Nazis Had Blueprint for an American Holocaust

Canada's national archive has acquired what may be the blueprint for a Holocaust that never happened—the one in North America, the Guardian reports. Bought from an American bookseller for $4,500, Statistics, Media, and Organizations of Jewry in the United States and Canada by German researcher Heinz Kloss meticulously lists US and Canadian Jews, along with their ethnic backgrounds, spoken languages, and cities of residence. "How would a report like this have been used had the Nazis won the war and taken administrative control of North America?" archive curator Michael Kent asks the Globe & Mail. "This information would have been the building blocks to a rolling out of the final solution in Canada, allowing perpetrators of the Holocaust to know what cities to go to to find Jewish people, and how many Jews to round up."

While many Holocaust museums won't buy Nazi memorabilia—preferring not to risk glorifying the perpetrators—Kent says the 1944 book, likely taken from Hitler's personal collection, is an important reminder of the past. It also comes at a time of rising anti-Semitism in Canada, where publishers of a Holocaust-denying newspaper were found guilty Thursday of promoting hatred against Jews and women, per the Toronto Star. "I'm still fighting Nazis and white supremacists in ways that I never dreamed I'd be doing in retirement," says a Canadian activist. "When I go into schools I see young people who have not been taught the lessons of the past." The book went on display Saturday to commemorate International Holocaust Remembrance Day. (Holocaust photos that went unnoticed for decades have been found.)