Chapter Four
Anti-Semitism and Philo-Semitism?

Few intragovernmental conflicts aroused as much passion, or focused as much attention, as did Jewish immigration during 1939. Over four thousand Jews entered Brazil in that year, more than in any year since 1929.^[1] The marked increase should not suggest that prejudices against Jews and Jewish immigrants and refugees disappeared. Indeed, traditional images of Jews—urban based, nonfarming, financially oriented, and internationally powerful—that had been the basis for so much Jew hatred were, in late 1938 and early 1939, increasingly viewed as indicators of Jewish usefulness for Brazil's economic development.^[2] In other words, stereotypes about Jews that had previously been judged as negative had come to be regarded by some important decision makers as positive attributes. The reasons for these changes were numerous. Jewish relief groups actively put positive twists on old stereotypes. The United States, itself unwilling to make a major commitment toward Jewish refugees, put pressures on other nations to do so. Furthermore, important federal politicians realized that Jewish refugees from Italy, Austria, and Germany did in fact have occupational experience needed in Brazil's industrializing economy and urbanizing society. The rejection of the absolute ban on Jewish entry thus did not signal so much a change in attitude as a change of interpretation. This reconceptualization of stereotypes gave almost ten thousand Jewish refugees a chance to survive.

From 1930 to 1937 Jewish stereotypes, when used by those making crucial decisions on immigration policy, worked to the disadvantage of

Jewish immigrants and refugees. In 1938, however, this situation had begun to change—a development directly related to the appointment of Oswaldo Aranha, Brazil's ambassador to the United States, as foreign minister. Aranha, it must be emphasized, adhered to many of the same anti-Jewish stereotypes held by other politicians in the Americas and elsewhere.^[3] He often tied Jews to an alleged world communist conspiracy, and expressed the belief that Jews were "radically averse to agriculture" and that "en masse they would constitute an obvious danger to the future homogeneity of Brazil."^[4] Aranha was not, however, a Judeophobe. There was an important philo-Semitic component found in his conceptions. Jews, in the view of the new foreign minister, were rich, skilled, and influential and thus useful for Brazil's economic development. Moreover, Aranha recognized that the resolution of the Jewish Question in Brazil would have an impact on relations with the United States, a country he admired greatly.^[5] As early as 1937 he had worried, as ambassador to the United States, that Brazil's ban on Jewish entry had to avoid provoking "the immense and powerful [U.S.] Jewish colony."^[6] The notion of Jewish world influence played an important part in Aranha's attempt to present Brazil in a more liberal international light.

A policy shift allowing Jews considered useful to enter Brazil seems, at first glance, simply rational. Since few Brazilians were trained industrial managers or skilled technicians, the undesirability of certain immigrants could be overlooked if they delivered needed economic or political benefits. Many German and Austrian Jewish refugees were in fact capitalists or industrialists, giving a factual basis to at least one stereotype.^[7] Italian Jewish refugees, who often referred to themselves as the "colônia Mussolini," were almost universally administrators, academics, businesspeople, and members of liberal professions.^[8] Ethnic prejudice seemed momentarily to take a secondary role to development, but the desire to keep out Jews—deemed unable to guard "what is most sacred to us, the basis of our institutions: Country, Religion, Family"— still remained.^[9] Something, however, had changed. Starting in 1938 influential politicians began implying that certain Jews did not carry the stain of being Jewish. This view helps explain why so many Jews were allowed into Brazil even while anti-Semitic images remained so preponderant. Ideas about Jews never changed, only ideas about who fit the category.

The Image Is Changed

In 1938 just five hundred Jews immigrated legally to Brazil, the lowest number in years. The clandestine orders that prevented Jews from entering, however, had a number of unplanned effects. The negative international reaction enhanced the image of Brazil as a fascist dictatorship, and this had deleterious effects on relations with the United States. At the same time, the very effective ban did not take the Jewish Question off the domestic political agenda. Indeed, the press and nativist politicians continued to exaggerate the numbers of Jewish refugees entering Brazil. When reporting on a Conselho de Imigraão e Colonização meeting in which Jewish immigration was only one minor issue among the many discussed, the Correio da Manhã used the headline "Entry of Jews into Brazil," although its report was simply a copy of the text released by the regime and printed in the Diário Oficial da República two weeks later.^[10] Another Correio da Manhã article complained of a "Dangerous Immigration" and dredged up images of invasion and immorality in questioning the wisdom of permitting the entry of "certain foreigners . . . who seek shelter on American soil resulting from the fact that their countries of origin do not desire them."^[11] The ban on Jews had been successful only in keeping Jews out of Brazil. But those who should have been pleased seemed not to know or care.

The realization that the bar on Jewish entry had not brought the intended domestic reaction, and had created an unintended international one, led Oswaldo Aranha to contemplate a new policy. Aranha was a critical figure, since it was the potential entry of refugees (considered an immigration issue to be handled by the Foreign Ministry), and not the existence of a Brazilian Jewish community, that defined Brazil's Jewish Problem. Yet the growing number of refugees knocking at Brazil's door was more than a question of bans or quotas; symbolic issues such as Jewish entry could generate political and economic capital and were a critical part of foreign relations. Within six months of assuming the foreign minister's position, Aranha began to test the waters. Soon Brazilians and foreigners who broached the subject of refugee admission discovered a surprising new flexibility. As early as November 1938, Oswaldo Aranha was publicly expressing a desire to cooperate with British/U.S. plans to help German Jews, commenting that "we welcome them [Jews] with open arms but reserve to ourselves, because of geographic and economic evolution, the right to locate them in accordance with our plan for the development of the country."^[12]

The most important reason that the images of Jews began to change was related to the way in which Brazilian anti-Semitic stereotypes were conceived and discussed By maintaining the traditional stereotypes and simply modifying the assessment of them, international relief organizations could turn accepted stereotypes to the advantage of refugees. One image of Jews, for example, involved money and economic success. Rich Jews could thus be seen as part of an international conspiracy to force national wealth to the exterior, or glorified for their ability to help domestic industrial development by injecting capital into Brazil Influential Jews were hailed for the propaganda opportunities they represented, not the unassimilable foreign culture they had been accused of maintaining in the past. Negative stereotypes of "Jewish millionaires . . . [who] flee from their various European homelands, come to Brazil, and leave their capital in the United States or bring it to Argentina" were transformed into new ones of Jews as accountants, bookkeepers, and financial planners.^[13] By promoting the existence of "Jewish" wealth and industriousness, past accusations of communist activity were dismissed. In a moment of crisis, Jews used anti-Semitic stereotypes against the anti-Semites. The haunting ghost of Theodore Herzl, who believed that he could count on anti-Semites to be rational in their desire to get rid of Jews and thus create a Jewish state, had arrived in Brazil.^[14] Stereotypes of Jews helped refugees get visas.

