The Meilman Virtual Classroom

Lesson Ten: Jewish and World Response

About this lesson

Few countries (notably the Dominican Republic, which offered to accept 100,000 Jews as agricultural settlers, and England, which allowed for the entry of young Jewish children on the Kindertransport) made special provisions for Jewish war refugees in the 1930s. The United States had strict immigration policies, with no special provisions for refugees. The majority of Americans were opposed to allowing more immigrants into the United States, and very few Jews were rescued from the Nazi forces. In Lesson Ten of the Museum of Jewish Heritage Holocaust Curriculum, students will explore a letter written by a Jewish teenager asking for refuge and consider the world’s response to the refugee crisis during the Holocaust.

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