Canadian Baptists and the Jewish Refugee Question of the 1930s

ROBERT R. SMALE

Recent events in the former Yugoslavia have again heightened awarenessthat the world has largely failed to learn the lessons of the Holocaust.Kosovo is the latest in an endless array of genocide, ethnic cleansing andrefugee crises that have plagued the world since l945. Governmentsaround the world continue to utilize torture, arbitrary arrest, detention,forced exile, denial of freedom of conscience and genocide.

The continuation of both a lack of respect for the dignity andsanctity of life, and the flagrant violations of human rights constitutes isnot only a major political and social issue but also a religious one.Religious institutions have a responsibility to speak out against suchatrocities and to campaign for the cause of rights and freedoms. Due totheir historic advocacy of liberty of consciousness, and their own historicalexperience as nonconformists, who were victims of persecution, it mightbe reasonable to expect that Baptists would be at the forefront of any suchcampaign. To what extent, however, was this the case during the Jewishrefugee crisis of the 1930s?

This paper examines this issue in light of the responses and actionsof Canadian Baptists (Baptist Convention of Ontario and Quebec) to thepredicament, plight and flight of Jews in Europe from 1933-1939. DidBaptists, who were once themselves a persecuted religious minority, speakout against atrocities being perpetuated on the Jews of Europe? How awareof these atrocities were they? What actions, if any, did they encouragetheir government to take? Was the response limited to a few prominentindividuals or was it more widespread? Were there significant differences

Historical Papers 1999: Canadian Society of Church History

6 Canadian Baptists and the Jewish Refugee Question

in the responses of fundamentalist and liberal Baptists? Baptists were notalways consistent in their application to others of the standard of humanrights that they demanded for themselves, so, was this true of theirreactions and responses to the Jewish question of the 1930s?

With the onset of the Great Depression of the 1930s, Canada had allbut barred its doors to the influx of further immigration. Years of publicagitation, racial tension, nativism and xenophobic fears had persuaded theCanadian government throughout the 1920s to institute various regulationsdesigned to control the influx of immigrants. Furthermore, withoutexplicitly changing the Immigration Act, the government made several“administrative refinements” that were deliberately intended to preventany further admission of Jews into Canada.1 Consequently, racism,nativism, xenophobia and anti-Semitism, so pervasive in Canadaespecially after World War One, had “found formal expression inrevamped immigration regulations.”2 With the onset of the Depression, thegovernment tightened its restrictionist umbrella still further.3

Consequently, at a time when the Jews were seeking refuge from theAryan Laws of Hitler’s Third Reich, the corresponding boycotts and actsof brutality that attended their implementation culminating in the Kristall-nacht pogrom of 1938 and an ever mounting refugee crisis, the Canadiangovernment, “as much in defense of a narrow notion of Canada as out ofdirect hostility to Jews,” erected barriers not only “against their fullparticipation in community life,” but more importantly, given the growingcrisis in Europe, their admission into Canada.

When it came to the subject of Jews and Judaism, Canadian Baptistswere no better or worse in their stereotypical and racist views than anyother Canadian Protestants. Like other Protestants of the day, they held tothe same “general misconceptions and endemic ignorance of Jewishhistory and religion . . . as well as [to] certain anti-Judaic sectarianstrains.”4 References to Jews as Christ “rejecters” and “killers” found theirway into denominational literature. In 1933 the Canadian Baptistlamented:

But to read the shameful story How the Jews abused their King,How they killed the Lord of Glory,Makes me angry when I sing.5

These attitudes towards Jews were found in both the liberal and the

Robert R. Smale 7

fundamentalist strains of the denomination. Liberal or modernist Baptiststended to deal somewhat ambiguously with Jewish issues. On the onehand, Jews were praised for their “religious genius,” yet on the other hand,Jesus was revered as a Jew who had transcended Judaism with his“universal mind and heart.” “The Christian of any nation,” the CanadianBaptist asserted, “never thinks of him as a Jew. Jesus belongs to all nationsand to all ages. He is the world’s centre.”6

Fundamentalists like the dogmatic and vociferous T.T. Shields ofJarvis Street Baptist Church in Toronto espoused the traditional fables andclichés about Jews in conjunction with typical evangelical appeals:

When Pilate said to the Jews of his day, “Will you crucify yourKing?” They said, “His blood be on us, and upon our children.” Andit has been! Oh, it has been! The Jews have already reaped a terribleharvest whatever their future may be. Their isolation, their place inhistory, the fact that no nation can assimilate them, that there is nopossibility of obliterating their distinctiveness, whether in Germany,or in France, or Italy, or Britain, or Canada or America . . . they standout identified as the children of those who shed the blood of the LordJesus, and His blood has been upon them! The awful record of theirsufferings from then until now attests the fact . . .7

While willing to affirm the Jewishness of Jesus,8 Shields, however,occasionally allowed anti-Jewish slurs to creep into his sermons: “Oh, buthave you never heard the proverb, ‘Worth a Jew’s eye’? It means that aJew can see money where nobody else can. That is the explanation of theirsearching around the garbage cans, picking up the world’s refuse – andgetting rich on it.”9 The Baptists’ relationship with the Jewish communitywas, therefore, ambiguous at best.

As strong advocates and defenders of the principle of religiousliberty, Baptists were apprehensive about the plans of the Nazi regime toconstruct a national Protestant church in Germany under the patronage ofthe state. As Dr. J.H. Rushbrooke, a leading figure in the Baptist WorldAlliance remarked, “it is impossible for them to accept any such relationwith the State as would make them merely its dependents or tools.”10 TheNazis’ intention to foster a monolithic culture inside of Germanyunderstandably aroused the suspicion of Canadian Baptists, as it remindedthem all too well of their struggles against the Roman Catholic Churchduring the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. Consequently, it is notsurprising that many Canadian Baptists were resolved in their opposition

8 Canadian Baptists and the Jewish Refugee Question

to fascism, which for them was manifest in three forms – Italian, German,and Roman Catholic totalitarianism.11

Baptist distrust of Hitler’s intentions with respect to the Protestantchurches in Germany also “alerted them to other aberrations in the newGerman Reich, particularly the Aryan laws and the persecution of theJews.”12 As early as 6 April 1933, the Canadian Baptist recorded:

