Transnational Yekkishkeit from a Canadian Perspective

The author notes that for a long time, Canada was one of the lesser known destinations of Jewish emigration from Nazi-occupied Europe. Indeed, he points out, unlike its southern neighbour, Canada in the 1930s offered limited opportunities for immigration. Approximately 6,000 German-speaking refugees (Jews and non-Jews) were allowed in. This figure includes about 1,000 ‘enemy aliens’ (most of whom were refugees) who had been interned in the United Kingdom in 1940 and then transferred to the Dominion of Canada. The author explains that several recent publications have put the “‘Land der begrenzten Unmöglichkeiten’”, the “land of limited impossibilities” (as one of the author's interviewees once put it), on the map of exile studies. The author focusses on the German-speaking Jews (Yekkes) who found refuge in Canada, in order to show how they positioned themselves within the Jewish community in Canada and whether they created and transmitted a form of collective yekkish memory; how they perceived and positioned themselves within a transnational space linking Montreal and Toronto to London, New York and Jerusalem. His purpose is to emphasise immigrants’ local lives in transnational cultures, to help map the migrant experience, and to use a transnational lens from a Canadian perspective.

Refugees from Nazi-occupied Europe in British Overseas Territories

Leiden, Netherlands

Brill Rodopi

2020

21-45

en

978-90-04-39952-5