On the other hand, German companies were allowed to fire Jewish employees in Sweden. Also, Swedish immigration policy during the 1930s was restrictive against admitting Jewish refugees trying to escape the Nazi terror and mass murder into Sweden, before the deportations of Norwegian Jews began in 1942. Jewish refugees may have been discriminated against by the immigration authorities compared to other refugees. At the end of the war and in the post-Holocaust debate Swedish politicians and officials defended their previous restrictive policy toward Jewish immigration by referring to the Jewish minority in the country, claiming that the Stockholm Jewish Community or "certain Jewish circles" had been even more restrictive than the Swedish state.