Critical in convincing Brazilian leaders that some Jews were acceptable immigrants were both informal and formal United States influence Old stereotypes took on new meanings when U.S. diplomats disingenuously overstated the leverage of Jews in their country's political, economic, and journalistic spheres. Notions of Jewish influence were encouraged when financial schemes that would benefit Brazil's economy were offered by relief officials in exchange for visas. In March 1939 Oswaldo Aranha arrived in the United States to negotiate a series of trade and loan agreements with the U.S. government. While attending a dinner at New York's Council of Foreign Relations, the foreign minister was politely asked by a director of the stock firm of Bendix, Luitweiler and Company if Brazil "was prepared to accept Jewish emigrants of a type and training to be readily assimilated and having sufficient financial resources."^[15] Perhaps visas might be tied to reducing Brazil's debt. The foreign minister seemed interested and the following day was informed that an "American group interested in the problem of Jewish emigration from Germany" was prepared to accept a "substantial amount" of Brazilian currency as repayment for debt contracted in dol-

lars. Deposits to a fund to help Jewish refugees would be accepted as payback for debt obligations, having "a most salutary effect upon the standing and credit of Brazil." The plan appears never to have been acted on. Even so, it highlighted to Brazilian authorities a stereotype that they already held: that international Jewish power and wealth existed and were committed to helping refugees. Anti-Semitic stereotypes were turned on their heads.

I have just outlined a framework in which negative images about Jews were reformulated as positive. At certain points, however, this conflicts with the available data. There are a number of instances of Jewish U.S. citizens (not refugees/immigrants) being denied entry rights by minor officials.^[16] Along these same lines, Maria Luiza Tucci Carneiro has shown that some Jews were denied visas even if they were economically desirable scientists or engineers.^[17] In one case, even the strong personal support of Luiza Aranha, the foreign minister's mother, did not result in a visa grant.^[18] What is curious, however, is that approximately ten thousand visas were given to refugee Jews between 1939 and 1942. The question, then, is not whether most Estado Novo decision makers held anti-Semitic notions about Jews; they did. Rather, the challenging problem is to understand why some Jews were allowed into Brazil and others were not: why Stefan Zweig received a visa and Claude Lévi-Strauss did not; why U.S. influence sometimes led to visa grants and sometimes not.^[19]

There are a number of possible responses to the question. Perhaps my assertion that refugee-relief officials, members of Brazil's Jewish community, and some Brazilian and foreign politicians changed the terms of debate is wrong, and the granting of visas simply represents ten thousand exceptions. Yet if those making and enforcing immigration policy held exclusively negative images of Jews, we might expect a continued decline in entry in the years after 1937, even in the face of U.S. pressure. This was not the case. A second possibility is that all visas issued to Jews were purchased in one form or another. This suggests that the apparent rampant anti-Semitism among Brazilian diplomats, and the belief that Jews were dangers to Brazilian society, was secondary to immediate profit. But numerous Jews in a position to purchase visas, especially in late 1937 and early 1938, were denied entry.

There is a logical answer to the apparent contradictions in policy and practice. If, as I suggested above, influential policymakers held static images of Jews that could be positive, negative, or even both, those with the power to grant visas could easily shift between conceptions of Jews

as useful to Brazil's economic development and conceptions of them as harmful to its social development. Lindolfo Collor's published political diary Europa 1939 shows one example of this dual image. In it he reports on the purge of Maxim Litvinov as people's commissar of the Soviet Foreign Ministry. What was "picturesque," notes Collor, is that Litvinov's brother, a rabbi in Lodz, reportedly complained "of the detestable activity of my brother."^[20] The story may or may not have been true. Either way, Collor's vision of "the Jew" as a communist and "a human symbol," as good and bad, is clear.

The tension between traditional anti-Semitic images and new positive judgments of Jews led some policymakers to simultaneously favor and oppose Jewish immigration. On any given day immediate political pressure, be it domestic or international, affected the implementation of policy. Correspondence sent by Oswaldo Aranha to various European diplomatic posts indicates the swings. On August 9, 1939, Itamaraty ordered H. Pinheiro de Vasconcelos, consul general in London, to give permanent visas to a number of Polish Jewish refugees;^[21] the visas were issued a few months later. In mid-October 1939, on the other hand, the following orders were received by Brazil's legation in Helsinki: "The legation should stamp visas in passports of refugees as long as they are not Jews."^[22] Seemingly contradictory memos granting visas to some refugees and denying them to others had an internal logic based on the dual images of Jews in Brazil.

Politicians in Rio were not the only ones revising their estimations of Jews; requests for exceptions to the anti-Jewish orders also arrived from Brazil's consulates and embassies in Europe. A diplomat in Paris, although believing in principle that Jews should not be allowed permanently into Brazil, wondered if it "would be prudent to persevere on the path" of absolute bans.^[23] French Jews, he claimed, made up 75 percent of all French commercial interests and applied for Brazilian tourist visas only for business purposes. Pedro Leão Veloso, who considered himself "one of the few in our country who is not a declared enemy of the Jews," pointed out that "the Banco do Brasil can inform you that, thanks to the entrance of 70 capitalist Jews, the national economy benefited by 35 million milreis [2 million U.S. dollars]. Imagine what [all the others] brought?"^[24] Jewish refugees, according to Leão Veloso, brought far more capital to Brazil than Argentine tourists, who were allowed to enter without question, presumably as long as they were not Jews.

Others wondered if visas for renowned Jews might promote Brazil's

international image and help the country progress. Giorgio Mortara, the Italian Jewish editor of the prestigious Giornale degli Economisti e Rivista di Statistica , was dismissed from his post in 1938. Almost immediately thereafter he was invited to Brazil by the director of the Brazilian Institute of Geography and Statistics (IBGE), former foreign minister José Carlos Macedo Soares. Soon after arriving in Rio in early 1939 with his wife and four children, Mortara was appointed coordinator of the 1940 census.^[25] The French playwright Hénri-Leon (Henry) Bernstein, living as a refugee in the United States, was rumored to believe that an extended visit to Brazil would inspire a new theater piece. In spite of Bernstein's well-known condemnation of anti-Semitism in his play Israël , a diplomat asked in a letter, "What reasons could be invoked to refuse him a visa?" and expressed concern that "our nation will lose an extraordinary propaganda opportunity [if he is refused a visa]."^[26] Although Bernstein never pursued his desire for tropical inspiration, the Austrian Jewish novelist Stefan Zweig did. The granting of a lifesaving visa to Zweig may well have influenced his decision to write the propagandistic Brazil: Land of the Future . Indeed, Zweig's presence in Brazil was used by the Department of Press and Propaganda to promote such unexpected areas as municipal government organization.^[27] Zweig's claim that "wherever in our troubled times we find hope for a new future in new zones, it is our duty to point out this country and these possibilities" aroused the enmity of other intellectuals, who recognized that anti-Semitism and visa grants for some Jewish refugees were not incompatible.^[28]

U.S. Influence and Fears of a New Wave of Jews

In 1939 the number of Jews entering Brazil with permanent and temporary visas, according to Jewish groups, was 4,601, and according to the Conselho de Imigraão e Colonização, 4,223.^[29] Jews received more than 60 percent of the permanent visas and almost 45 percent of the temporary visas given to Germans and Poles.^[30] Almost 9 percent of those with permanent visas and more than 14 percent of those with temporary visas were Jews.^[31] One reason for the high numbers was the pressure the United States put on friendly nations to allow Jewish refugees to enter, a regular topic of correspondence between the Brazilian and U.S governments. The United States desired to "take an increased part in the establishment and settlement of Jewish immigrants in the Latin American countries," and regularly played on stereotypes of Jews

by portraying refugees as having capital and skills.^[32] Jews were also a frequently, and vehemently, discussed topic in meetings of the Conselho de Imigração e Colonização, which tried to moderate between those who believed that some refugees should be allowed to enter if they would aid Brazil's economic development and others who viewed all Jews as social dangers and wanted the absolute ban reinstated.

