Jews Escaping From German-occupied Europe

After Adolf Hitler came into power in 1933, Jews began to escape German-occupied Europe.

Germany and Austria

In 1933, Hitler and the Jewish League agreed to the Haavara Agreement in which, over time, German Jews and their finances could and would settle in Mandatory Palestine. Furthermore, the Havaara Mark was used instead of the Deutschmark, because of its lower interest rates, and it was seen as more favourable. By the end of 1933, of the 600,000 German Jews, 100,000 had already emigrated to Palestine. Following this, they discouraged emigration by restricting the amount of money Jews could take from German banks and imposed high emigrations taxes. The German government forbade emigration from the Greater Germanic Reich after October 1941. The German Jews who remained, about 163,000 in Germany and less than 57,000 from annexed Austria, were mostly elderly who were murdered in ghettos or taken to Nazi concentration camps, where most were murdered. Jews were able to leave Vichy France until the fall of 1942.

Although Jews could initially leave Nazi Germany with ease, it was difficult to find countries that would take them, particularly after the initial wave of immigrants in Europe, Britain, and the United States had been accepted. One of the reasons that emigration was so difficult was that it began during the Great Depression.
Following the Anschluss, the annexation of Austria to Germany in 1938, and forced emigration deepened the refugee crisis, the Évian Conference was held in France to explore options for countries to emigrate to, but the key outcome of the conference was that it proved that forced emigration would not solve the problem. Another was a concern that there might be pro-Nazi spies among the refugees.

It was also difficult to get out of Europe. After the war started, there were few ships that left European ports. Lisbon was a neutral port, however, from which refugees could still travel.

Occupied countries

Denmark

In October 1943, 7,000 Danish Jews, and 700 of their relatives who were not Jewish, escaped Nazi-occupied Denmark for neutral Sweden, as was coordinated by the Danish resistance movement. They travelled to Malmö, Sweden across the Øresund Channel.

France, Luxembourg, Belgium, and The Netherlands

Many of the French, Luxembourgian, Belgian, and Dutch Jews were protected by their Country's resistances, hid in secret locations that were hard to find for the Nazis, and fled to the United Kingdom, Free France (Algeria), Sweden, Switzerland, Spain, Portugal, Canada, and the United States.

Germany and Austria

Hitler came to power in Germany in 1933, when there were about 523,000 German Jews (<1% of the population) in the country. Subject to threats and persecution, Jews began to emigrate from that point until the start of World War II. In Austria, more than 50% of the Jews had left the country by May 1939, following Adolf Eichmann