Case by case
Australia’s refugee policy
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“News from Melbourne has reached the Canadian Department of Immigration to the effect that "no special facilities will be granted for the admission of groups of Jewish migrants to Australia.”
Melbourne
Under the impact of the Nazi rise to power and increasing antisemitism in Europe, the great Yiddish writer and cultural activist Melekh Ravitch had had the foresight to raise the funds for a trip from his native Poland to Australia as soon as 1933 in order to scout the inhospitable Kimberley region as a possible place for Jewish settlement. His optimistic conclusion was that the challenges of the Outback could be tackled with “mer vaser, veyniker bir”—“more water, less beer.” By 1938, the territorialist Frayland Lige also began to look into the possibility. As per the Jewish Telegraphic Agency’s report on June 15, the government was willing to consider individual cases of Jews wishing to immigrate but was not willing to support Jewish mass settlement in the country.
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“Canada Urged to Open Gates to Immigration: Australia Bars Jewish Influx”
Source available in English