The CIC assumed a public stance against the unrestricted immigration of those of "ethnic Jewish origin," and João Carlos Muniz often contended that "this country has done its share in receiving Jewish refugees."^[33] The CIC's Revista de Imigração e Colonização even published separate statistics on Jewish immigration.^[34] Oliveira Vianna's aforementioned article (chapter 3) on the anthropological "character" of "Semitic and Mongoloid" immigrants gave an intellectual underpinning to the attempt to distinguish between unwanted Eastern European Jews and the desired Central European Jewish immigrants.^[35] According to Vianna, Jews did not have a single "anthropological type" but were divided into those from Poland and Russia, who had "clearly Slavic characters," and those from Germany, who were "more similar to [non-Jewish] Germans than they are to their compatriots from Palestine."^[36] Some Jews, suggested Vianna, might even have the virtues of Central European non-Jews. Arthur Hehl Neiva, a member of the CIC and Rio de Janeiro's Civil Police and the son of a nativist member of the 1934 Constitutional Assembly, wrote in favor of Jewish immigration in 1939. Neiva was attacked for his position by those who claimed that he was "of Jewish origin [and that] his father is a great protector of Jews."^[37] Neiva's long treatise on the benefits of Jewish entry was repressed for "obvious reasons" by the CIC until 1944.^[38] Vianna's work, then, which could be used as intellectual justification for opposing or supporting Jewish entry, was far more acceptable than Neiva's clear statement.

There was an angry reaction to the increase in Jewish entry, especially among consular officers forced to follow a policy with which they disagreed. Dulphe Pinheiro Machado, director of the Ministry of Labor's Departamento Nacional de Imigraão (DNI; the National Department of Immigration), repeatedly complained that refugees claimed to be tourists in order "to more easily infiltrate into national territory" and were hard to deport.^[39] Justice Minister Campos agreed, recommending that no visas be given to "elements" whose repatriation might be difficult.^[40] Some diplomats complained that "Jews of Semitic origin" would do anything to obtain a visa.^[41] In Egypt a consul feared that

Mussolini's anti-Jewish comments would lead to huge numbers of visa requests.^[42] The discovery in Havana that the Hamburg-American shipping line was involved in helping refugees buy visas, and thus passages on their ships out of Europe, led to renewed concerns about a "migration of undesirables."^[43] An unsigned memo, suggesting that diplomats "refuse to place visas in the passports of these undesirable and parasitical elements," circulated through Itamaraty. Aranha had been warned for years about the problems of Jewish immigration, so claimed the anonymous author, and "the Embassy in Berlin, the Consulate in Amsterdam, some consulates in France, the Legation in Bucharest and the Legation and Consulate in Warsaw have repeatedly explained the facts and the inconveniences that would result."^[44]

Members of the Estado Novo also attacked resident refugees. Justice Minister Campos, in a bizarre twist of reasoning, criticized the United States for forcing Brazil to take European Jewish refugees who he claimed were members of a fifth column and were "elated with the present German victories."^[45] In early 1938 Oswaldo Aranha griped about a São Paulo military police auditor, described as a naturalized Austrian Jew "deficient in Portuguese," accused of helping family members disembark in Santos without visas from the consulate in Vienna.^[46] Unsubstantiated charges that huge numbers of Jews were sneaking into Brazil rang through the halls of Itamaraty. In a few cases, like that of a naturalized Uruguayan from Syria, this was true, since lax enforcement and greed among Brazil's overseas consuls provided ample opportunities to save Jews while giving Brazilian diplomats easy access to extra cash.^[47] In one strange case a Belgian Jew named Zimmerman publicly denounced an attaché to the Brazilian consulate in Paris who sold visas but had refused him one.^[48] The attaché, so claimed Zimmerman, worked with a "naturalized Belgian Jew from Russia" who was "an agent of the Comintern."^[49] In other cases, a few Jewish residents bribed landowners to apply for chamadas for fictitious agricultural workers. Others transferred property to refugees in Europe to qualify them as landowners.^[50] While forged and bought visas did exist, attempts to rescue Jews in this manner were minimally successful.^[51] In 1940 Aranha admitted to Vargas that only one visa had been given "irregularly" to a Jew—by someone in the consulate in Paso de los Libres on Brazil's border with Argentina.^[52]

The discussion of the illegal entry of Jews into Brazil has two interesting components. One is the extent of the official reaction to the discovery of some Jews with Uruguayan, Argentine, and Paraguayan, but

no Brazilian, visas in their passports, which was very much out of proportion to the small numbers involved. Yet in spite of the regular accusations that Brazilian officials were helping refugees cross the border for a price, and numerous investigations by Itamaraty officials, rarely was any action taken. The denunciation of the consul in Paris had no effect, since that office continued to issue large numbers of visas for Jews, often against specific orders from Rio, until 1941. Official regulations stating that a round-trip ticket and an unspecified amount of funds were needed to get a tourist visa were often skirted. German and Austrian Jews, usually able to leave with little of their savings, soon discovered they could purchase a one-way ticket, get a three-month tourist visa, extend it for another three months, and then, unable to return to Europe, stay on illegally. Diplomats had discovered that the chamada system was "truly a business [and] lucrative for certain intermediaries."^[53]

Nothing illustrates the dual attitude toward Jewish refugees better than Itamaraty's April 1939 investigation of charges that consuls and border officials were involved in a conspiracy to sell false visas to refugees.^[54] When the inquiry began, Brazil's consuls in Paraguay and Uruguay confirmed that Jews were indeed entering Brazil illegally, but reproached border authorities in Rio Grande do Sul for allowing it to take place. The envoy in Paraguay, Lafayette de Carvalho e Silva, thought passports were not being carefully checked, since "there would be no other way to explain . . . the presence of clandestine Semites in our own capital."^[55] Francisco Mascarenhas, consul general in Montevideo, also found fault with frontier officials. According to Mascarenhas, a police inspector from Rio Grande do Sul named Ewaldo Walter Bergmann appeared at his office claiming to be on a secret mission to discover how Jews were entering Brazil clandestinely. Bergmann had stumbled on an office in Montevideo that sold safe-conduct passes to Jews for five hundred Uruguayan pesos, although "if the Jews did not have that much money the price would be lowered."^[56] When groups of ten or twelve Jews were assembled, so it seemed, they were brought to the border and then sent into Brazil at different points.

Mascarenhas confirmed the story with a friend in the Uruguayan Federal Police, who reported that the scheme was headed by two people "both of whom look like Jews but say they are German."^[57] Mascarenhas also sent a private consul, identified only as "Pery," to the border town of Rivera to investigate further. Pery reported that a member of the "German Nazi element" in Rivera told him the intrigue was well

known "in all its details." Pery also learned that one Luiz Rosenbaumm, accused of running the safe-conduct scheme in Montevideo, had been in Rivera for two months trying to buy himself a Brazilian tourist visa.^[58] Mascarenhas and Pery decided to try to sell a visa to Rosenbaumm for two hundred pesos and catch him in the act, although this apparently never took place.^[59] In April members of the police in four Brazilian border towns were imprisoned for allowing Jews to enter illegally, reducing the "intensity of the dangerous machinations of this strange Jewish-Brazilian consortium."^[60] Six months later Mascarenhas again weakly suggested that he and his subordinates were uninvolved in selling visas. Although "the quantity of Israelites who live here in an undefined situation has not diminished," the consul claimed, "in the last few months no visas have been requested by Israelites who in the past came in large numbers."^[61]

A number of oddities arise from this case, since it seems only barely conceivable that any significant flow of refugees into Brazil could have taken place without the knowledge of powerful officials in the diplomatic corps. The first is that the reports placing blame on border police all arrived in Rio at roughly the same time. This indicates that the attempts to confirm the illegal entry of Jewish refugees were motivated by Itamaraty complaints, not by concerns in the field. Yet Consul Mascarenhas submitted documents to Aranha alleging that the sale of safe-conduct passes to Brazil was well known to both Jews and "German Nazis" in Uruguay. The documents also suggest that the sale of tourist visas was relatively common, since the private consul Pery pointed out, presumably in his own defense, that Jewish refugees often tried to buy visas from consuls in Uruguayan border towns. Finally, those state border police accused, charged, and imprisoned following the investigation were at the absolute lowest rungs of Brazil's civil service, traditional scapegoats in moments of bureaucratic turmoil.