When the world in the Great War termed the German nation Huns, thegreat nation along the Rhine writhed under the insult. In the heat ofwarfare truth has a habit of becoming sadly twisted at times; in calmerdays less passionate terms are employed. But if a fraction of theatrocities against Jews with which Germany is charged today be true,Hun is the only word that can be used to describe the HitleriteTeutons. In fact, it may be that an apology is due the ancient barbari-ans, for apparently nothing to equal the cruelties of the modern attackon Jews in Germany has been seen since Bartholomew’s day inFrance, and that other period when the Spanish Inquisition was in fullflower. The entire world is horrified by the tales of barbarism, whichare coming from Germany through devious channels; its like readingthe story of the Armenian massacres again. One did not expect muchbetter things from Turks, but Germany, the birthplace of Protestant-ism, is on a different plane surely. German Jews, from peasant toprofessor, are in their dark Gethsemane and the rest of the worldstands powerless to interfere. In fact, the lot of the sufferers seems tobecome more desperate every time a foreign voice is lifted inprotest.13

Such accounts of Jewish abuse in Germany in 1933 influenced thetone of Dr. M.F. McCutcheon’s Presidential Address to the Conventionthat year. Speaking on “The Church’s Task in the Modern World,”President McCutcheon asserted:

If true to our faith every human life must be regarded as a reflex ofdivinity. Every act of wrong and injustice therefore, mars and defacesthe image of God in man. “Oppression and exploitation are more thanviolations of social law. They are sacrilege and blasphemy.” Theythwart life – God’s life in man. The religious man will not rest contentwith personal salvation. He will strive to bring about a social orderwhich will issued to all men freedom for self-realization. He willweigh all social institutions in the balance of spiritual utility: “Iffound wanting, he will set about to reconstruct them, or, if need be,

Robert R. Smale 9

to destroy them. His morality will be militant, and when necessaryrevolutionary” . . . This makes it clear that the “preaching of princi-ples” is not enough. “A principle after all, is a poor ghost, unlessexpressed in concrete material.”14

The question of freedom and liberty, especially religious liberty,seems to have been of paramount concern to Baptists in 1933.15 Dr. J.H.Rushbrooke, General Secretary of the Baptist World Alliance, commentedthat while there were elements of policy in the German government“which commanded the strong support of Baptists,” the Reich would “gainenormously if it adopts a policy of respect for the rights of the freeevangelical communities.”16 Hitler’s suppression of free speech, freedomof the press, and spiritual liberty created the “unsettling conditions” thatprevented the Baptist World Alliance from holding its fifth Conference inBerlin in 1933.

The Conference was eventually rescheduled and held in Berlin thefollowing year. This decision fueled a fierce international debate in theBaptist community on the “suitability of this location,” and Canadian,British and American Baptists expressed deep reservations about whetherthey should attend.17 Canadian Baptists’ decision to send delegates waspredicated on Hitler and his associates guarantee of freedom “of delibera-tion.”18 Nevertheless, the decision to go was the “subject of adversecriticism.” Canadian Baptists decided that such a Congress “can” and“should be held,” because a “definite and unmistakable testimony” todistinctive Baptist convictions could be accorded in a nation whosepolitical regime acceded marginal regard for principles of religious libertyor democratic rights. Baptists also wanted to ensure that the decision tohold a Congress in Berlin in no way implied their “approval of anti-Semitism, or any weakening in their view of our Lord’s authority and ofthe Christian faith as supernatural and interracial . . .”19

Delegates to the Convention were obliged to listen to addressespromoting the virtues of the “new Germany;” nevertheless opposition toa number of Nazi policies was voiced, including Hitler’s oppression of theJews.20 The Baptist World Congress voiced their commitment “to theconviction that racial prejudice and national antagonism are entirely atvariance with the Christian conscience and that Baptists everywhereshould seek by every possible means to exemplify and promote good willand understanding among all peoples.”21 The Congress further held thatracialism, with specific reference to anti-Semitism, was “unchristian.”22

10 Canadian Baptists and the Jewish Refugee Question

The Congress did allow the Nazis to achieve a kind of propagandavictory. The delegates were accorded the liberty they were promised at theCongress, but more importantly, some left Berlin convinced that Naziatrocities toward the Jews were grossly exaggerated and perhaps in someway understandable if not justifiable. The Canadian Baptist report on“Berlin 1934” remarked:

It was revealed from many sources that the recent movements inGermany against the Jews were not religious or racial, but politicaland economic. Since the war some 200,000 Jews from Russia andother Eastern places had come into Germany. Most of these wereCommunist agitators against the government. The German Jews hadalso monopolized a majority of government, educational andeconomic positions . . . The German people resented this [control].Naturally excesses occurred and irresponsible persons committedsome atrocious deeds. But at the worst it was not one-tenth as bad aswe had been made to believe. The new Government became the agentof adjustment of positions proportionate to population.23

However, less than two years later, the Canadian Baptist reported that,

instead of hundreds of thousands of Eastern European Jews theseofficial statistics reveal that between 1910 and 1925 the total numberof Jewish immigrants into Germany and these immigrants includedboth Eastern and Western Jews – did not exceed 31,000. Between1925 and 1933, 9,000 of them had left the country again. There werethus no more than a net of 22,000 foreign Jewish immigrants . . .among a population of 67,000,000. The devouring hordes are amyth.24

The article pointed out that Jews neither had a “stranglehold nor amonopoly” upon the professions and that Nazi allegations in this regardwere “completely unfounded.”25

Canadian Baptists, it would appear, were well aware of the existenceof concentration camps in Germany as early as 1933-34. In a letterreprinted from the Manchester Guardian, Rennie Smith compared his visitto Dachau concentration camp outside of Munich to his experience as aprisoner of war in Germany in World War One. Smith asserted that “I donot hesitate to say that even at the height of Prussian Jingoism . . . thehumanities as between German jailer and British civilian prisoners were

Robert R. Smale 11

on an incomparably higher level in 1914 than is the treatment of Germansby Germans in the concentration camp of 1933.”26

