the eighteenth century, only isolated or small groups of German emigrants left for Latin America; however, at the start of the last century, this pattern was reversed as a tidal wave of German emigration totaling some 200,000 people began. These included groups such as land-hungry peasants, political refugees known as Forty-Eighters, and religious minorities such as Russian Mennonites fleeing religious persecution at home. During the 1880s, during the wave of mass emigration, this figure was reached annually. The Handbuch des Deutschtums im Ausland (The Germans Abroad Handbook) from 1906 puts a figure of 11 million people in North and South America with a knowledge of the German language, of which 9 million were in the US. Although the US was the focal point for emigration in the 19th century, emigration to Latin America was also significant for differing economic and political reasons. The majority of German emigrants to Latin America went especially to Brazil, but also to Argentina, Mexico, Uruguay, Chile, Paraguay, Guatemala, and Costa Rica. The three countries with the biggest ethnic German populations in Latin America to this day are Brazil, Argentina, and Mexico Starting in 1818, when King D. João VI brought the first German and Swiss immigrants to Brazil, German immigration continued a constant flow with an average of 25 to 30 thousand immigrants per decade entering the country since 1818. It peaked in the years following World War I, to around 90 thousand, and again in the 1940s to around 50,000. In the 1880s and 1890s, German emigration to Latin America grew and in some years was the destination of up to 30% of German emigrants. During the Nazi period – until the ban on emigration came into effect in 1941 – some 100,000 Jews from Central Europe, the vast majority of which were German-speaking, moved to South America with 90% of these moving to the Cono Sur or Southern Cone. From the start of the 20th century until 1946 80% of Jews lived in Europe but by the end of World War II this was reduced to 25%, however after the war over 50% of Jews now lived in the Americas. This change was aided by Jewish emigration groups such as the Hilfsverein deutschsprechender Juden (later to become Asociación Filantrópica Israelita) which was based in Buenos Aires, Argentina. The majority of German minorities in Latin America – as well as elsewhere around the world