Although official estimates put the number of Jewish refugees who had entered Brazil illegally at about two thousand, many within the bureaucracy regularly repeated unbelievably inflated numbers.^[62] Passport Service director Vaz de Mello claimed that between 1934 and 1937, forty thousand Jews had entered Brazil as tourists and remained, and that another forty thousand had traversed the borders with Uruguay, Paraguay, and Argentina clandestinely.^[63] The police in the Federal District complained of a "conspicuous increase in the number of European Jews [in Rio] . . . [and] are of the opinion that a considerable portion of these Jews have entered Brazil illegally."^[64] The supposed

increases were explained by allegations that officials around the world were selling Brazilian visas, and in response a Brazilian Bureau of Jewish Immigration was proposed to Vargas.^[65] João Carlos Muniz argued for further curbs, claiming Jews were unwilling "to follow a pioneering life or settle on the land and [have] a tendency to congregate in what amounts to ghettos in the larger cities."^[66] As late as August 1941, a CIC report claimed, without offering any proof, that fifteen thousand to twenty thousand Jews had entered Brazil illegally.^[67]

Most Jewish refugees in Brazil had in fact come with legal documentation, the result of the significant increase in the number of visas granted by Itamaraty. Even so, Vargas received regular complaints throughout 1940 that refugees were "augmenting the already enormous Jewish population."^[68] Someone on the staff of the Department of Immigration sent a panicky telegram to Aranha reporting a large-scale "clandestine Jewish immigration organized in Buenos Aires."^[69] When a Hungarian couple were arrested for directing an organization that brought Jews illegally into Brazil, they "committed suicide at police headquarters while awaiting trial."^[70] Even the press got into the act. In late 1940 Rio de Janeiro's German-subsidized Meio-Dia ran an article headlined: "400,000 Jews Live in Brazil; 150,000 Jews have entered in just the last six months."^[71]

The fears of an increase in the number of Jews in Brazil collided head-on with both new positive interpretations of stereotypes and U.S. diplomatic pressure. This situation left an impression with some foreign diplomats that the Brazilian government, "while feeling sympathetic toward the plight of Jewish refugees, will continue to be extremely cautious about receiving additional numbers."^[72] The situation also gave Itamaraty officials the latitude to interpret visa regulations in light of their own opinions on Jewish immigration. Some consular officers gave visas to Jews in large numbers. In most German, Austrian, and Eastern European consulates, however, visa applications were often rebuffed on the basis of the (now countermanded) first secret circular. Itamaraty sometimes approved visas directly from Rio de Janeiro while at other times rejecting them.^[73] While almost forty-five hundred refugees legally entered Brazil in 1939, many others were turned away.^[74]

Nothing illustrates the shifting interpretations of policy more than a situation involving the famed scientist Albert Einstein, who visited Brazil in 1925. The voyage had been arranged by the ICA's Rabbi Raffalovich, eager to "demonstrate to the people of Brazil that Jews are not only peddlers but that among them one may find world-famous scien-

tists."^[75] Raffalovich's plan was a success. Brazil's most noted scientists formed a welcoming committee, important members of the Jewish community courted Einstein, and journalists, including Francisco de Assis Chateaubriand, owner of the Diários Associados chain of newspapers, printed long interviews with the scientist.^[76] In spite of the fact that Einstein's trip was arranged by the ICA, and that he spent a significant amount of time meeting with Brazil's most active Zionists, Thomas F. Glick has pointed out that the press rarely mentioned Einstein's religion.^[77] Gilberto Freyre, at the time a young journalist, did. Echoing themes later found in his comments on prostitution in Ordem e progresso (see chapter 1), Freyre suggested that Einstein's universal message was a function of his "Jewish blood," and his lack of a homeland.^[78]

More than a decade later, Einstein's fame in Brazil and his warm feelings for the country encouraged him to approach Brazilian officials for help in getting visas for refugee Jews.^[79] In 1938 an old friend of Einstein's, Dr. Hans George Katz, a German Jew living in São Paulo with a permanent visa, contacted the scientist about his sister, Helene Fabian-Katz. Katz was desperately worried because Helene was in Nazi Berlin, frantic to leave and unable to get a visa. Einstein supported her application for a U.S. visa, but this was rejected. Finally the scientist suggested that Brazil might have visas available.^[80] On January 23, 1939, Einstein wrote directly to Aranha, noting that there was "no risk of Mrs. Fabian Katz ever becoming a public charge" and requesting that her visa application be approved.^[81]

Aranha apparently never received the letter. In early February Dr. Katz again wrote Einstein, complaining that no action had been taken by Itamaraty and that the situation in Germany was becoming increasingly difficult.^[82] Katz, however, had discovered that Aranha would be in the United States and wondered if Einstein could somehow contact the foreign minister while he was in Washington. The suggestion was a good one. Einstein wrote to Aranha in care of the U.S. State Department and had a copy delivered in person to Itamaraty in Rio by Cecilia Razovsky, the executive director of the National Coordinating Committee for Aid to Refugees and Emigrants Coming from Germany.^[83] The request was received, held for three months, and then sent to the Conselho de Imigração e Colonização.^[84] The visa for Fabian-Katz was then apparently granted, because, some months later, Einstein again wrote to Aranha asking for a visa for another family friend, noting that "your kind assistance in a previous case encourages me."^[85] Typed in the corner of the letter is a note from Einstein's secretary explaining that the

"previous case" was that of Helene Fabian-Katz. Indeed she and the scientist were in correspondence, she in São Paulo and he in Princeton, as late as 1953.^[86]

Immigration legislation put into effect after 1940 was more easily and strictly enforced because it was public. Einstein's early efforts on behalf of German Jewish refugees were successful because his fame encouraged the authors of the anti-Jewish orders to countermand them, something easily done since they were "secrets" that officially never existed. His later attempts, however, did not work, since Aranha could not risk ignoring published immigration laws. The varying success of Einstein's requests also hints at the dual nature of the Jewish Question within the Estado Novo. A perfect example came in 1938, when a new immigration decree stated that no visas would be granted above set quota limits.^[87] At times this order was used to prevent the entry of "Jews, who in certain cases, because of their desperation, try to get around the regulations and instructions . . . by acts of bad faith."^[88] In 1939, however, the Conselho de Imigração e Colonização exempted the Portuguese from the quota because of "their assimilation to social, political and economic institutions . . . [and] their religious identity, language and customs."^[89] More baffling was the expansion of Germany's 1939 quota, by which eight hundred visas were put aside specifically for Jews.^[90] Four months later the consul in Hamburg was authorized to grant "another 800 visas for Semites and non-Semites."^[91] When the Polish quota was raised from 1,230 to 3,000, a Brazilian diplomat confidentially remarked to U.S. Consul General William Burdett that "Polish immigration is in complete harmony with the national interests in its ethnical, economic and cultural aspects," a remark Burdett found "of particular interest in view of the large proportion of Jews now desiring to emigrate from Poland."^[92] Imagine the bewilderment among diplomats when Rio regularly overruled its own strict anti-immigrant policies.