By the mid-1930s many Canadian Baptists recognized the inherentdangers that totalitarianism, whether Communist or Fascist, representedto international peace and security, as well as their overtly anti-Semiticbiases.27 Many Baptists expressed utter amazement and repulsion at theremarks of Germany’s great military strategist of World War One, GeneralErich Lunendorff, that Christianity had been created for the specialadvancement of the Jews and that its one purpose was to “help the Jewishpeople to domination.” His call for the complete renunciation of Christian-ity convinced many Baptists of the utter paganism of Hitler’s Germany.28

n an almost prophetic overtone, Lloyd M. Houlding warned CanadianBaptists that “we dare not close our eyes to the warnings prevalent inFascism. It is true that Jews are building their ghettos in Germany to-day,and I venture to prophesy that it is equally true that the Christians will bebuilding their catacombs, and twenty-five years from now there will be noJews in Germany except in the ghettos and Christians except in thecatacombs.”29

While many Baptists were certainly aware and appalled at Hitler’streatment of the Jews, totalitarianism’s (whether Fascism, Nazism orCommunism) threat to religious liberty, democracy, and peace was theparamount concern of Baptists.30 In fact, as Baptists gathered with otherProtestants, Catholics and government officials at the public service tocommemorate the eightieth anniversary of Holy Blossom Synagogue inToronto in 1936, the Canadian Baptist remarked that the “anniversaryitself was not the greatest thing,” but the fact that this diverse group couldmeet together, bringing “greetings to the Jewish people” and sharing the“joy of the festive occasion.” As the editor went on to remark,

the service reveals what is meant by British religious and civil liberty;the service so largely attended by Gentiles could not have been heldin many lands to-day – lands where Jews are treated as outcasts andharried from pillar to post, or rather, to prison and poverty. In Britishdomains the Jew has rights equal to all other citizens; his liberty andlife are as sacred as any other man’s . . . The whole service was atribute to British fair-mindedness and justice.31

One Baptist commentator, the Reverend R.G. Quiggin, even went so faras to see the events unfolding in Europe as part of some apocalyptic visionreminiscent of pre-war years, in which God would usher in a new

12 Canadian Baptists and the Jewish Refugee Question

Christian age: “these violent dictatorships are not thwarting but fulfillingthe will of God. They are but puppets in the hands of the Almighty.” Thechurch, the writer stated, had been “too soft” and “persecution” wouldonly serve to “purify” it. “We are witnessing not the twilight of Christian-ity, but the dawn of a more Christian age.” Then, in rhetoric characteristicof Baptists in the past, the writer asserted that, “Canada’s contribution tothe somewhat new civilization of North America [was] the strength andpurity of British institutions,” and that Baptists should march “shoulder toshoulder” with their “fellow Christians in a common effort to makeCanada Christian.”32

I will now compare the views of two leading Baptists of the period– one the volatile fundamentalist preacher of Jarvis Street Baptist Church,T.T. Shields, the other, a liberal-minded Baptist scholar and academic,Watson Kirkconnell. Given his own dictatorial tendencies, Shields initiallyheld a certain fascination for the Fascist movements of Europe. He rejectedthe popular notion that Benito Mussolini, dictator of Italy, was the Anti-Christ: “To me, Mussolini is one of the world’s greatest benefactors, andhas not the first mark of the AntiChrist about him. He is a fine businessmanager who has saved Italy from a revolution like that of Russia.”33

Shields admiration for European Fascism, however, ended abruptlyfollowing the “Night of the Long Knives” in Germany and Italy’s rape ofEthiopia. Thereafter, Shields saw both Hitler and Mussolini as nothingmore than international gangsters. He even suggested that a price shouldbe put on Hitler’s head.34

Having gained a reputation as an impassioned orator, Shields soonunleashed his fervor against Hitler and Nazi Germany. Hitler, Shieldscharged, was an “unspeakable criminal,” an “execrable murderer,” “thebiggest liar and the ugliest human creature the devil ever produced,” themost “infamous deceiver and murderer of all time.” He was, Shieldscontended, the very embodiment of the Anti-Christ.35 Germany, hecharged, “as a nation had been the world’s greatest criminal since 1914,”“the plague spot of the world for several generations,” a greater menace tothe moral health of the world than “Sodom and Gomorrah,” the breedingground “for everything that is criminal to human interest and divinegovernment,” and hence a “bandit” that needed to be hunted by thepolice.36 Shields believed that “if the present tendency of European affairscontinues it will produce a crisis” – namely a war.37 As a result, heencouraged the Allied powers to take decisive action against Germany,including sending “an army of occupation into Germany at once to enforce

Robert R. Smale 13

the terms of the Treaty of Versailles.”38

Shields’ savage attacks against pacifism39 afforded him anotheropportunity to attack his liberal enemies, especially those in the BaptistConvention, many of whom were strong advocates of disarmament andanti-war motions.40 Shields blamed “modernist influences”41 for not onlystripping Britain of her might, but also for the direction of her foreignpolicy, which sought to pacify and appease Hitler.42 Shields expressedutter disdain for British Prime Ministers who he felt were leading theEmpire into the abyss.43 Responding to the Munich Agreement, Shieldsvociferated,

. . . we lost a golden opportunity of breaking forever the power ofHitlerism and saving ourselves from the enormous burdens that nowwe must carry, by the utter un wisdom, the political and moralblindness of Premier Chamberlain. Surely there is no page in Britain’shistory of which we have a deeper reason to be ashamed than thatwhich has been written by those who have managed our foreignpolicy in the last few years.44

Shields often expressed his opposition to racial and religiousdiscrimination. Having read Mein Kampf, Shields condemned both its anti-Semitism and its anti-Christianity. He, likewise, dismissed the Aryantheories of the Nazis as being entirely unfounded.45 The Kristallnacht, theinfamous Nazi pogrom organized to terrorize the Jews on 9 November1938, aroused an impassioned sermon from Shields entitled, “When Willthe ‘Jews Enemy,’ the German Haman, Hang on the Gallows Prepared forMordecai?”46 While Shields noted that he could not condone the assassina-tion of a German official in Paris by a Jewish student, such a tragedy didnot warrant the persecution of a people for something for which they hadno responsibility, namely, that they were born Jews.”47

Shields carried his polemic even farther;

. . . by remarking that THE ANTI-SEMITISM AND EXTREMERACIALISM OF OUR DAY ARE UTTERLY ANTI-CHRISTIAN,contrary to the spirit and genius of the religion of the Lord JesusChrist . . . if you allow yourself to take up an attitude of antipathytoward any race, however loudly you may profess your orthodoxy, inattitude and spirit, you are positively anti-Christian . . . This wholenotion of racial superiority is a fiction which flatters human vanity. Iam by no means sure that the boasted “Aryan” purity of the blood that

