United States and the Holocaust

This article covers the role of the United States in the Holocaust (1941-1945).


Background

Restrictions on Jewish immigration

In 1924, the Johnson Reed Act was passed, limiting the number of Jews, as well as other groups, allowed to immigrate to the United States.[1] These limitations were mostly due to anti-Semitic sentiments held by the public during this time.[2] In the wake of the Great Depression, the United States had a highly restrictive immigration quota system, but even the limited quota spots were not filled.[3] The Department of State refused to fill 90% of the quota spots that might have been available for European Jews.[4][5] In 1939, German Jewish citizens traveling on the passenger ship St. Louis in order to escape Nazi persecution were unable to dock in any American ports. Because they were not allowed to dock and unload in the United States, Cuba, or Canada, the ship was forced to turn around and head back to Europe, forcing Jewish refugees to go back to the very area from which they were trying to flee.[6]

Responses to pre-war persecution, 1933–41

Évian Conference

The United States participated in the Évian Conference, an international conference held in July 1938 to decide how to best to handle the mounting Jewish refugee crisis. Participants in the Conference were representatives of Bolivia, Brazil, Canada, Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica, Cuba, Denmark, the Dominican Republic, Ecuador, the French Third Republic, Guatemala, Haiti, Honduras, the Republic of Ireland, Mexico, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Nicaragua, Norway, Panama, Paraguay, Peru, Sweden, Switzerland, the United Kingdom, the United States, Uruguay, and Venezuela.[7] However, the United States did not increase the amount of refugees they let into the country, "citing continued economic hardship resulting from the worldwide depression" as the reason why no refugees could be taken in.[8] The lack of decisive action by world leaders led to many Jews attempting to escape Nazi persecution having no place to turn to for safety. The administration of Franklin D. Roosevelt and the president himself were not ardent advocates of the Holocaust victims.[9]

Ickes plan for Alaska
Main article: Slattery Report

In November 1938, two weeks after Kristallnacht, United States Secretary of the Interior Harold L. Ickes proposed the use of Alaska as a "haven for Jewish refugees from Germany and other areas in Europe where the Jews are subjected to oppressive restrictions." Resettlement in Alaska would allow the refugees to bypass normal immigration quotas, because Alaska was a territory and not a state. That summer Ickes had toured Alaska and met with local officials to discuss improving the local economy and bolstering security in a territory viewed as vulnerable to Japanese attack. Ickes thought European Jews might be the solution.[10][11]

In his proposal, Ickes pointed out that 200 families from the dustbowl had settled in Alaska's Matanuska Valley. The plan was introduced as a bill by Senator William King (Utah) and Representative Franck Havenner (California), both Democrats. The Alaska proposal won the support of theologian Paul Tillich, the Federal Council of Churches and the American Friends Service Committee.

But the plan won little support from American Jews, with the exception of the Labor Zionists of America. Most Jews agreed with Rabbi Stephen Wise, president of the American Jewish Congress, that adoption of the Alaska proposal would deliver "a wrong and hurtful impression...that Jews are taking over some part of the country for settlement." The plan was dealt a severe blow when Roosevelt told Ickes that he insisted on limiting the number of refugees to 10,000 a year for five years, and with a further restriction that Jews not make up more than 10% of the refugees. Roosevelt never mentioned the Alaska proposal in public, and without his support the plan died.

Wagner Rogers Bill

Another initiative taken by the United States to try to help Jewish refugees was the introduction of the Wagner Rogers Bill in 1938. "The Wagner-Rogers Bill, named for Senator Robert Wagner of New York and Representative Edith Rogers of Massachusetts and introduced in February 1939, sought to allow the entry of 20,000 refugee children from Germany".[12] The bill was intended to give refuge to German-Jewish children who were facing increased discrimination against them in Nazi Germany. However, the bill did not garner enough support from the public and was not ever able to pass, therefore forcing these children to remain in Germany. "The bill caused a loud and bitter public debate, but it never even reached a vote in Congress".[13] Anti-semitic sentiments were very common at this time, and as a result, many Americans did not want Jewish refugees to be resettled in the country. Such sentiments can be attributed to scapegoating Jews for the nation's internal problems, as well as the negative stereotyping of Jews.[14]

Riegner Telegram

In June 1941, Dr. Gerhart M. Riegner attempted to notify prominent American rabbi Stephen Samuel Wise about the Holocaust that was happening to the European Jews. At this point, the Nazis were trying to keep the genocide a secret and therefore little was known about it in the United States. Riegner informed the United States Department of State of his findings, asking them to relay the message to Wise. However, the Department of State never did, keeping the events of the Holocaust largely unknown to the American public.[15] Had the Riegner Telegram been received, the course of this era in history may have been dramatically different. There may have been more public knowledge about the Holocaust, and therefore public opinion may have influenced government policy towards Jewish asylum seekers. By the end of 1942 the US government had adequate evidence to conclude that a campaign to annihilate the Jews of Europe was underway.[16]