The increasing entry of Jews started a small war within Itamaraty. On one side was Oswaldo Aranha, who believed it necessary to resolve "the most urgent and dramatic cases, that [are] precisely those of families whose members have been separated."^[93] The Jewish Question could not be simply solved by exclusion but, according to Aranha, had become a "very complicated issue, with political, economic and social aspects."^[94] Justice Minister Francisco Campos and Ciro Freitas Vale, the ambassador to Berlin and a relative of Aranha's, disagreed.^[95] An anticommunist and a Judeophobe, Freitas Vale believed the granting of

visas to the relatives of Jews already in Brazil without an examination of potential economic benefit was not only an error but a danger as well. The ambassador pointed out that, of the 600 visas granted to Jews leaving Germany in 1939, only 51 were for technical experts and 12 for capitalists.^[96] None of the others should have been allowed to enter, because they were simply "the old relatives of furniture salesmen and the in-laws of candy makers."^[97]

Freitas Vale decided to take policy into his own hands in July 1939. He proposed that Germans with "J" (for Jew ) passports not be allowed to enter under the German quota, thus blocking German Jewish entrances.^[98] While awaiting a response Freitas Vale suspended approved visa applications and ordered his consuls to follow his new "provisional rule," leading to infuriated protests from the British.^[99] In September 1939, the ambassador complained that "more than one Brazilian consul has directed my attention to the bad quality of the Jews" being granted visas from Rio.^[100] His complaint was met with an angry note from Aranha—"It is strange that only now [the consuls] allege the bad quality of the individuals"—and a curt instruction to drop the subject.^[101]

Freitas Vale was not easily dissuaded. He wondered, "How should a consul who has turned down a visa application for a Jew because he appears inadequate for emigration [act] when the same [Jew] receives a special authorization from the Foreign Minister?"^[102] This frequently occurred. Thirteen Jews, all of whom had been refused permanent visas by the consuls in Paris, Budapest, and Berlin, were, under direct orders from Vargas's office, given tourist visas.^[103] In another case, Paul Rosenstein, a German medical researcher who had been invited to Brazil by the government in 1935 and had applied for a permanent visa in 1939 when he was a lecturer at New York University, was turned down in Berlin.^[104] Getúlio Vargas intervened in his favor, and Rosenstein arrived in Brazil in April 1940. The promised visas for his wife and three children, however, were held up without reason in Berlin. After Rosenstein discussed the issue personally with Oswaldo Aranha and had a friend intercede in his favor, the case was resolved, prompting Rosenstein to write: "I consider it my duty to return hearty thanks for your kindness [and] I hope I shall get the opportunity to be of service to this wonderful and hospitable country with all my physical and mental power."^[105] Rosenstein's kind words did not soothe the outraged Freitas Vale. No longer willing to attach his name to visas approved by Itamaraty, Freitas Vale began communicating approvals to subordinate consuls by attaching his signature only, "in the name of the Minister of Foreign Affairs."^[106]

Freitas Vale, who saw his position as "a mission, not a job," continued to press Aranha to bar all Jewish refugees from Brazil, always claiming, "I am not, and never was, against the Jews."^[107] He also began to enlist the support of other diplomats. Labienne Salgado dos Santos, who had been sending anti-Semitic missives to Rio since 1935 and was now head of Brazil's Passport Division, prepared a long report entitled "The Entrance of Jews in Brazil," from which Freitas Vale quoted frequently.^[108] Relying on the same myths about Jews that had formed the "factual" basis of his earlier reports, Salgado dos Santos complained that Jews formed unassimilable separate communities and had "implanted communism in Russia and other countries."^[109] The report defended Germany's anti-Semitic policy and correctly predicted that continuing hostilities in Europe would result in an ever-growing number of Jews applying for visas.

In November, Freitas Vale sent a confidential letter to Aranha claiming that "there exist consortia [that included government officials] to introduce Jews into Brazil" that sold visas for 440 U.S. dollars, and that "the orders for visas continue to arrive [from Rio] for the most foolish cases."^[110] When Aranha did not respond, Freitas Vale "for the first time in 25 years of service to The Nation, [decided] to criticize an action of the Government" by writing personally to President Getúlio Vargas.^[111] Freitas Vale's complaint did have an effect, although not the intended one. Vargas ordered João Carlos Muniz, a loyal confidant of Aranha in spite of his opposition to Jewish entry, to investigate the claims. Muniz immediately contacted the foreign minister so that he could answer the "anonymous allegations" in order to "destroy any suspicions which might hover over Itamaraty."^[112] Muniz claimed that stories of visa sales were false and had been created by European emigration companies in order to lure customers. He also assured Aranha of the CIC's support, noting that humanitarian, and economic and political, considerations made it "impossible to close Brazil completely to immigrants of this [Jewish] race."^[113]

Oswaldo Aranha knew immediately who had made the allegations. He angrily demanded that Freitas Vale "document your information to the President of the Republic regarding irregular concessions of visas and abusive entrances of Jews in Brazil."^[114] When he received no reply, Aranha sent a less than cordial ten-page letter to Berlin, making it clear that no more criticism of Itamaraty's "Semitic policy" would be tolerated, because "you are wrong when you affirm that Jews continue to enter Brazil in ever growing numbers."^[115] The Jewish issue could "not be resolved in absolute terms but only in relative ones," and, as Aranha

pointedly noted, "for criticism to be constructive . . . it needs to be based upon a perfect knowledge of the facts." Freitas Vale was then informed that the numbers of entering Jews had dropped from 9,263 in 1937 to 4,900 in 1938.^[116] The foreign minister maintained that "the number of individuals of Semitic origin who entered Brazil in 1939 was 2,289," an apparently large reduction from the previous years.^[117] This, however, was not the case. As has been previously demonstrated, the figures bandied about by Itamaraty and the CIC were often exaggerated. More accurate figures, on the other hand, come from the major Jewish relief organizations, all of which agree that Jewish immigration increased markedly between 1938 and 1939.^[118]

The figures sent by Aranha to Freitas Vale are surprising. First, they suggest incorrectly that almost five thousand Jews entered Brazil in a period when a secret circular banning all Jews was in effect.^[119] Second, the figures show the numbers of Jews arriving in Brazil decreasing between 1937 and 1939, when they in fact rose. Apparent increases in the number of Jews entering Brazil legitimated new restrictive laws, while supposed decreases were used to show the effectiveness of the regime in protecting national interests. In December 1940, for example, Itamaraty informed the French embassy in Rio that "the Brazilian government, in affirmation of humanitarian principles, has conceded 3,000 visas per year to Jewish immigrants and refugees since 1937," something that no Brazilian government statistic supported.^[120] The DNI's Dulphe Pinheiro Machado claimed that 80 percent of the German quota was reserved each year for farmers, while the remaining 20 percent was completely filled by Jews, all parents or children of legal residents.^[121] If this had been the case, only 954 German Jews would have received visas in 1939, since no Jews were granted agricultural visas. In fact, 2,357 German Jews received visas, over 50 percent of all Germans entering Brazil in that year.^[122] Furthermore, Brazil never filled its German quota in 1939.

