ABSTRACT
Holocaust survivors immigrated to Mexico in much smaller numbers than to other Latin American countries. Existing studies point to a highly restrictive and selective immigration policy by the Mexican government towards Jewish immigrants that resulted from prevailing notions of miscegenation and antisemitism. In spite of this, national and community narratives framed decades later have long emphasized the idea of Mexico as a country of “open doors” and a “welcoming society”. This is based on other asylum experiences such as the one of Republican Spaniards (30s–40s) and decades later, the political exiles from the Southern Cone. A feeling of gratitude is also part of this meta narrative. This chapter analyses the extent to which individual memories of Holocaust survivors are related to, complement or contradict national and community narratives of open doors and welcoming society. It includes stories of Holocaust survivors who immigrated to Mexico since the rise of Nazism, during the war and in the post-war years. It analyses testimonies and memoirs of a diverse population of survivors that show a more complex story than what is generally known. Their narratives are part of several oral history collections, as well as bibliographic and archival sources.