14 Canadian Baptists and the Jewish Refugee Question

flows in German veins can be absolutely demonstrated . . . Let usremember that the attitude represented by modern Germany and Italy,and a great many people in this country and in the United States – theanti-Jewish, anti-Semitic attitude is anti-Christian. It is not of God .. .48

Shields held that the actions of the German government during theKristnallnacht demanded nothing less than a “universally prevailingindignation” of all peoples and all governments towards “Germany’satrocious treatment of the Jews.”49 He further expressed how “interesting,”“hopeful,” “encouraging” and “thankful” “we ought to be . . . though weare not Jews – to say the nations conferring together to see what can bedone for the exiled Jew . . . May God support those who provide a placeof refuge for people so terribly oppressed . . .”50

Yet, in spite of his acrimonious rhetoric against Hitlerism, racismand anti-Semitism, Shields’ relationship with the Jewish community wasambiguous; he often allowed anti-Jewish (and some would argue anti-Semitic) slurs to enter his sermons. Shields had a reputation as a religiousbigot.51 Viewed in this context, his charges against racism and prejudiceare shallow at best.

Furthermore, unlike most of his fundamentalist associates, Shieldswas against Zionism and the restoration of Jews to Palestine.52 WhileShields’ focus here may have been partially directed at another theologicalenemy of his – dispensationalists – in whose eschatology the restorationof the Jewish state was a significant step to ushering in the millennium, itnevertheless illustrates the ambiguity of his relationship with the Jewishcommunity. Shields was horrified at the treatment of the Jews by theNazis, but his hatred of Nazism had less to do with anti-Semitism andmore to do with the imminent danger Hitlerism posed to the BritishEmpire, its institutions and its values (especially religious liberty), thatShields dearly loved.

Unlike Shields, Watson Kirkconnell was not a clergyman, but anacademic and a scholar. Kirkconnell and Shields strongly despised oneanother.53 Kirkconnell, like Shields, possessed the ability, albeit in prose,to deliver scathing assaults against his enemies, especially communism.54

But if Communism was the major focus of Kirkconnell’s wrath throughoutmuch of the late 1940s and 1950s, Nazism bore the brunt of his onslaughtduring much of the 1930s and early 1940s. Noting that he had been the“first and only Canadian not merely to expose and denounce Hitler andMussolini in Europe, but also to reveal in detail their intrigues against the

Robert R. Smale 15

political life of Canada,” Kirkconnell warned that,

Naziism [sic], like Communism is a dynamic force that is world-widein its activities, and no one who has even caught the perspective of its‘global’ ambitions can forget for a moment the fate that awaits humanliberties if the Brown Terror should ultimately prevail. The nationalinterest of Canada surely includes the defeat of that revolutionaryforce which seeks to impose its brutal mastery, directly or indirectly,on all countries, including our own.55

Yet, like so many others, Kirkconnell initially expressed somereluctance at expressing outright condemnation of Nazism. In a radiolecture delivered on 7 May 1939, Kirkconnell, then President of theBaptist Union of Western Canada, remarked, “in a wholesale condemna-tion of that regime (i.e., Nazis) and all its works, I am not prepared to join.It has done wonders in rehabilitating German industry, in giving new spiritto the youth of the country and in redressing many historic wrongs againstthe nation.”56 While what Kirkconnell stated holds some truth, all this wasaccomplished under the guise of planning another war, and some ofGermany’s industrial recovery in the 1930s was due more to the policiesof previous government administrations than to Hitler’s. Nevertheless, tobe fair to Kirkconnell, he also recognized

it has worked ruthlessly by cold pogrom and concentration camp tosuppress and exterminate every opinion and party differing from thewill of the National Socialist Worker’s Party. Towards the Jew inparticular the regime has been brutal beyond description; but of theestimated million and a half victims of the police policies of the ThirdReich fewer than fifty percent are Jews. Most of these are still inGermany, but subjected to such economic pressure as to make lifeincreasingly impossible. Refuge abroad is imperative, yet the place ofthat refuge is still largely uncertain.57

Kirkconnell was under no delusion about the impending fate of the Jews,and why it was imperative for them to escape from Germany. In thisregard he expressed his utter annoyance at the Canadian government’shandling of the situation.58

Kirkconnell was one of a handful of Christian leaders bold enoughnot merely to lament the treatment of Jews, but also to adopt an active pro-refugee stance. While deploring Hitler as “a savage tyrant whose insatiable

16 Canadian Baptists and the Jewish Refugee Question

ambition will not stop short of world domination,” he asserted that Hitlerhad to be stopped.59 He launched a bold attack against Nazi “reptilianpropaganda,” which had “already insinuated itself into our national life”with its “anti-Semitic virus of race hatred being injected into our veins.”60

The chief source of much of this propaganda was Bernhard Bott’sDeutsche Zeitung fur Canada, which Kirkconnell denounced as “morbidand fantastic.”61

But more than that, Kirkconnell actively supported the work of theCanadian National Committee on Refugees and Victims of PoliticalPersecution. As well, he served as a board member of the Committee onJewish-Gentile Relations. Throughout this period he campaigned andurged the government to alter its policies on refugees so more victims ofNazi persecution could be admitted into Canada. His efforts did not ceasewith the outbreak of hostilities in 1939, even though by that point theywere in vain. As Baptists became aware of the extent of Hitler’s homicidalanti-Semitism,62 Kirkconnell actively campaigned on behalf of theNational Committee in an attempt to once again convince the governmentto alter its stand.63

Throughout the 1930s, Canadian Baptists were kept abreast of thelatest “accounts of the ill-treatment of Jews in Germany.”64 Two eventsaltered the tone and nature of Baptist responses to the plight of Jews inGermany. On 7 November 1938, Herschel Grynszpan, a Polish Jewishstudent, assassinated Ernst vom Rath, a minor German embassy official inParis. This assassination provided Reinhard Heydrich, Head of the SD, thepretext to order in retaliation the destruction of all Jewish places ofworship both in Germany and Austria. In a period of approximately fifteenhours, bands of Nazi thugs systematically destroyed hundreds of syna-gogues and thousands of Jewish owned stores. In addition to countlessarrests, Jews were forced to pay for the damages the Nazis claimed theyhad provoked. This amounted to one billion marks for the assassination ofvom Rath and a further six million marks to cover the cost of the brokenwindows.65 This incident and its aftermath fostered international outrageand unfavourable publicity for the Nazi regime.

