazi era. The city’s Stolpersteine (Stumble Stone) project, the world’s largest decentralized memorial to Nazi victims, features over 40,000 4” x 4” brass plates inscribed with the names and life dates of those who perished in Nazi extermination or persecution. While the majority of these plaques commemorate Jewish victims, they also honour other persecuted groups, all placed in front of the former homes of the victims on city sidewalks. Artist Guntar Deming’s intention was for people to stumble upon these plaques as they went about their daily lives, ensuring that the past would never be forgotten.

At the German parliament, the Bundestag, stands the Memorial to the Murdered Members of the Reichstag. This memorial consists of 96 cast iron plates, each dedicated to the mostly Jewish members of parliament who were murdered between 1933 and 1945.

The German government and its citizens actively engage with their history of antisemitism and actively combat any current instances of anti-Semitism.

North American Jews often believe that all Jewish deaths during the Holocaust were solely the Nazis’ fault. While visiting Spandau, we discovered the stones marking Dorothea Oehl and her daughter, Kathe Van Rossem’s home. These stones list them as passengers on the MS St. Louis. Dorothea’s son, Martin, had already escaped to the US in 1938 and survived the war. However, for Dorothea and Kathe, their escape on the St. Louis was unsuccessful. After Cuba, the US, and Canada all refused to allow them to disembark, they were returned to Hamburg and ultimately murdered. Our governments share responsibility for these deaths, as well as for the deaths of countless others for whom visas could have saved them.

Have things changed? I’m afraid not. We witness anti-Semitic demonstrations and inaction from our politicians in response to calls for the Jewish people’s annihilation. “From the river to the sea” is a clear call for the genocide of Israelis, and history shows that those who make such statements will attempt to carry out their evil plans wherever they live. Some may dismiss such calls as “merely” anti-Zionist.

The ADL argues that denying the Jewish people the right to self-determination (while affirming it for other groups) is inherently discriminatory. Anti-Zionism crosses the line into anti-Semitism when it relies on traditional anti-Semitic tropes. These include claiming Jews have a malicious grip on global power, exploiting or trivializing Holocaust trauma to compare Israelis to Nazis, or holding Jewish individuals outside of Israel collectively responsible for Israeli government actions.