American Reaction to the Holocaust

IB History of the Americas

Was the FDR administration’s response correct for fighting total war, or should he have done more to save those doomed by Nazism?

Guiding Question

Between 1933 and 1945, the Germangovernment led by Adolf Hitler and theNazi Party carried out the systematic

persecution and murder of Europe’s Jews.

This genocide is now knownas the Holocaust.

The Nazi regime also persecuted and killed millions of other people it consideredpolitically, racially, or socially unfit.

The History of Nazi Anti-Semitism

• Told Germans that they came from a superior race – the Aryans

• Used the Jews as a scapegoat – someone to blame for Germany’s woes after World War I

Anti-Semitism

• Hostility toward or prejudice against Jews

Hitler’s Views

• Jews lived in Germany for 1,600 years.

• Hostility toward Jews existed since the Middle Ages.

• Anti-Jewish Nazi laws mirrored medieval efforts to humiliate Jews.

• Anti-Semitism changed from prejudice based on religion to hatred based on ancestry.

Historyof Jews

in Germany

The Arguments

Franklin Roosevelt’s administration provided little direct aid for victims of Nazi genocide. Is it reasonable to assume that FDR could have done more to save the doomed Jews of Europe?

Some historians’ interpretation of the facts leads them to believe that FDR should have done more.

Other historians write that the president did what was possible, considering the political climate of the pre-war and war years.

Maybe the President would welcome them to the United States…

“Roosevelt took no action to help stop the mass murders in Germany. In early 1944 under pressure from his wife and the wider American public, he finally created the War Refugee Board (WRB) to save Jews and other victims of the Nazis. However, Roosevelt gave the WRB little cooperation and almost no funding. Contributions from Jewish organizations covered 90% of the organization costs. Through dedicated work by a small number of people, the WRB helped save approximately 200,000 Jews and at least 20,000 non-Jews.” Teachers’

Curriculum Institute lesson guide

Do you believe Roosevelt wanted the Jews and other victims to come to the United States ?

Maybe the United States Citizens would welcome Survivors…

“American anti-Semitism may have been one reason the general public lacked interest in the plight of Europe’s Jews. In January 1943, after the Allies issued a declaration condemning Nazi atrocities against Jews, more than half of the American polled did not believe that Nazis were deliberately killing Jews. A public opinion poll taken in December 1944 found that a majority of Americans were aware that Hitler had been cruel to the Jews, but few fathomed the extent of the killing: 12 % believed the stories of mass murder of Jews to be totally untrue, 27 % believed that it involved only 100,000 people, and only 4 % believed that over 5,000,000 Jews had been put to death.” Teachers’ Curriculum Institute lesson guide

What could have the reason for such ignorance in the United States?

Maybe the United States Congress would welcome Survivors…

“In 1938, when the Nazis intensified persecution of Jews, four separate polls indicated that 71 to 85 % of Americans opposed increasing quotas and 67 % wanted all refugees kept out. In early 1939, 66% objected to a one-time exception for 10,000 Jewish orphans to enter the United States.”

“Five year later, in the middle of the war, attitudes had not changed. Asked in January 1943 whether “it would be a good idea or a bad idea to let more immigrants come into this country after the war,” 78% of Americans polled thought it would be a bad idea. At the end of 1945, when the terrible conditions facing European displaced persons were widely known, only 5% of the respondents thought the United States should “permit more persons from Europe to come to this country each year than we did before the war.” Reflecting the national mood, throughout the war years Congress repeatedly considered legislation that would have further limited the number of immigrants beyond what the quota system allowed.” Teachers’ Curriculum Institute lesson guide

Where were the refugees to go, if the United States did not want them?

At the time of the initial stages of the war, the Allies were aware of Hitler’s plans for genocide against Jews and other groups.

The Allies, however, were reluctant to use scarce ships needed for the war effort and wary of the effect such a large- scale influx of immigrants would have on the receiving countries.

In 1943, for example, Romania proposed the evacuation of 70,000 Jews from within its borders, but no nation stepped forward to accept them.

• Several factors limited Jewish immigration to the United States:

American Immigration Regulations

− Jews could not take more than about four dollars out of Germany, and American immigration laws forbade granting a visa to anyone “likely to become a public charge.”