The initial reaction of the Canadian Baptist was to a degreeimpertinent in its implying that Grynszpan was somehow responsible forthe persecution of Jews in Germany in the wake of the assassination, whenin reality the assault had long been planned. As the commentator in theCanadian Baptist remarked,

Robert R. Smale 17

perhaps he thought he would be doing his people a fine service by theslaying, but, in reality, he has added immeasurably to their sad lot . .. Probably his action will result in foreign Jews being driven fromGermany – cast adrift in a friendless world once more. Hard has beenthe lot of the Hebrew the ages through; the brainless youth has madeit infinitely more difficult for the race to live. Many people who hadnothing to do with the deed . . . will have to suffer untold hardshipbecause this Polish Jew killed an official of the Nazi regime.66

Not all Baptists shared these sentiments. At least some Baptists werebeginning to realize that indignation, sympathy and prayers were notenough – the plight of European Jews demanded action.67

On 15 May 1939, the luxury liner St. Louis set sail from Hamburgwith 907 “desperate German Jews” on board. These Jews consideredthemselves fortunate because they were escaping the horrors of Hitler’sGermany. Their fortune was to change upon reaching Havana, Cuba on 30May 1939. The Cuban government refused to recognize their entrancevisas and their desperate search to find admittance to another Latin-American country ended in failure. On 2 June, the ship departed Havanaharbour, hoping that either Canada or the United States might grant thementrance. In the end, the ship was forced to return to Europe, where thegovernments of Great Britain, Belgium and Holland finally offered“temporary shelter,” because many would eventually “die in the gaschambers and crematoria of the Third Reich.”68

In referring to this “voyage of the damned,” the Canadian Baptistlamented the plight of Jewish refugees.69 This Jewish tragedy finallyprompted the Baptist Convention of Ontario and Quebec at its GoldenJubilee Convention to pass a resolution imploring the Canadian govern-ment to admit refugees.70 Petitions were sent to the Department ofImmigration urging the government to lower its barriers.71 And individu-als, such as the former President of the Convention F.M. McCutcheon,urged the government to take action. In February 1940, the Social ServiceBoard announced an essay writing contest; one of the four topics was“What Will the Church Offer the European Refugee in Canada?” MissMarjorie Campbell won the contest with her essay entitled, “Canada’sResponsibility For European Refugees.”72 In the end, all the efforts werein vain. Not only did the Canadian government ignore them, but on 1September 1939, war erupted in Europe, which ended any hope for Jewstrying to escape. The appeals on the part of Baptist groups and individualshad simply come too late.

Throughout the 1930s, Canadian Baptists were well informed of thepolitical situation in Europe and of Nazi policies towards Jews not onlythrough their denominational papers but also through various religiousorganizations of which Baptists were members. Many Baptists expressedabhorrence at the utterly brutal and uncivilized actions Hitler and hissupporters directed towards the Jews of Europe. Inevitably, Baptists beganto question the ethics of the Canadian government (who had essentiallybarred Jewish admission), calling for a change in policy so that thesevictims of persecution might find refuge. While Canadian Baptists cancertainly be commended for this, their reactions and responses to thetreatment of Jews was as much motivated by a fear of losing religiousliberty (especially for Baptists in Europe), as it was out of a genuineconcern for Jews. Even as late as 1938, while noting that “Europeannations are harrying the Jews of their territories as if they were gangstersof the vilest types,” the Canadian Baptist asserted,

battles that were thought fought forever may have to be re-fought forthe dearly purchased principle of religious liberty will not besurrendered without a struggle. Perhaps the Baptists, foremost fightersfor this idea in the past, will be required again to gird on their armsand lead in making the world safe; someone apparently mustundertake the task or liberty will perish from the earth.73

Following the Kristallnacht, one Baptist commentator remarked: “thepersecution of the Jews in Germany rightly rouses our indignation andprotest, but what is happening now in Rumania and what has beenhappening to Baptists for the past ten years in Russia is just as bad.”74 Thewriter is admonishing fellow Baptists to keep their focus primarily uponthe sufferings of their religious brethren in Europe to ensure that religiousliberty was preserved.

Evangelistic concerns also remained part of Baptist response to therefugee crisis. Hazel E.R. Bates admonished, “What is the Baptist Churchas an organization doing to get the Gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ to theJews of Canada and of the world?”75 The Canadian Baptist carried a reportin 1939 which graphically recounted the flight of a group of GermanJewish refugees to Belgium. R.M. Stephens, who visited the camp atMerxplas, noted that

while much is being done for the moral and physical welfare of therefugees nothing is being done for their spiritual needs. Belgium is,of course, a Roman Catholic country, and there is a Roman Church onthe premise, so that the matter is not an easy solution. The Jews,

Robert R. Smale 19

moreover, are not especially attracted by this form of religion. Evenif a colporteur, were allowed inside the camp, the refugees have nomoney to buy Gospel and Testaments. For the moment, therefore themost practical means of helping spiritually is to show them that notonly Jews, but Christians also, sympathize with them in their troubles.Then, as opportunity offers, such as when personally visiting thecamps, a Gospel and a kindly word may be given here and there.76

This is not some kind of “afterthought,” as Davies and Nefsky77 assert, butit reflects the traditional evangelistic concern of Baptists in believing thateven in the midst of unimaginable horrors, the Jews’ greatest need wasspiritual conversion.

The Canadian Baptist lamented the fate of the liner St. Louis and itsJewish passengers in 1939. It was this incident and the Kristallnacht thatfinally aroused the passions of Baptists enough that their Conventionsadopted the following (or similar) resolution:

WHEREAS there is still needed, on a vast scale, amelioration of thelot of the refugees and potential refugees, whether Jewish or Gentile,in Europe: AND WHEREAS some steps already have been taken toprovide sanctuary for certain of these refugees in Canada; NOW BEIT RESOLVED that this Baptist Convention do urge upon the propergovernmental authorities the desirability of admitting to Canada ofcarefully selected individuals or groups of refugees, as beingdesirable, not only from humane and ethical standpoints, but alsobecause such immigration should prove a valuable addition to ournational economy, by introducing skilled workers and new arts, craftsand industries. 78

Canadian self-interest clouded the wording of this resolution. The groundsfor the refugees’ admission to Canada would fundamentally rest on theirability to aid Canada economically. Yet, from the point of view ofFrederick Blair, Deputy Minister of Immigration, “certain of their habits”made Jews unassimilable. Nor were they desirable from an ethical orhumane standpoint. They were unsuitable to the immigration needs ofCanada given the existing economic conditions of the 1930s. So whileBaptists may have eventually petitioned their government to admit moreJewish refugees, that government ignored the petition at least partially onthe basis of the criterion it set forth as terms of admission.

