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Behind the Aegis

(53,939 posts) Thu Dec 20, 2018, 09:54 PM Dec 2018

(Jewish Group) As The Nazi Threat Loomed, 300 Jews Escaped To... Haiti

Haiti was hardly an obvious destination for Jews fleeing Europe in the late 1930s. But they went wherever they could, and Haiti deserves credit for saving the lives of approximately 300 Jews.

One of them was Ernst Mohr. He was released from the Dachau concentration camp 80 years ago this week – on December 21, 1938.

“On November 10, 1938, my father was arrested at home in his pajamas and deported to Dachau with 150 Jewish males from Furth, Germany,” his son Bill told The Jewish Press. “Realizing that my father’s release depended upon immigration, my mother worked feverishly to get the necessary documents.

“One night, in late November, she traveled alone by train to Hamburg to see the Haitian Consulate General, Mr. Max Bouchereau, a friend of my father’s. He granted her four visas – for my father, mother, sister Ruth, aged 5, and me, Ludwig Eduard (Bill), aged 3.”

A number of Jews from Germany and Austria, plus a few from Romania, Czechoslovakia, and Poland, had immigrated to Haiti prior to the annexation of Austria and Germany on March 12, 1938. After the outbreak of World War II, immigration to Haiti was prohibited, although a few refugees subsequently arrived on the island from Europe after purchasing Haitian citizenship at the cost of $2,000-$3,000.

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I usually don't like this source at all, but this is a history lesson, and there is little, if anything that is offensive in it.