Seeking Refuge: Immigration to Canada Before, During and After the Holocaust

• 11+
• 2 class periods

By exploring primary sources and first-hand accounts, students will be encouraged to learn about the range of experiences of survivors, both during and after the Holocaust. Students will develop a greater understanding of Canada’s role and response during the Holocaust, in addition to exploring one of a few ways that survivors made their way to Canada after the war.

Learning Objectives

• Develop greater understanding of the Holocaust through first-hand accounts
• Learn about Canada’s response to the situation for Jews in Europe before, during and after the Holocaust
• Analyze the impact of discriminatory immigration policies on the Jews of Europe
• Reflect upon the immigration stories of survivors who moved to Canada after the war

Resources

Below is a short film titled Seeking Refuge: Canadian Jewish Immigration and the Holocaust, which is an introduction to the theme of immigration policies before, during and after the Holocaust. Featured in the film is Dr. Adara Goldberg.

Dr. Adara Goldberg is the director of the Holocaust Resource Center and Diversity Council on Global Education and Citizenship at Kean University (Union, NJ). Since earning her doctorate in Holocaust history at Clark University (2012), Dr. Goldberg has held an Azrieli Foundation postdoctoral fellowship at Hebrew University, a postdoctoral fellowship at Stockton University, and served as education director for the Vancouver Holocaust Education Centre. Recipient of the Marsid Foundation Prize at the 2016 Western Canada Jewish Book Awards, Dr. Goldberg’s book, Holocaust Survivors in Canada: Exclusion, Inclusion, Transformation, 1947–1955 (2015), represents the first comprehensive analysis of the resettlement and integration experiences of 35,000 Holocaust survivors and their families in postwar Canada.