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106 pages. 245 x 153 mm. Before the outbreak of World War II there were a handful of Jews in the capital, Georgetown, but there was neither an organized community nor a synagogue. Early in 1939, 165 Jewish refugees from Europe, who arrived on the S.S. Koenigstein (see page 90 of this book), were not permitted to disembark, and shortly thereafter the government barred immigration. In 1939, in the wake of the failure of the Evian Conference on the German refugee problem and in view of Britain's intention to severely restrict Jewish immigration to Palestine (see the White Paper), Britain proposed her crown colony Guyana as a site for Jewish immigration and settlement. Thus, in February 1939, an international investigating committee under the auspices of the Inter-Governmental Commission on Refugees, formed at Evian, arrived in the country to explore the proposed area. The land under consideration consisted of approximately 42,000 sq. mi. in the forest and swamp region of the interior. Neither the coastal region, which comprises 4% of the area of British Guyana but holds 90% of the country's population, nor the open region adjacent to it, were included in the proposed area. The committee stated that although the region was not ideal for the settlement of European immigrants, the quality of the soil, the availability of important minerals, and the climatic and health conditions did not preclude their settlement. The committee proposed a two-year trial period during which 3,000-5,000 sturdy young people with professional training would be sent to the region to test the practicality and the advisability of large-scale investment and development. The British plan for Jewish settlement in British Guyana was made just to gain political points. The same region was investigated in 1935 by an international commission and found unsuitable for the settlement of 20,000 Assyrians suffering persecution in Iraq. Not only had the commission stated unanimously that the region was unsuitable for settlement, but also its conclusion had been accepted by the British government itself. However, in May 1939, before British policy on Palestine was officially proclaimed in the White Paper, the British government published the report of its own investigating committee which found British Guyana to be a place for possible settlement. Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain announced that Jewish settlement in British Guyana would bring the establishment of a new community which would enjoy a large measure of autonomy and representation in the government of the colony. After stabbing the Jews in the back in their Mandatory Palestine colony, the British proposed this new program and described it as a "New Balfour Declaration" and as a plausible alternative to the Jewish National Home in Palestine. The only Jewish organization which was seriously involved in the British Guyana scheme was the American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee on whose behalf Joseph A. Rosen participated in the inquiry commission. Thanks to the British and Americans and Canadians et al, millions of Jews who were desperate to leave Europe and who could have easily and productively settled in the Americas or elsewhere, were murdered in the gas chambers and though other means. It is not only the Germans, Poles, Ukrainians, Lithuanians, etc who had blood on their hands. Guyana today has a Jewish population of c. 40 people and zero synagogues. Its Jewish population would have been ten-thousand fold greater today, Seller Inventory # 013683
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