ABSTRACT
This chapter examines in detail two specific cases in which the Latin American countries were collectively called upon to take a major part in the solution of the refugees’ problem, looking particularly at their willingness to receive Jewish refugees. In contrast to the nations of the “southern cone,” which for long or short periods of their modern history had tried to attract masses of European immigrants, the other Latin American countries did not have liberal immigration policies. The apparent willingness of the Latin American countries to accept Jewish refugees suggests that they were ready to overcome many difficulties in order to comply with their humanitarian impulse to help the suffering refugees. The sympathetic comments of the Ecuadorian representative regarding the willingness of his country to accept Jewish refugees also veiled a more contradictory reality. Latin America’s attitude toward the Jewish refugees has thus been revealed at an important point in Holocaust history.