Clearly reticence did not characterize the response of Baptists,

whether fundamentalist or liberal, to the plight of European Jews in theyears from 1933-1939. Nevertheless, while some Baptists were vociferant,as was the case with Kirkconnell and Shields, many remained indifferent.Furthermore, though events like Kristallnacht and the St. Louis had sometraumatic effect upon Baptists, and served to heighten awareness of thehorrors being experienced by Jews, neither was able to elicit a massiveoutcry from the rank and file. For Baptists who had themselves once beenvictims of persecution and refugees in search of asylum, this is indeedshameful.

Furthermore, Baptists had the opportunity to exact direct influenceon the nation’s refugee policy, because one of their own co-religionists,Frederick Charles Blair (a church elder) “as director of the ImmigrationBranch of the Department of Mines and Resources . . . made almost all ofthe decisions – no matter how small – concerning who got into Canada.”79

As the individual responsible for the enforcement of Canadian immigra-tion policy, Blair “mirrored the increasingly anti-immigration spirit of histimes.” He believed that, given the present economic conditions, “peopleshould be kept out of Canada instead of being let in.”80 Baptists must,therefore, reflect on the fact that when European Jewry “most needed afriend at the gate, they had an enemy; instead of the philo-Semite theyrequired, they had an anti-Semite; instead of a humanitarian, they got anarrow-minded bureaucrat.”81 Blair’s utter “contempt for the Jews wasboundless,” yet his ideas were entirely compatible with those of theCanadian government, the public at large, and many members of hisdenomination. In the final analysis, responsibility for excluding Jews fromCanada rests with Mackenzie King and his government. Nevertheless, itis disheartening to acknowledge that a religious man – a Baptist – waslargely responsible for the implementation of that policy.

As advocates of religious liberty, Baptists in Canada have notconsistently expressed a concern for human rights issues. Churchecclesiology sometimes hampered such support, while on other issues(e.g., temperance laws) offered no fundamental road blocks to denomina-tional resolutions and actions. Nevertheless, Baptists’ distinctive polity hasmeant that even when denominational resolutions are passed, theirimplementation (and their support) resides with each local congregation.Baptist involvement in broader social issues has therefore largely beendictated on the basis of (local) self interest or evangelistic concerns. As aresult, Baptists have demonstrated not only an insensitivity to many issues,but also a larger pattern of inaction. The lack of a theological frameworkthat not only permitted, but also demanded intervention on behalf of theinterests of the oppressed, is ultimately what limited Baptist responses to

Robert R. Smale 21

1. See I. Abella and H. Troper, None Is Too Many: Canada and the Jews ofEurope, 1933-1948 (Toronto: Lester Publishing Ltd., 1983), XII-XIII.

2. Abella and Troper, None Is Too Many, XI.

3. Abella and Troper, “Canada and the Jewish Refugees, 1933-39,” in TwentiethCentury Canada: A Reader (Toronto: McGraw-Hill Ryerson Ltd., 1986), 258.Under PC 1957, only those immigrants with enough capital to allowthemselves to establish and maintain farms were permitted access, while PC659, banned all non-agricultural immigrants of non-British or non-Americanheritage.

4. Davies and Nefsky, How Silent Were the Churches? Canadian Protestantismand the Jewish Plight During the Nazi Era (Waterloo: Wilfrid LaurierUniversity Press, 1998), 80; and “How Jews Regard Christ,” CanadianBaptist, 4 January 1923, 7.

5. “Holy Ground,” Canadian Baptist, 6 April 1933, 10; and Davies and Nefsky,How Silent Were the Churches? 80.

6. “Why was Jesus a Jew?” Canadian Baptist, 14 December 1933, 6.

7. “Watching Jesus,” The Gospel Witness, 06 July 1933, 4-5; and Davies andNefsky, How Silent Were the Churches? 80.

8. “When a Christian is Not a Christian,” The Gospel Witness, 15 April 1937, 5.

9. “My Beloved is Mine and I am His,” The Gospel Witness and the ProtestantAdvocate, preached 07 November 1937, 05 November 1953, 12-13.

10. “From Many Lands,” Canadian Baptist, 29 June 1933, 11.

11. Robert R. Smale, “‘The Voice of One Crying in the Wilderness’ or VerbalBigotry – T.T.. Shields, The Gospel Witness and Roman Catholicism, 1922-1942,” Historical Papers: Canadian Society of Church History (1997): 16;The Gospel Witness, 06 November 1940, 6; and Canadian Baptist, 05 April1934, 4.

the plight of European Jews in the 1930s. While some prominentindividuals spoke out against such oppression, like Kirkconnell andShields, still others, like Blair, condoned it. Without large scale publicsupport, it is highly unlikely that the Canadian government would havealtered its refugee policy during the 1930s.

Endnotes

12. Davies and Nefsky, How Silent Were the Churches? 81.

13. “Germany and the Jews,” Canadian Baptist, 6 April 1933, 3; “Ill Treatmentof Jews,” Canadian Baptist, 27 April 1933; and “Barring the Jews,”Canadian Baptist, 04 May 1933, 3; In 1933, forty delegates of the UniversalChristian Council for Life and Work met in the city of Novi Sad. The newGerman church organization sent five delegates to present the point of viewof German Christianity under the Hitler regime. The other delegates of theCouncil vigorously protested against “the evil things that are taking place inGermany.” The meeting created a split between the German and non-Germandelegates who withdrew from the meeting. Following a letter from theGerman delegation expressing their desire not only to remain in the Council,but exoneration for the German state and German church, the StockholmStatement was re-affirmed as a basis for continued cooperation. The Council,however, “expressed the anxiety occasioned in all lands [due to] the ruthlesspersecution of the Jews, as well as the complete denial of freedom of thoughtand conscience by the Hitler Government.” The persecution of the Jews by theChurch was acknowledged as “the blackest page in the whole history ofChristianity,” something that all nations and all churches were in the pastresponsible. It was, however, believed that such evil had been “outlived.”However, as Henry A. Atkinson, General Secretary of the Church PeaceUnion and Member of the Executive Committee of the Universal ChristianCouncil for Life and Work added, “this latest outbreak of fanaticism andsavagery, is all the harder to understand and cannot be excused or condoned,even on the grounds of a ‘revolution in Germany’” (“German Jew Problem atNovi Sad,” Canadian Baptist, 12 October 1933, 14).