Aranha attempted to preserve his position among those opposing Jewish immigration by suggesting that special restrictions guaranteed careful control of Jewish entrances.^[123] In 1939 a new order, designed to stop allegations that diplomats were "deliberately extorting additional sums from emigrant Jews," denied consuls the right to grant visas without Passport Division approval.^[124] Aranha also claimed that the only Jews to whom Itamaraty granted tourist visas were from Northern and Western Europe and the United States, and that Itamaraty pursued this policy in order to stop the entrance of false tourists. This allegation

is not confirmed by CIC statistics. In 1939 almost 20 percent of those with tourist visas held Eastern European passports, and others entered with Middle Eastern, Asian, or Latin American papers.^[125] In 1940, more than 15 percent of those with tourist visas were Eastern European.^[126] The lack of enforcement of the rule, however, did not mean that it went uninvoked. As late as 1945 a Czech Jew living in England was told that he was ineligible for a tourist visa because he held an Eastern European passport.^[127]

New Legislation, 1940-1942

Diminishing Jewish emigration and diminishing general immigrant entry in the Americas were worldwide phenomena after 1940. In Brazil, as in the United States, Argentina, and Palestine, 1939 represented the high-water mark for the entry of Jews; the numbers dwindled through the end of 1944. (See table 4.1.) The reductions represent a combination of factors: the increased difficulty anyone had in leaving Europe, the expansion of Nazi control into Eastern Europe and the concurrent impossibility for Jews of fleeing, and a pervasive lack of interest by most non-Axis powers, including the United States, Great Britain, and Canada, in making the salvation of refugees a priority.^[128] This development demoralized Brazilian Jewish groups, and Marc Leitchik, director of a HICEM-funded organization in Rio de Janeiro, expressed his belief that the group "had finished its work in Brazil."^[129]

Although there was a worldwide drop in the number of Jews leaving Europe, factors specific to Brazil were critical in the rapid decrease in Jewish entry after 1939. One important issue was that the expansion of Jewish immigration in 1939 prompted a flurry of new decrees between 1940 and 1942 that explained how the general immigration regulations were to be applied against Jews. Furthermore, the U.S. government decreased pressure on Brazil to take Jews now that the two countries seemed firmly allied. Opposition to continued Jewish entry in Brazil came from both the military and the Ministry of Justice, both headed by Vargas confidants. Minister of War Eurico Dutra argued that Jewish immigrants were the most dangerous of all foreign communities in Brazil.^[130] Lieutenant Colonel Affonso de Carvalho, editor of Nação Armada , a semi-affiliated military journal that represented the General Staff Office position and was influenced by Nazi ideology, complained that Rio de Janeiro's "most beautiful neighborhoods" had become "ghettos," terming Copacabana "Copacabanovich" and "Jaco-

bacabana" and Leme "Jerusaleme."^[131] Minister of Justice Francisco Campos fought against Jewish entry by insisting that the Justice Ministry be involved in the immigration question, a somewhat odd request since its duties officially revolved around the issue of foreigners resident in Brazil and not the question of immigration per se. By linking to immigration the question of those in Brazil with expired tourist visas, however, Campos was able to insert his ministry into a new area, while maintaining that his proposals had nothing to do with Jews. The justice minister thus attacked groups with large numbers of Jews (refugees, stateless persons, those unable to return to their countries of origin) in order to suggest that race, ethnicity, and religion were not really the issue. This sophisticated anti-Semitism fit into the new economic orientation of the Estado Novo and highlighted questions of economic value, not assimilation. Even so, the many new immigration laws put in place in 1940 and 1941 functioned to keep out Jews, and the decrease in Jewish immigration after 1939 was more significant to Brazil than it was to other American nations.

In 1940 Campos proposed that the inflow of "numerous foreigners without economic value who are taking advantage of the chaotic international situation" be stopped.^[132] He hoped that Brazil would deny entry to all with temporary visas "except perhaps those with money and the authorization to return [to their countries of origin]," and refuse visas for all except rural laborers and illustrious foreigners. Not surprisingly, Campos believed that the Ministry of Justice, and not Itamaraty, should have the right to authorize the exceptions. Such a proposal should not sound unfamiliar, since it basically rehashed Secret Circular 1,127 without mentioning Jews. Even so, it was clear that Jews were the problem. João Carlos Muniz told Campos his proposal was unneeded since the CIC had "established conditions for the concession of visas to individuals of that racial origin."^[133] Furthermore, argued Muniz, it was Brazil's diplomatic corps, and not the Ministry of Justice, who could best guarantee the application of the "assimilation" rule that informed current immigration law.^[134]

In January 1941, Itamaraty ordered its consular officers to suspend the issuance of visas to all except Portuguese citizens, nationals of American countries, and experts, artists, and capitalists who could transfer more than four hundred contos (twenty thousand U.S. dollars) to the Banco do Brasil.^[135] The intent, according to a report on a conversation between a U.S. diplomat and Ambassador to France Souza Dantas, was to "reduce immigration into Brazil to practically noth-

ing"—sentiments echoed by German Ambassador Curt Max Prüfer.^[136] A month later the CIC proposed that Jews not be given any more visas, a policy later formalized by Itamaraty circular.^[137] In April a tightening of immigration laws, based on Campos's earlier plan, nearly ended the concession of visas to Europeans.^[138] The Foreign Ministry had considered the Campos proposal "a dead issue until the new decree law appeared today," but Aranha, with U.S. encouragement, decided to try to get Vargas to revoke it.^[139] A new police bureau, part of the Justice Ministry and free from Itamaraty and CIC control, was created in May to supervise the registration and activities of aliens. In its first act the office recommended that 129 refugees who had overstayed their temporary visas be deported.^[140] This never took place, because there were no countries that would accept the potential deportees.

Although a total of almost four thousand Jewish refugees legally entered Brazil in 1940 and 1941, representing about 15 percent of all foreign entries, the increasingly stringent rules contributed to the virtual end of Jewish entry in 1942. (See appendix 5.) Temporary visas were granted only to applicants from the Americas and to those who could return to the countries from which they held a passport.^[141] Only foreigners married to native-born Brazilians or with children born in Brazil received permanent visas, as did those few Jews the government invited.^[142] When James McDonald, then chair of the U.S. President's Advisory Committee on Refugees, reported that Henry Ford was willing to make some of his properties in Brazil available to refugees, Aranha refused, claiming "they would never remain there [and] we would have endless difficulties with them."^[143] Later that year, Getúlio Vargas canceled already-issued visas and decreed that his personal authorization was necessary for all future visas.^[144] Even those in transit were refused entry.