− High unemployment rates in the 1930s made immigration unpopular.

− Some Americans were anti-Semitic.

Roosevelt’s Response to Governor of South Carolina Blackwood’s Request to Help European

Jews During 1933

“Confidentially, I instructed the State Department recently to carefully

observe the situation in Germany and to take every step that one

Government can take in a situation where another Government is

dealing with a domestic problem on its own”

− The existing immigration policy allowed only 150,000 immigrants annually.

• At an international conference on refugees in 1938, several European countries, the United States, and Latin America stated their regret that they could not take in more of Germany’s Jews.

• The St. Louis, with 930 Jewish refugees on board, was denied permission to dock in Cuba or the United States and turned back to Europe.

American Immigration Regulations

U.S. Response to the HOLOCAUST

• The United States did know about the death camps

• The U.S. military refused to – bomb rail lines used to carry victims to the Nazi

death camps– bomb Nazi gas chambers such as those at Auschwitz

and Dachau

• because of the belief that bombing would divert essential military resources

Birkenau Extermination Camp Allied Aerial Photo 25 August 1944

April 4, 1944

U.S. Response to the HOLOCAUST

• During the Nazi program of exterminating the Jews in Europe, American officials were more concerned with the larger goal of winning the war than with the fate of the Jews

• The Holocaust was NOT a major reason the U.S. fought World War II

The American response to the Holocaust

• Despite knowing about Hitler’s policies toward the Jews and events such as Kristallnacht, American immigration limited the number of Jews who could move to the United States.

• In 1942, Americans officials began to hear about what was happening to the Jews in Europe and specifically about Hitler’s Final Solution.– The Americans were doubtful at first and thought the reports

might just be war rumors.

• Finally in 1944, Roosevelt created the War Refugee Board.

Rabbis March To Inform RooseveltOctober 6, 1943

• October 6, 1943, three days before Yom Kippur and more than four hundred rabbis had come Washington D.C. to plead for U.S. government action to save Jews from Hitler.

The American Response in Europe

Liberating the Nazi Camps

• In 1944, Soviet troops began to discover some of the Nazi death camps. By 1945 they reached the huge extermination camp at Auschwitz.

• Their reports gave proof of Hitler’s terrible plan.

• Also in 1945, American soldiers came upon concentration camps.

• Many camp inmates died after being rescued, but some were still strong enough to survive.

The Nuremberg trials

• Many Nazis faced trial for their roles in the Holocaust.

• The court was located at Nuremberg, Germany.

• The court was called the International Military Tribunal.

• Twenty four Nazis were tried for war crimes

• Since Nuremberg, several Nazis have been captured and tried in different courts, including Israel.

Nuremberg Trials

• On trial for – Planning and waging aggressive war– War crimes ( killing prisoners ; plundering)– Crimes against humanity ( extermination; slavery)

• Main Trial – 24 top leaders ( most executed or imprisoned)

• Other trials of over 200 lesser leaders • Established precedent = individuals responsible

for actions even in wartime

WHAT WAS THE MEDIA COVERAGE LIKE?

• The coverage in most places was inadequate. Many countries and papers believed that they would be thought of as a “Jewish” paper or “Jewish loving” if they reported too much.

• The New York Times is a great example of this. It is said that their reports were brief and buried in the paper. – “On June 27, 1942, the Times devoted just two

inches to the news that “700,000 Jews were reported slain in Poland.”

– On July 2, 1942, it noted that gas chambers were being used to kill 1,000 Jews a day – but only on page 6.

In The New York Times

On November 25, 1942, it reported that there had been roundups, gassings, cattle cars and the disappearance of 90 percent of Warsaw’s ghetto population – but only on page 10.

On December 9, 1942, its report that two million Jews had been killed and five million more faced extermination appeared only on page 20.

On July 2, 1944, it reported that 400,000 Hungarian Jews had been deported to their deaths so far, and 350,000 more were likely to be killed in the next weeks. Yet this news received only four column inches on page 12. (That edition’s front page carried an analysis of the problem of New York holiday crowds on the move.)