14. Canadian Baptist, 19 October 1933, 5.

15. “Hitler and Jesus,” Canadian Baptist, 15 February 1934, 3.

16. “From Many Lands,” Canadian Baptist, 29 June 1933, 11.

17. Canadian Baptist, 05 April 1934, 3ff.

18. “The German authorities with full knowledge of the program have given theassurance of volle Verhandlungsfreiheit” ( Canadian Baptist, 21 June 1934,16).

19. Canadian Baptist, 18 January 1934, 15.

20. Canadian Baptist, 16 July 1934, 2; Canadian Baptist, 23 August 1934, 3;Canadian Baptist, 30 August 1934, 2-7; and Canadian Baptist, 06 September1934, 3-5.

21. Canadian Baptist, 06 September 1934, 3.

22. Canadian Baptist, 06 September 1934, 3; Canadian Baptist, 16 August 1934,7; and Baptist Yearbook, 1934, 215-216.

Robert R. Smale 23

23. “Berlin 1934,” Canadian Baptist, 06 September 1934, 3.

24. “Germany and the Jews,” Canadian Baptist, 20 February 1936, 15.

25. “Germany and the Jews,” Canadian Baptist, 20 February 1936, 15.

26. “Dismissal of Jews in Nazi Germany,” Canadian Baptist, 12 April 1934, 14.

27. “Liberty Lives, in the Middle Road,” Canadian Baptist, 13 October 1936, 3.

28. “Ousting Religion,” Canadian Baptist, 02 May 1935, 2.

29. “Democracy and Religion,” Canadian Baptist, 06 August 1936, 15.

30. “Democracy and Religion,” Canadian Baptist, 06 August 1936; “Baptists andReligious Liberty,” Canadian Baptist, 16 March 1938; Canadian Baptist, 16November 1933, 2; “The Baptist Challenge of the Hour,” Canadian Baptist,8-15 July 1937; and “1936 Year of the Dictators,” Canadian Baptist, 07January 1937.

31. “When Jews and Gentiles Sit Together,” Canadian Baptist, 29 October 1936,3. The editor’s comments about the so-called equality of Jews in Britishdominions was a slight exaggeration as they were subject to prejudice thereas well. Two years later, this scenario was re-created when Holy Blossomdedicated its new Temple. Lord Tweedsmuir, Canada’s Governor-General,delivered the address (“This Could Not Happen in Germany,” CanadianBaptist, 02 June 1938, 22).

32. “Crisis and Challenge,” Canadian Baptist, 28 October 1937, 7.

33. “The Truth About Mussolini,” The Gospel Witness, 14 September 1933, 5;and David R. Elliott, “The Intellectual World of Canadian Fundamentalism,1870-1970,” Ph.D. diss., University of British Columbia, 1989, 159-60.Shields admiration for Mussolini seems to have stemmed from the religiousliberty he appeared to grant to Protestant missions in Italy and his expressionof admiration for the British constitution.

34. The Gospel Witness, 14 March, 1935, 3; Shields charged that he would be“ashamed of the flag” if the government gave into Mussolini with respect toEthiopia (The Gospel Witness, 05 September 1935, 4).

35. The Gospel Witness, 12 March 1936, 3; The Gospel Witness, 17 March 1938,1; The Gospel Witness, 27 October 1938, 7; and The Gospel Witness, 29September 1938, 6.

36. “Menace of Pacifism,” The Gospel Witness, 05 July 1934, 4-6; “What WillHappen to Germany,” The Gospel Witness, 26 July 1934, 6-7; and The GospelWitness, 12 March 1936, 2.

37. The Gospel Witness, 04 April 1935, 7; The Gospel Witness, 06 December1934, 7; and The Gospel Witness, 12 March 1936, 2.

38. The Gospel Witness, 04 April 1935, 7.

39. The Gospel Witness, 12 March 1936, 1; The Gospel Witness, 05 September1935; “The Perils of Pacifism,” The Gospel Witness, 19 March 1936, 1; andThe Gospel Witness, 12 March 1936, 1. Shields held that those whose soughtto bring about peace through a reduction in arms were “the worst enemies ofthe Empire,” and that citizens of the Empire would be forced to surrendertheir citizenship “if the counsel of the pacifists had prevailed” (“Saul andJonathan,” The Gospel Witness, 04 May 1933, 5-6; “The Menace of Paci-fism,” The Gospel Witness, 05 July 1934; The Gospel Witness, 05 September1935, 3ff; and “Folly of Pacifism,” The Gospel Witness, 21 May 1936, 5-6).

40. This battle had been raging since the 1920s when Shields broke ranks with theConvention and formed his own Baptist denomination.

41. Shields asserted that modernist impulses were responsible for the “ravings ofHitler and his Lieutenants [and] of a Germanized, Hitlerized religion,” whichhe had predicted more than twenty-five years before, when she let “loose herpoisonous philosophies that polluted the springs of learning in all theuniversities of the world” (“Answering By Fire,” The Gospel Witness, 09November 1933, 4).

42. “Canada’s Duty in View of the World Menace of Hitlerism,” The GospelWitness, 22 September 1938, 4.

43. The Gospel Witness, 02 July 1936, 2.

44. “How God Provides for Refugees,” The Gospel Witness, 24 November 1938,3; “When Will ‘the Jews’ Enemy,’ the German Haman, Hang on the GallowsPrepared for Mordecai?” The Gospel Witness, 17 November 1938, 6; and“Amazing Credulity,” The Gospel Witness, 09 February 1939, 2ff.

45. The Gospel Witness, 17 September 1936, 5; and “When Will ‘the Jews’Enemy . . .” 4.

46. Davies and Nefsky note this sermon was delivered at Massey Hall, as theJarvis Church had been recently damaged by fire, which many in thecongregation felt was set by Nazi sympathizers (How Silent Were theChurches? 83).

47. “When Will ‘the Jews’ Enemy . . .” 6; see similar remarks in “How GodProvides For the Refugees,” The Gospel Witness, 24 November 1938, 3.