The general restrictions on immigration made the secret circulars moot. A Jewish immigration policy was no longer needed, since the new limitations could be applied with the same result. Even so, the tightening of immigration rules appeared directed at Jews.^[145] Three hundred Japanese emigrants ready to sail to Brazil were delayed because of "regulations in order to prevent the illegal entry of Jewish refugees."^[146] Major Aristóteles de Lima Câmara, a member of the army general staff assigned as one of the CIC's military representatives, told journalists that Brazil needed to "check the influx of refugees, especially Jews from Europe."^[147] In 1940, in one of his frequent contributions to the Revista de Imigração e Colonização , Câmara had argued that Jews were not a

race but that Western European Jews were preferable to those from other regions since "they have the highest percentage [among Jews] of type A blood."^[148] Eduardo Oungre, director of the HICEM, believed the legislation "in reality . . . is intended only for our co-religionists. For the past few years, in every decree and resolution, the meaning is the same, 'no Jews' although this has actually never been mentioned."^[149] The S.S. Alsina left Marseilles on January 1, 1941, with 570 passengers, including many Jewish refugees as well as Alcalá Zamora, the ex-president of the Spanish Republic.^[150] Some of the passengers had visas for the United States, but most had been issued Brazilian visas in France. The group was refused entry to Brazil and sailed on.^[151] Only after being refused entry to a number of British territories was the group allowed to land in the United States. The Alsina case was not isolated. Ten Polish Jews with visas certified by the Brazilian consul in Glasgow were not allowed to board the S.S. ZamZam in Capetown.^[152]

"The Truth About the Cabo De Hornos"

The extreme restrictiveness of Brazil's immigration regulations opens up a problematic area of analysis: how should the refusal of entry to desperate Jewish refugees be judged? One argument is that Brazil had a humanitarian obligation to accept all refugees fleeing Nazism.^[153] Of course, if it had done so, Brazil would have been unique in the Americas. Another argument is that Brazil's restrictions on immigration were part of a historical trend that began after World War I and were basically unrelated to Jews. One might point to Brazil's refusal to give visas to Mormon missionaries from the United States and Lutheran missionaries from Germany as support for this position.^[154] Jews, it might be suggested, simply had the bad luck to flee Europe just as Brazil's doors were closing. The final possibility is that Brazil's virtual stoppage of immigration was related directly to the Jewish Question. In other words, general immigration law, without ever saying so, was really about Jews.

These propositions may be untangled by examining the case of the Spanish-registered S.S. Cabo de Hornos . The ship arrived in the Rio de Janeiro harbor in late 1941 carrying about ninety-five Jewish refugees, mainly from Poland and Czechoslovakia, many of whom had spent six months looking for refuge.^[155] The story, however, began long before the Jewish refugees arrived in Brazil. Several months earlier the refugees, while waiting in Cadiz for transport out of Europe, realized that

their entry visas to Brazil, issued in 1940 by Brazil's ambassador to Vichy France, Luis Martins de Souza Dantas, were about to expire. As the date neared, Souza Dantas ordered the consul in Cadiz to renew the expired visas.^[156] What the refugees did not know was that the ambassador was at odds with Itamaraty over the high numbers of tourist visas he had granted to Jews since the early 1930s and, more importantly, because of "the significant numbers of diplomatic visas" he issued without authority.^[157] Between the issuance of the original visas and the renewed ones, Souza Dantas had been reprimanded by Itamaraty and, according to J. Edgar Hoover, had lost his right to authorize Brazilian entry papers because "nearly all the visas granted were for persons of Jewish origin."^[158]

Itamaraty's orders did not stop Souza Dantas, one of the few Brazilian diplomats who appear to have sincerely tried to help Jewish refugees, from ordering the visa renewals. The group on the Cabo de Hornos therefore sailed for Rio believing they would have little trouble disembarking. They were wrong. Brazilian authorities refused admission to the group on October 16, 1941. As the vessel proceeded to Buenos Aires, where entry would be denied because of a lack of visas, members of the American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee contacted John Simmons, U.S. embassy counselor in Rio de Janeiro. Simmons, along with diplomats from France and Italy, began to pressure Aranha and Ernani Reis, a Justice Ministry official, to allow the group to enter Brazil. The situation was desperate, with "the majority prefer[ing] suicide to the somber future awaiting them."^[159] The Spanish ambassador begged Vargas to authorize the visas and insisted that the refugees embarked because of a conviction by Spanish officials that the visas were valid and "issued by career Consuls from Brazil."^[160] Even Vargas's friend Cardinal Leme of Rio took up the case, asking the president's wife and daughter for help.^[161]

As the Cabo de Hornos traveled south, negotiations began with members of the Paraguayan cabinet. In return for a large bribe, it appeared, the refugees would be saved.^[162] All Brazil had to do was issue transit visas allowing the refugees to disembark when the boat stopped in Rio on its way back to Europe. Early on the morning of November 7 the Cabo de Hornos arrived. The boat was scheduled to stay only twelve hours, but when it was discovered that the Paraguayan visas had not been issued, the shipping agents were persuaded to postpone its departure until the following day. Officials in Brazil's Passport Division (run by the Judeophobe Salgado dos Santos) openly refused to admit

the Jews, terming them "non-assimilable" refugees.^[163] Other Brazilian authorities "expressed goodwill in principle but an unwillingness to take action" despite U.S. pressure and categorization of the Cabo dos Hornos situation as "triple priority."^[164] U.S. Congressman Sol Bloom made a personal appeal to Carlos Martins Pereira e Souza, Brazilian ambassador to the United States, who telegrammed Vargas asking permission to grant visas.^[165] Vargas refused, citing Brazilian law and telling U.S. officials that "the Brazilian Foreign Office was not responsible for visas issued against their orders."^[166] As the passengers saw their hopes dashed, panic set in. Lustig Chazen telegrammed to Simmons as the Cabo de Hornos sailed for Europe, "Don't abandon us, please continue intervention to prevent return Europe . . . Save us."^[167] Ten days later the Dutch colony of Curaçao accepted the refugees, pending transfer elsewhere.^[168] Their lives, unlike so many others, were saved.

Brazil's refusal to allow the Cabo de Hornos's passengers to disembark is to be expected given Itamaraty's reprimand of Souza Dantas and the fact that it considered his orders to renew visas illegal. Yet a closer reading shows an increased sophistication in the anti-Jewish politics of the Vargas regime. With only a single exception (a telegram from Pereira e Souza to Vargas), those on the boat were never referred to as Jews. The government and its supporters always claimed the refusal was based on published law and was not related to anti-Semitism, an important position given the alliance with the United States. Rio de Janeiro's A Noite , in an article titled "The Truth About the Cabo de Hornos," never used the term Jew as it argued that the denial of entry "was not inspired by precepts of race, of nationality, of religion, of origin" but that it was "an established universal rule that visas for entering a country are valid for a certain period, at the end of which the authorities again review the admissibility of the foreigner."^[169]A Noite even labeled the Vargas regime benevolent because it had not "handed [the refugees] over to governments considered to be their enemies" and had permitted "thousands of false temporaries" to remain in Brazil.

The reference to the "false temporaries," of course, invoked old stereotypes of Jewish criminal insidiousness. The anti-Nazi Diário da Noite went even further, falsely claiming that thirty thousand refugees—each of whom was presumed to have deposited three hundred contos (fifteen thousand U.S. dollars) in the Banco do Brasil in order to qualify for a visa—had entered Rio between January 1941 and June 1942.^[170] This was seen not as good for the economy but rather as having created "Jerusalem in Rio de Janeiro." While the terms Jew or Jew-

ish were never used, anti-Semitic clichés of Jewish wealth, usurious charging of interest, and social invasion were dredged up. The subhead-line, "Copacabana and Ipanema Evacuated by Brazilians—A Partial Explanation of the Surprising Rise in Rents of Apartments and Houses—30,000 War Refugees Who Represent a Purchasing Power of 90,000 Contos [4.5 million U.S. dollars] Lease Whole Buildings in Order to Sub-let Them," needed no explanation then, nor does it now.

