1)1940 U.S. Congress rejects Bill to open Alaska to Jewish refugees.
2)1943 British Government rejects the appeal by the Archbishop of Canterbury to abandon the quota system.
3) 1938 At Evian the nations of the world failed to agree on even a partial "open door" policy for Jewish refugees. The Australian delegate told the conference: "It will no doubt be appreciated that as we have no racial problem, we are not desirous of importing one."
4) 1941 U.S. tightens quota system. Congress rejects proposal to admit 20 000 German Jewish children above the quota limits.
5) 1940 U.S. State Department rejects Swedish proposal for joint rescue of 20 000 Jewish children from Germany.
6) In 1917 Britain promised the Jews a "National Home" in Palestine. But in May 1939, following protests from Egypt, Syria, Yemen, Iraq and from the Muslims of India, the British not only introduced severe restrictions on Jewish immigration, but also put pressure on the German, Greek, Yugoslav, Bulgarian and Turkish Governments not to allow "illegal" immigrants into Palestine. As a result of this policy, tens of thousands of Jews lost the chance to reach
Palestine, a land in which the League of Nations had specifically given them the right to buy land, to settle on waste land, to till the soil, and to contribute by their own efforts to its economic prosperity. Many of those who were unable to emigrate perished during the Nazi holocaust.
7) Birobidjan, the "Jewish Autonomous Region" of the Soviet Union, set up in 1934, but closed during the war to refugees from European Russia.
8) Shanghai accepted more Jewish refugees than those taken in by Canada, Australia, New Zealand, South Africa and India combined.
9) The United States and Britain, while allowing in a fairly large number of refugees, maintained strict quota systems which excluded many more.
10) 5000 visas issued by the Dominican Republic enabled many Jews to escape death by using these visas elsewhere.
11) Jews deported by the British from Palestine while seeking "illegal entry". They were allowed to enter Palestine in 1945.
12) 1933-1935 Unrestricted immigration to South Africa. Then almost no Jews allowed in from 1936 to 1945.
13) Some 800 000 Jews, less than one in seven of the Jews murdered, were able to escape from Nazi-dominated Europe or to find refuge in other lands. Their escape was often hampered because no country would take them in. Many countries, some like India, with large areas of empty land, refused to allow more than a few families to enter.
14) 24 February 1942. The ship "Struma", with 769 Jewish refugees on board having been refused permission by the British to enter Palestine, and being forced back towards Bulgaria by the Turks, sank in the Bosphorus with the loss of all but one passenger.
15) January 1939 Anglo-American suggestion that Jewish refugees go to Angola not followed up for fear of offending Portugal.
16)1939-1945 Jewish immigration to Peru limited to 300 a year.
17) May 1939 Cuban, Colombian, Chilean and U.S. governments refuse to admit 900 German Jewish refugees on the "St.Louis". They returned to Europe. Many later perished in the Nazi death camps.
18) 1937 Severe refugee restrictions introduced in Mexico.