48. “When Will ‘the Jews’ Enemy . . .” 4-5.

49. “How God Provides for Refugees,” The Gospel Witness, 24 November 1938,3.

Robert R. Smale 25

50. “How God Provides for Refugees,” 5.

51. In one of his many attacks against Roman Catholics he asserted, “I do nottrust them. Bigotry? All right. I will rest under the accusation. Intolerant?Very well, I am intolerant . . .” (“Shall Rome Be Permitted to Make a Spainof Canada?” The Gospel Witness, 21 July 1938, 8).

52. “Palestine and the Jews,” The Gospel Witness and the Protestant Advocate,10 February 1944, 5.

53. W. Kirkconnell, A Slice of Canada (Toronto: University of Toronto Press,1967), 196.

54. W. Kirkconnell, The Red Foe of Faith (n.p., n.d.), 2.

55. W. Kirkconnell, Canada, Europe and Hitler (Toronto: Oxford Press, 1939),190. As he stated earlier in the book, “even more than Communism, Naziism(sic) is today a force seeking to dominate the world through revolution . . .Thesymbol of the Nazi world revolution is the concentration camp, the livinggrave of civil and religious liberty” (5-6).

56. W. Kirkconnell, “Canada and the Refugees,” Canadian Baptist, 25 May 1939,14.

57. Kirkconnell, “Canada and the Refugees,” 4, 16.

58. Kirkconnell, “Canada and the Refugees,” 14-16.

59. Kirkconnell, Canada, Europe and Hitler, 7.

60. Kirkconnell, Canada, Europe and Hitler, 189; and W. Kirkconnell, Canadi-ans All – A Primer of Canadian National Unity (Ottawa: The Director ofPublic Information, 1941), 39-40.

61. Kirkconnell, Canada, Europe and Hitler, 123. See also his comments onconcerning Hitler’s racial theories and policies (10-11).

62. “They Were Not Just Foreigners,” Canadian Baptist, 01 February 1943; and“Men and Affairs,” Canadian Baptist, 01 July 1943.

63. W. Kirkconnell, “Canada and the Refugee Problem,” Canadian Baptist, 01January 1944, 2. See also his poem “Agony of Israel,” which lamented theJewish martyrdom in Europe and deplored the unwillingness of NorthAmerica to accept other than a handful of Jewish refugees (A Slice of Canada,273).

64. “Hitler and Jesus,” Canadian Baptist, 15 February 1934; “Dr. Hoffman onGermany,” Canadian Baptist, 14 March 1935; “Germany and the Jews,”Canadian Baptist, 20 February 1936; “Moose Jaw and the Jews,” CanadianBaptist, 01 December 1938; “Favorite Game of Europe is Baiting the Jews,”Canadian Baptist, 14 April 1938; and “The Plight of Jewish Refugees,”Canadian Baptist, 15 June 1939.

65. Louis L. Snyder, “Kristallnacht,” Encyclopedia of the Third Reich (NewYork: Paragon House, 1976), 201.

66. Lewis F. Kipp, “I See in the Papers,” Canadian Baptist, 17 November 1938,2. The commentator was at least right in recognizing that the Jews werelargely friendless in the world.

67. The resolution was put forth by the Baptist World Alliance at their Congressheld in Atlanta, Georgia (“Baptist Alliance and Anti-Semitism,” CanadianBaptist, 29 December 1938, 2).

68. Abella and Troper, “ ‘The Line Must Be Drawn Somewhere’: Canada and theJewish Refugees, 1933-39,” in Twentieth Century Canada: A Reader(Toronto: McGraw-Hill Ryerson Ltd., 1986), 256.

69. “The Plight of Jewish Refugees,” Canadian Baptist, 15 June 1939, 3.

70. Baptist Yearbook, 1939, 78. The Baptist Union of Western Canada and theUnited Baptist Convention of the Maritime Provinces passed similarresolutions (“Convention of the Baptist Union of Western Canada, 11-14 July1939 – Broadway First Baptist Church,” Western Baptist, October 1939, 7-8;and The United Baptist Yearbook of the Maritime Provinces, 02 September1939, 19). Also the resolution passed by the Canadian National Council of theWorld Alliance for International Friendship endorsed by the ExecutiveCommittee of the Christian Social Council of Canada, Canadian Baptist, 20-27 July 1939, 13. Note the tone of the statement “we warn our Governmentthat no nation can successfully prosecute a holy crusade today when its ownhands are stained with the blood of the innocent, and when it puts consider-ations of trade above those of law, sworn obligation and internationalmorality.” The various Baptist Conventions continued to pass various refugeeresolutions throughout the war (Canadian Baptist, 01 July 1940, 2; “Support-ing Jews Claims,” Canadian Baptist, 13 February 1944, 3; Baptist Yearbook,1940, 362; Baptist Yearbook, 1941, 208; and “On Refugees and DPS,” BaptistYearbook, 1945/46, 54).

71. “Social Service Board Report – Golden Jubilee Convention,” CanadianBaptist, 15 June 1939, 5.

72. “Baptist Social Service Board Essay Contest,” Canadian Baptist, 01 February1940, 5; and “Winners in Essay Contest,” Canadian Baptist, 01 October 1940,2.

Robert R. Smale 27

73. “Baptists and Religious Liberty,” Canadian Baptist, 10 March 1938, 5; and“Dr. Rushbrooke at Convention,” Canadian Baptist, 30 June 1938, 4.

74. “Baptist Preacher Jailed in Romania,” Canadian Baptist, 29 December 1938,6; Canadian Baptist, 03 November 1938, 6; and E. Gill, “Romanian Baptistsat Last Ditch,” Canadian Baptist, 03 November 1938, 14.

75. “Baptists and the Jews,” Canadian Baptist, 17 March 1938, 12.

76. R.M. Stephens, “In a Jewish Refugee Camp,” Canadian Baptist, 16 March1939, 11.

77. Davies and Nefsky, How Silent Were the Churches? 91.

78. Baptist Yearbook, 1939, 78-79. See also the Social Services Board’s Reportcalling for the admission of “good settlers”(Baptist Yearbook, 1939, 199-200).

79. Abella and Troper, “ ‘The Line Must Be Drawn Somewhere’: Canada and theJewish Refugees,” 258-259.

80. Abella and Troper, None Is Too Many, 7.

81. Abella and Troper, None Is Too Many, 7.