Skip to main content

Search the Holocaust Encyclopedia

Trending keywords:
A group of Jewish refugee children on board a Portuguese ship. The US Committee for the Care of European Children and the Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society arranged for the children to reach the United States. New York, United States, September 24, 1941.
< Browse all tags

immigration

More information about this image

All Content Tagged 'immigration'

Media Essay
The Evian Conference
Media Essay
The Evian Conference - ID Card/Oral History
A group of Jewish refugee children on board a Portuguese ship. The US Committee for the Care of European Children and the Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society arranged for the children to reach the United States. New York, United States, September 24, 1941.
Article
The Immigration of Refugee Children to the United States
More than a hundred thousand demonstrators gather in front of Madison Square Garden to take part in an anti-Nazi protest march through lower Manhattan. May 10, 1933.
Article
The United States and the Nazi Threat: 1933–37
Article
The United States and the Refugee Crisis, 1938–41
Thomas's family moved to Zilina in 1938. As the Slovak Hlinka Guard increased its harassment of Jews, the family decided to leave. Thomas and his family ultimately entered Poland, but the German invasion in September 1939 prevented them from leaving for Great Britain. The family ended up in Kielce, where a ghetto was established in April 1941. When the Kielce ghetto was liquidated in August 1942, Thomas and his family avoided the deportations to Treblinka that occurred in the same month. They were sent instead to a forced-labor camp. He and his parents were deported to Auschwitz in August 1944. As Soviet troops advanced in January 1945, Thomas and other prisoners were forced on a death march from Auschwitz. He was sent to the Sachsenhausen camp in Germany. After the Soviet liberation of Sachsenhausen in April 1945, Thomas was placed in an orphanage. Relatives located him, and he was reunited with his mother in Goettingen. He moved to the United States in 1951.
Oral History
Thomas Buergenthal describes the difficulties involved in postwar migrations
Displaced persons wait next to their suitcases and bundles, place uncertain, ca. 1947.
Timeline Event
New Directive on Immigrant Visas to the US
Article
United States Immigration and Refugee Law, 1921–1980
Otto Perl poses with his US Army unit at Camp Ritchie, Maryland, circa 1945. Born in Austria, Perl served in the Austrian Army until March 1938, when he was dismissed because he was Jewish. With the help of a friend, Perl was able to obtain a US visa. He reached New York in 1940.  Several thousand of the soldiers who trained at Camp Ritchie were Jewish refugees who had immigrated to the United States to escape Nazi persecution.   
Photo
US Army unit at Camp Ritchie
The plight of German-Jewish refugees, persecuted at home and unwanted abroad, is illustrated by the voyage of the SS "St. Louis." On May 13, 1939, the SS "St. Louis," a German ocean liner, left Germany with almost a thousand Jewish refugees on board. The refugees' destination was Cuba, but before their arrival the Cuban government revoked their permission to land. The "St. Louis" was forced to return to Europe in June 1939. However, Great Britain, France, Belgium, and the Netherlands agreed to accept the stranded refugees. After German forces occupied western Europe in 1940, many "St. Louis" passengers and other Jewish refugees who had entered those countries were caught up in the Final Solution, the Nazi plan to murder the Jews of Europe.
Map
Voyage of the "St. Louis," May 13-June 17, 1939
Media Essay
Voyage of the St. Louis - ID Card/Oral History
A notice sent by the American Consulate General in Berlin to Arthur Lewy and family, instructing them to report to the consulate on July 26, 1939, with all the required documents, in order to receive their American visas. German Jews attempting to immigrate to the United States in the late 1930s faced overwhelming bureaucratic hurdles. It was difficult to get the necessary papers to leave Germany, and US immigration visas were difficult to obtain. The process could take years.
Article
Wagner-Rogers Bill

Thank you for supporting our work

We would like to thank Crown Family Philanthropies, Abe and Ida Cooper Foundation, the Claims Conference, EVZ, and BMF for supporting the ongoing work to create content and resources for the Holocaust Encyclopedia. View the list of donor acknowledgement.