Refugees in Brazil

In spite of its restrictions on Jewish immigration, Brazil established a relatively liberal attitude toward resident refugees. Domestic policies, however, were often couched in strong anti-immigrant rhetoric, in part because anti-Semitic attacks on Jewish residents and citizens were common, especially among German sympathizers.^[171] A document produced by the Departamento Nacional de Povoamento complained that an "organization of Jewish merchants is dangerous to the security of our country and national interest."^[172] A CIC memo opposed a Justice Ministry amnesty plan for those whose visas had expired as allowing "undesirable individuals to stay in Brazil, generally of Semitic origin."^[173] Such sentiment, however, was far from unanimous, and the harsh decrees were often left unenforced or were quietly reformed. In 1939, for example, Vargas ordered that undocumented residents and all who had entered after January 1, 1939, be fined and deported or serve in agricultural work camps.^[174] According to the Ministry of Justice the draconian legislation would affect fifteen thousand resident Jews. Yet no work camps were ever built, and the decree was not enforced. Francisco Campos even promised U.S. Ambassador Jefferson Caffery that "he would neither expel those German [Jewish] refugees nor place them in any sort of concentration camp; in other words he would leave them alone."^[175]

On August 20, 1938, all Jews with expired tourist visas were given permanent status except "white slavers, narcotics peddlers, and professional gamblers"—language taken directly from an ad hoc committee on Jewish refugees that the regime had established.^[176] In August 1939, fifty-four Germans with tourist visas, virtually all with the middle name Israel or Sara, as demanded by the Nazi regime, were reclassified as permanent residents following a request from São Paulo's Delegation of Political and Social Order.^[177] Refugees not only stayed in Brazil, but often found jobs, in many cases working illegally in spite of government

knowledge of such activity.^[178] Complaints about illegal employees, often hired by firms thrilled to have experienced managers and technicians at bargain refugee salaries, were rarely followed up, since Jewish refugees played an increasingly important role in developing the economy. Labienne Salgado dos Santos, whose Judeophobic communiqués from Bucharest may have helped his promotion to head of Brazil's Passport Division, complained repeatedly to Aranha about the illegal employment of refugees. He was particularly angry about a group of Italian Jewish administrators and laboratory directors, "well paid, in places that could be occupied by good Brazilians" in the firm of Indústrias Reunidas F. Matarazzo.^[179] Aranha ignored these charges, although he cleverly passed Salgado dos Santos's letter of complaint on to Vargas as evidence that Itamaraty was examining the charges.^[180]

Most of the anti-immigrant laws were never applied. Even so, some refugees legally in Brazil may have been disqualified for jobs because they were Jewish. Camillo Kahn applied for a job at a General Electric plant in Rio de Janeiro and alleged he was rejected "for the simple reason that I am a Jew."^[181] A letter of complaint to Franklin Roosevelt was passed on to the U.S. embassy in Rio, which expressed its belief that "there is nothing [we] can do."^[182] Lourival Fontes, a close presidential adviser and Hitler admirer who headed the Department of Press and Propaganda (DIP), the powerful state organ that controlled all public communication in Brazil and reported directly to Vargas, promised, however, that the government would not take action against Jewish refugees.^[183] The promise was an accurate one. In July 1941 all refugees in Brazil with temporary or "irregular" status were given official permission to remain until the end of the war with the full privileges of those with permanent visa status.^[184]

The refusal to institutionalize anti-Semitism in domestic policy was part of Brazil's continued desire to portray itself in a positive light to the world. Refusing entry to Jews on the basis of immigration law was much easier than attacking refugees already in Brazil. Furthermore, by blaming general immigration law for the refusal of visas to Jews, important politicians could still claim a willingness to make exceptions. In 1940, for example, Vargas and Aranha met with a World Jewish Congress/American Jewish Congress study group traveling through South America.^[185] The group also met with João Carlos Muniz, who, in spite of his regular attacks on Jewish immigrants and immigration, "expressed himself as highly gratified with the valuable contribution the Jewish community was making . . . [as] the refugees who had come in

recent years had . . . brought new industries, supplementing their limited financial capital with large technical and intellectual capital [and providing] work opportunities for native Brazilians."^[186] In late 1940 a firm in Porto Alegre requested diamond cutters, and a group of French Jewish refugees experienced in the trade were given visas as technical experts.^[187] The almost twenty-five hundred visas given to Jews in 1940 led refugee organizations to believe that "Brazil still continues to accept a great many [Jewish] immigrants."^[188]

In January 1942, Vargas severed relations with the Axis and Japan; in August, Brazil entered the war on the side of the Allies. This gave Jews an opportunity to be "good" citizens and residents of Brazil, show solidarity with the plight of European Jewry, and battle anti-Semitism—all at the same time. Later that year a group of Jews presented five military training planes to Getúlio Vargas "as a gesture of solidarity in the war."^[189] A few days later a fast day was observed in protest against the Nazi murders taking place in concentration camps.^[190] Many young Jews joined the Brazilian armed forces, including, to the surprise of a journalist in Rio, a German Jew living in Belém do Pará.^[191] Others contributed money to Brazilian relief organizations.^[192]

With Brazil a member of the Allied camp, much of the antagonism directed at Jewish refugees seemed to subside. This change was certainly related to a drop in Nazi propaganda in the Brazilian press. Furthermore, the resignations of three of the most powerful nationalist authoritarians in the Vargas regime, Justice Minister Campos, Police Chief Müller, and DIP head Fontes, the latter two open Axis supporters, lowered the priority given to discussion of Jews. Of course the fact that less than 2,500 immigrants entered Brazil in 1942, only 108 of whom were Jews, diminished the importance of the refugee debate. The press responded to the new rules, now glorifying the position of Jews in Brazil. The Correio da Manhã reported with excitement that Brazilian Jews and Jewish refugees attended a special religious service in Rio to "thank President Getúlio Vargas for saving their children."^[193] Historical memory suddenly returned to the press as journalists began portraying Jews as successful farmers. A Diário de Notícias editorial complimented the "splendidly organized" agricultural colony in Rezende and observed that "the activities of the Jews are not limited exclusively to city trade. Actually they are capable of engaging in other spheres of work that is certainly more useful to the country that did not deny them shelter."^[194] Niterói's Diário da Manhã echoed the praise, reflecting that Jewish children in the colony of Quatro Irmãos (referred to incorrectly as Dois

Irmãos) spoke Portuguese "and are masters of the history, geography and economics of Brazil [unlike] Aryan races where thousands of Brazilians do not speak their own language."^[195]O Globo reported that Brazil's treatment of "Jewish victims of Nazi-Fascism" had led "a huge group of Israelites . . . to believe in our glorious flag" and volunteer for military service; the article was even reprinted in Nação Armada , the military journal that had regularly attacked Jews since its inception in 1939.^[196]

Both attitudes and policy changed between 1939 and 1942. The ups and downs of refugee admission, and the decision to legalize the status of refugees in Brazil, indicate the new dual image of Jews among policymakers. This complicated and contradictory image allowed some Jews to enter Brazil while still more were rejected. Jews were never acceptable socially, even if they occasionally were useful economically. Nothing indicates this more than the Brazilian reaction to the potential entry of a group of refugees considered Catholic by Jews and the Vatican, and Jews by the Nazis and the Brazilian government—the so-called Catholic non-Aryans. The refusal of visas to this group shows that in Vargas-era Brazil even Catholics could be Jews.