APOLOGY IN WORKS FOR JEWISH REFUGEES

OTTAWA • The federal Liberals are working on an apology for Canada’s decision in 1939 to turn away a boatload of German Jews hoping to seek asylum in Canada.

Some wanted the apology for the MS St. Louis to come with Wednesday’s inauguration of the National Holocaust Monument in Ottawa, but Prime Minister Justin Trudeau made only passing reference to the incident in his speech for the occasion.

From the monument, Trudeau noted, it is possible to see the Peace Tower. But that’s also a reminder that Canada has not always been a welcoming nation. “May this monument remind us to always open our arms and our hearts to those in need.”

The ship had 900 Jews aboard when it was turned away from Cuba and the United States.

A group of Canadians tried to convince then-prime minister Mackenzie King’s government to let it dock in Halifax.

While history records King trying to convince Frederick Blair — his immigration minister at the time — to consider their plea, the minister ultimately refused.

The ship returned to Europe. While some passengers were taken in by Belgium, France, Holland and the U.K., about 500 ended up back in Germany, half of whom did not survive the Holocaust.

Trudeau sent a strong signal earlier this year that the government is considering the idea.

When asked during a New York Times interview in June how Canada avoids anti-immigrant sentiment, Trudeau said Canada must acknowledge times in its history when it wasn’t a welcoming county.

He raised the MS St. Louis incident as one example among others, such as Canada’s refusal to accept a shipload of Sikhs aboard the Komagata Maru in 1914, or the internment of Japanese citizens during the Second World War — two cases that have since elicited formal apologies.

Sources, who aren’t authorized to speak publicly on the matter, told the Canadian Press work is ongoing to formalize the MS St. Louis apology and determine when best to deliver it.

Shimon Koffler Fogel, CEO of the Centre for Israel and Jewish Affairs, said Wednesday that securing an apology for the MS St. Louis incident “has long been a priority” for his group.

“We’ve been engaged in productive conversations with parliamentarians on this issue and are grateful that Prime Minister Trudeau recognized this dark chapter in our history at the unveiling of the National Holocaust Monument earlier today,” he said.

“Only by acknowledging our past mistakes can we ensure that in the future, our country will stand for what is right.”

The idea for a Holocaust monument was sparked in 2007 by a University of Ottawa student who complained Canada was the only Allied nation without such a monument.

The Conservative government took up the cause — a private member’s bill allowing for the monument was one of the last to get royal assent before the Tory minority was defeated in a no-confidence vote in 2011.

The estimated $8.95-million cost of the site is being split by the government and private donors.

The prime minister met with Holocaust survivors who toured the stark concrete structure with him.

“I am gratified to be a witness today to this momentous occasion when Canada unveils a striking and evocative monument to the Holocaust,” said Eva Kuper, 76. “It is a fitting tribute to the victims, the survivors, and to the Canadians who took part in defeating the Nazis.”

Kuper, of Montreal, was two years old when she was ordered with her mother from Poland’s Warsaw Ghetto to a train station where they were to board a cattle car for Treblinka. At the last moment, however, a relative intervened — she said Eva was her child — and Eva was passed out of the packed car hand-over-hand. She was returned to her father, Antek, in the Warsaw Ghetto and they later escaped through the sewer system.

Her mother, Fela, was killed by the Nazis within an hour of arriving at the Treblinka extermination camp.

The star-shaped monument stands across from the Canadian War Museum, and is the largest one built in the capital in more than 70 years.

Titled Landscape of Loss, Memory and Survival, the monument features six triangular concrete structures that create the points of a star, along with Burtynsky’s large, monochromatic photos of Holocaust sites.