Madagascar Plan

   Following the German occupation of Poland in September 1939, the Nazis made plans to remove the Jews from the annexed areas of Poland and resettle them in the Lublin district, where they would reside in the transit camp at Nisko. When this scheme failed, the Germans focused on the French colony of Madagascar as an area of Jewish resettlement. The defeat of the French in 1940 made the Madagascar Plan feasible, but its implementation required the defeat of Great Britain, which controlled the seaway to the colony. The inability to defeat the British, however, forced Germany to abort the plan. Had the Madagascar Plan been realized, it would have resulted in the deportation of tens of thousands of Jews to an area ill-suited to absorb such a large number of people. Because the colony could not have provided infrastructure to sustain life, it is not unreasonable to conclude that the plan was a prescription for genocide.