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<\/a>\u201cThe Holocaust is a watershed moment and the scale of this watershed resettlement was unprecedented,\u201d said Adara Goldberg, a Vancouverite and author of Holocaust Survivors in Canada: Exclusion, Inclusion, Transformation, 1947\u20131955<\/em>. \u201cMany of the agencies across Canada only came to be as a result of the Holocaust. Jewish Immigrant Aid Services [JIAS] did exist, but this was a small organization that only dealt with small numbers up to this point. Having some 35,000 people come in, in less than a 10-year span, really trampled the organizations.\u201d<\/p>\n Survivors who moved to the United States joined a vibrant Jewish community already in progress, while those who came to Canada found a Jewish community with little infrastructure. What exists of the Jewish community and its social service agencies today was built, in large part, for the survivors and, subsequently, by them.<\/p>\n To an extent, there was an unwillingness among Canada\u2019s existing Jewish community to address the Holocaust experiences of the newcomers \u2013 those who did not experience the Holocaust may have been afraid of opening wounds or been unwilling to hear the horrors others experienced. There was also a history in Canada of immigrants getting off the boats and throwing themselves instantly into building a new life, leaving the past behind.<\/p>\n Still, Goldberg said, there was a recognition by people like the head of JIAS that these immigrants had some very particular needs.<\/p>\n \u201cThe problem was availability,\u201d she said. \u201cThis is uncharted territory. Social workers themselves and the Canadian Jewish community were only learning with the survivors about how to treat victims of trauma \u2026 the idea of post-traumatic stress didn\u2019t really exist.\u201d<\/p>\n Getting the newcomers integrated was not only a matter of meeting social needs, she added.<\/p>\n \u201cThere is also a legal element to that,\u201d Goldberg said. \u201cThe fact is, refugees who came to Canada under the auspices of either the Canadian Jewish Congress, or who received support from JIAS or who had relatives sponsor them, were liabilities. If they didn\u2019t find work, if they didn\u2019t have a home, if they became dependent, they risked deportation. They risked becoming a drain on the existing Jewish community, which was already really reaching its max in terms of what they could do.\u201d<\/p>\n A symbol of success is that very few fell through the cracks, although many of the case studies in the book indicate that some survivors were miserable in their assigned living conditions or workplaces.<\/p>\n There was a realization after the war, as the magnitude of what would come to be called the Holocaust dawned, that Canada had failed the imperiled Jews of Europe in the 1930s, when there was still time.<\/p>\n \u201cAfter the war, relationships changed and there was significant international pressure on Canada to help do its part in relieving the postwar refugee crisis of Jewish and also non-Jewish displaced persons,\u201d Goldberg said. \u201cOn the one hand, we can say this was a humanitarian gesture.\u2026 There\u2019s also a practical element that we can\u2019t overlook in that Canada stood to gain something from allowing in the Holocaust survivor refugees. There was a need for skilled laborers and this is how most survivors did come in, they came in for skilled labor posts, so Canada benefited.\u201d<\/p>\n The equation of immigration and Canada\u2019s need for labor is underscored by the fact that there was no ministry of immigration at the time \u2013 until 1950, Canada\u2019s immigration policy was administered by the ministry of mines and resources. The influx of Jewish and non-Jewish refugees postwar familiarized the Canadian government and public to the concept of receiving refugees on humanitarian grounds. The first major instance of this reconsideration came in 1956 after the Soviet Union crushed the democratic uprising in Hungary. Canada admitted 37,000 refugees in the course of a year.<\/p>\n