Jewish Island in Europe

Mario

I have read several times that Nazis considered to deport Jews massively to an isolated place, maybe an island, and they even considered Madagascar for that purpose. Obviously it was discarded as it was logistically too challenging and expensive.

But what if they have considered something more realistic like Bornholm or the Estonian Islands? Would they have become a Israel-like state after War or it would have been disbanded anyway?
 
LSCatilina

LSCatilina

Considering the jewish population, and the size of these islands, it would turn quickly to a giant gettho ridden with disease and starvation at best, a roofless death camp more likely.
 

Mario

LSCatilina said:
Considering the jewish population, and the size of these islands, it would turn quickly to a giant gettho ridden with disease and starvation at best, a roofless death camp more likely.
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Yes, I haven't said that this would be good, considering that this was a Nazi idea. But probably the number of survivors would have been higher than with OTL atrocious 'solutions'.
 

Lindseyman

Corsica? Channel Islands? However with this idea you're having someone other than Nazis dealing with the Jews.
As mentioned above it's still horrible.
 
Michel Van

Michel Van

Lindseyman said:
Corsica? Channel Islands? However with this idea you're having someone other than Nazis dealing with the Jews.
As mentioned above it's still horrible.
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the "Idea" was to deport THIRTEEN million jews to Madagascar
How far this Idea was real is unclear, it could be just a propaganda game to calm down the masse and victims.
because Hitler book "Mein Kampf" is clearly about fate of Jews : Exterminate them together with east Europeans and russians.
and the Maniacs at SS take this quote from this book word-for-word
 
Tom Colton

Tom Colton

Any decision to deport the Jews as opposed to exterminating them probably butterflies away Heydrich's death, so wherever they stayed, they most probably would be living life by his commands, given how he butted into the planning for the Madagascar idea. So, not exactly the best of outcomes either.
 

1940LaSalle

It almost makes one wonder why the Nazis didn't decide to deport European Jews to the Middle East: wasn't there a League of Nations mandate in the area that is now Israel? Assuming I'm recalling that correctly, that deportation could have possibly established Israel maybe ten to fifteen years earlier, with the caveat that the Nazis would have ignored nascent Israel as a nation. As ironic as it sounds, it beats the alternatives of OTL...
 
Tom Colton

Tom Colton

1940LaSalle said:
It almost makes one wonder why the Nazis didn't decide to deport European Jews to the Middle East: wasn't there a League of Nations mandate in the area that is now Israel? Assuming I'm recalling that correctly, that deportation could have possibly established Israel maybe ten to fifteen years earlier, with the caveat that the Nazis would have ignored nascent Israel as a nation. As ironic as it sounds, it beats the alternatives of OTL...
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Palestinians were rioting due to the influx of Jewish immigration, and the Nazis really didn't want an independent Jewish state (funded with the German money the Jews brought over) as they realised it'd give the Jews political capital in the future.
 
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Simon

Simon

1940LaSalle said:
It almost makes one wonder why the Nazis didn't decide to deport European Jews to the Middle East: wasn't there a League of Nations mandate in the area that is now Israel? Assuming I'm recalling that correctly, that deportation could have possibly established Israel maybe ten to fifteen years earlier, with the caveat that the Nazis would have ignored nascent Israel as a nation. As ironic as it sounds, it beats the alternatives of OTL...
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There was indeed a Mandatory Palestine that was being administered by the British. As Tom said though the local Arab community was already angry over what they saw as the prospect of 'outside' mass Jewish immigration that could potentially push them out, understandable when you consider the various Zionist organisations. The British instituted immigration controls and even had the Royal Navy performing the Palestine Patrol to turn back or seize ships trying to transport illegal immigrants. The idea of mass Jewish immigration is going to go down about as well as an outbreak of the clap in a nunnery amongst a large part of the local population.
 

SunDeep

Banned
Evan said:
So... pick a bigger island?
Like, maybe, Britain?

