Trudeau apologizes for Canada rejecting ship filled with Jewish refugees in 1939

Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau issued a formal apology on Wednesday for the government's decision in 1939 to send a ship carrying 907 German Jews back to Europe, where more than 250 of the passengers died in concentration camps.

"We let anti-Semitism take hold in our communities and become our official policy," Trudeau said while speaking to Parliament. "To harbor such hatred and indifference toward the refugees was to share in the moral responsibility for their deaths." The MS St. Louis was first rejected by Cuba and the United States before it headed to Canada. Adolf Hitler "watched on as we refused their visas, ignored their letters, and denied them entry," Trudeau said, adding that there is "little doubt" this emboldened the Nazis.

Only about 5,000 Jewish refugees were allowed to come into Canada between 1933 and 1945, The Associated Press reports. The MS St. Louis arrived not long after Kristallnacht, "The Night of Broken Glass," when Nazis burned 250 synagogues, destroyed homes and businesses owned by Jewish people, and murdered at least 91 people.

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