Rare book find reveals Adolf Hitler 'planned to extend Holocaust to the US and Canada'
A book once owned by Adolf Hitler contains hints that he planned to extend the Holocaust to North America.
The discovery shows that the Nazi leader may have been contemplating an extension of the “Final Solution” to the US and Canada.
The 137-page report, Statistik, Presse und Organisationen des Judentums in den Vereinigten Staaten und Kanada (Statistics, Media, and Organisations of Jewry in the United States and Canada), was written in 1944 by Nazi researcher Heinz Kloss.
It contains details on the Jewish population of North American cities such as New York and Montreal, as well as smaller Jewish communities throughout the two nations.
Our recent acquisition of a 1944 book previously owned by Adolf
Hitler demonstrates our mandate to acquire items of historic relevance to
Canada. This item suggests what would have happened in Canada had the #SWW ended differently. pic.twitter.com/38Q1UCNtWZ— LibraryArchivesCanada (@LibraryArchives) January 23, 2019
The Final Solution was the code name for the Nazis’ goal of committing genocide against the Jewish people. They killed about 6 million Jews during the Holocaust, mostly from Europe.
The book, which was once owned by a Holocaust survivor, has been acquired by the Library and Archives of Canada.
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“This invaluable report offers a documented confirmation of the fears felt so acutely and expressed by so many Canadian Jews during the Second World War: that the Nazis would land on our shores and with them, the annihilation of Jewish life here,” said Rebecca Margolis, president of the Association for Canadian Jewish Studies.
“While these fears may seem unfounded given the geographic distance of Nazi Europe to Canada, this handbook offering detailed statistics of Jewish populations across North America underlines their nightmarish potential.”
Kloss was a Nazi researcher who lived in the US between 1936 and 1937. Hitler is said to have had a library of thousands of books.
It is believed the book was brought to the US as a souvenir by a soldier who raided Hitler’s alpine retreat near Berchtesgaden in 1945.
It was later acquired from a respected Judaica dealer, who obtained it from the collection of a Holocaust survivor.
Library and Archives of Canada curator Michael Kent said: ”While this is certainly a creepy item, the decision to acquire it was simple.
“The chance to acquire an item like this reminds us of the role we play in ensuring the memory of the Holocaust is preserved.”
The find comes after a poll found that one in 20 UK adults does not believe the Holocaust took place, while one in 12 believes its scale has been exaggerated.
The poll of 2,000 people was carried out by the Holocaust Memorial Day Trust.
On Sunday, hundreds of thousands of people, including survivors, politicians and members of the public, gathered to mark Holocaust Memorial Day and remember its 6 million Jewish victims.
