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derived population. An Immigrants Selection Board was empowered to admit or bar
entry to any immigrant who was not of British or Irish extraction. While 3,615 German
Jews entered the Union of South Africa during 1933-1936, following the enactment of
this bill only 1,900 managed to gain entrance during 1937-1940. 26 Seizure of Jewish
passports by the German Government also led to greater pressures (and larger obstacles
preventing migration) upon Jews to leave the country.
The period of March-November1938 has been described as a “crucial milestone”
in the history of Central European Jewry and represented the third stage in emigration
from the Reich. (The fourth phase of emigration, commencing with Kristallnacht, will
not be considered within the context of this paper.) It marked the cathartic moment in
time when a majority of German (and later Austrian and Czech) Jews at last recognized
that their continued existence within the bounds of the Reich was no longer tenable.
Involuntary emigration, oftentimes to points unknown, became the only alternative to
potential “annihilation.” 1938 also represented for the German leadership a major
turning point because the official policy of forcibly exiling Jews and non-Aryans was
proceeding too slowly. Involuntary migration was hampered in large part by the Nazi
seizure of financial assets and businesses that increasingly disenfranchised and ultimately
impoverished the would-be émigrés, thus diminishing their value as desirable immigrants
and potential citizens. The barriers to both exit and entry proliferated creating a pool of
26 Richard S. Levy, ed., Anti-Semitism: A Historical Encyclopedia of Prejudice and Persecution, vol. 2,
(Santa Barbara, CA: ABC-CLIO, Inc., 2005), 672.
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