[ducks and covers]
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Nah. Iceland might be more interesting- perhaps after the German occupation of Denmark? Or for a more convenient, advantageous candidate from a Nazi German perspective, the Svalbard Archipelago, after the German occupation of Norway, but before the start of Operation Barbarossa? Put them to good use in those coal mines, fueling the war effort instead of weakening it by sucking in war funds...
 
black angel

black angel

if anything trying to deport all of the 9 million or so Jews that came under the Nazis power in WWII to one (or even a handful) Island would be worse then what happened in OTL, in OTL they at lest had the motivation to keep some alive as slaves, if they don't use them as slave labor I don't think the Nazis would see a reason to feed them, also Bornholm is only 228 square miles, thats 39,474 people per-square mile, with no housing, hospitals, food etc

plus why would the Nazis want to give up Nordic land in the heart of Europe to Jews?
 

manav95

Banned
Maybe they could be deported to Britain. Have Britain sue for peace in 1941-1942 and then the Germans can hand over all the Jews to the British. The British could send some over to India, South Africa, Canada, and Australia. The US could take a couple million Jews. The rest could remain as refugees in Britain until another country agrees to take them.
 

eliphas8

The problem is that there aren't any convenient islands that aren't Germanic owned, possible Lebensraum, or owned by their allies. I mean if I was playing pin the Zion on the Afro-Eurasia I would personally pick Salonika but thats probably out of the question.
 

LordKalvan

All these numbers are out by an order of magnitude at least.
Jewish immigration to USA was subject to a quota system up to 1941. From December 1941 to 1944 no refugees from central and eastern Europe were accepted.
After 1944 Roosevelt tried to increase the quota of Jewish displaced persons (DP) allowed into the USA, but over the period 1944-1951 only 137,000 Jewish DPs were accepted. There is an interesting article on USA policies at http://www.ushmm.org/wlc/en/article.php?ModuleId=10007094
UK accepted only 50,000 DPs (out of which the Jewish DPs were around 20%)
Before the war there were quotas and also the British Jewish Council was very cautious in sponsoring Jewish immigration for fear of a surge of anti-semitism.
Canada had immigration quotas from 1924 to the end of WW2. There was some release of these quotas after WW2 and about 40,000 Jewish DPs migrated to Canada between 1945 and 1951.
Post WW1 there was a surge of anti-semitism in South Africa and Jewish immigration (within a quota system) was around 1,000/year.
In 1938-39 there was the idea of re-locate Jewish settlers to the Tati district in Botswana. After a lot of to and from, nothing came out of this idea since WW2 started. Anyway the target was to re-locate 200 families (say 1,000 persons including children) and the settlers were expected to have agricultural skills and the capacity to put 200 acres under plow in the first two years of settlement (which also required some capital). http://www.ubrisa.ub.bw/bitstream/handle/10311/1160/Makgala_BNR_2006.pdf?sequence=1
Between 1929 and 1939 250,000 Jews migrated to the British Mandate of Palestine (174,000 in just 3 years - 1933 to 1936). In 1939 the British set up a quota of 75,000 Jews allowed to migrate to Palestine over the next 5 years (there had been serious riots in the Mandate over the large number of Jewish migrants). Another 110,000 migrated to Palestine illegally between 1933 and 1948.
After the proclamation of the State of Israel in 1948 the immigration of Jews was no more restricted and 680,000 DPs migrated to Israel between 1948 and 1951 (roughly 2/3 from Europe and 1/3 from the Arab world): it was an incredible achievement since the Israeli population in 1948 was just 650,000. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aliyah
Australia had a quota of 5,000 Jewish immigrants per year (and was not so eager to accept them anyway; there were a lot of qualifications to be accepted within the quota and certainly Australia was not eager to accept refugees). Roughly 40,000 Jews migrated to Australia between 1938 and 1961. http://web.wm.edu/so/monitor/issues/15-1/2-kepple.pdf
 

thaddeus

Donor
assume whatever policy Nazi Germany employs is going to be to benefit them not the Jewish population.

POSSIBLE that they try to create problems for the Brits? allow Crete to become Jewish territory with the full knowledge that most of the refugees are going to try to transit further to Palestine Mandate?

possible Axis could have captured Cyprus also if they had not had the N.African comic opera, that could have been declared Jewish territory, complicating any British attempt to attack.

the vast majority of Jews would remain in Europe though, possible to convert Bialystok (?) and Minsk (?) to factory cities, population survives if they become indispensable , as Lodz did for a period.
 
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