The Holocaust, 1942–1945

In 998 press conferences, during more than a decade in office, served wholly within the Nazi era, President Franklin D. Roosevelt (term 1933–1945) never delivered the "appeal to the German people" regarding the Reich's treatment of Jews that he said he would.[17] Roosevelt's failure to take decisive, preventative action regarding the Holocaust is still a stain on American foreign policy, according to many scholars."The callous neglect by the Roosevelt Administration of the fate of European Jewry through the Nazi holocaust lingers to haunt one's faith in the abiding humane traditions of American foreign policy".[18]

Like the other Allies of World War II, the United States decided not to bomb the Auschwitz concentration camp out of commission, even as American heavy bombers staged several attacks nearby.[19] Regarding the decision not to bomb Auschwitz, several scholars believe "this notorious nonevent tends to become the central symbol of the Allies' response to the Holocaust".[20] This is because the bombing of Auschwitz could have had a significant impact on Jewish casualties, but, like many other aspects of American foreign policy regarding the Holocaust, no preventative actions were taken. (See Auschwitz bombing debate.)

War Refugee Board

It was Treasury official Josiah DuBois who authored the "Report to the Secretary on the Acquiescence of this Government in the Murder of the Jews" that documented State Department efforts to thwart Jewish immigration from Europe.[21] It was DuBois's report that furnished United States Secretary of the Treasury Henry Morgenthau Jr. with the ammunition he needed to force Roosevelt into creating the War Refugee Board.[22] Morgenthau did not believe the president was doing enough to help European Jews escape the Holocaust.[23] Because of this he urged Roosevelt to create a government committee to address the Holocaust which, by this time, had already been going on for around five years.

Internment camp in New York State

From August 1944 to February 1946, 982 refugees from eighteen different countries[24][25] were interned at Fort Ontario Emergency Refugee Shelter as operation "Safe Haven." This was sited at Fort Ontario, in Oswego, New York, a port on the southern shore of Lake Ontario. This was the only attempt by the United States government to shelter Jewish refugees during the war.[26]

Public awareness

Lack of public awareness

According to Peter Novick, "Americans, including many American Jews, were largely unaware of what we now call the Holocaust while it was going on; the nation was preoccupied with defeating the Axis."[27] Some awareness of Germany's harsh treatment of Jews in German-occupied Europe, especially in Occupied Poland, existed; H. R. Knickerbocker wrote in 1941, "Poland must come in a separate category since there Hitler has apparently set out to exterminate the 3,000,000 Jews without the restraint he seems to have put on himself elsewhere ... the obvious intent of the Germans in Poland is to wipe out the Jews altogether, and the wonder is that any at all are living today."[28]

News policy by The New York Times

Before, during and after World War II, The New York Times maintained a general policy to minimize reporting on the Holocaust.[29] To this end, it placed such reportage deep inside its daily editions, while obscuring in those stories the special impact of the Nazis' crimes on Jews in particular.[30] The New York Times did however publish the Joint Declaration by Members of the United Nations of 17 December 1942 on its front page, which was a joint declaration by eleven Allied nations publicly condemning the mass extermination of the Jews in Nazi-occupied Poland.[31]

See also

References
  1. Ngai, Mae (2009). "The Johnson Reed Act of 1924 and the Reconstruction of Race and Immigration Law". In Janice A. Radway; Kevin Gaines; Barry Shank; Penny Von Eschen (eds.). American Studies: An Anthology. Wiley. p. 69. ISBN 9781405113519.
  2. Hochberg, Severin (July 1, 2019). The United States and the Nazi Holocaust: Race, Refuge, and Remembrance. American Jewish Historical Society.
  3. Wyman 1984, p. 288.
  4. Brazeal 2011, p. 63.
  5. America and the Holocaust: Breckinridge Long, PBS
  6. Vincent, C. Paul (August 2011). "The Voyage of the St. Louis Revisited". Holocaust and Genocide Studies. 25 (2): 252–289. doi:10.1093/hgs/dcr038. S2CID 145375168.
  7. Estorick, Eric (May 1939). "The Evian Conference and the Intergovernmental Committee". The Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science. 203 (1): 136–141. doi:10.1177/000271623920300116. S2CID 143382681.
  8. Bartrop, Paul (2019). "The Evian Conference of 1938 and the Jewish Refugee Crisis". Holocaust and Genocide Studies. Oxford University Press. 33 (1): 131–133.
  9. D. V. Ivanov (Moscow State Institute of International Relations (University)) A. V. Krylov (Moscow State Institute of International Relations (University)) V. M. Morozov (Moscow State Institute of International Relations (University)) V. O. Pechatnov (Moscow State Institute of International Relations (University)) S. A. Sklyarov (Moscow State Institute of International Relations (University)) E. O. Shebalina (Moscow State Institute of International Relations (University)) (2018). "Th Conscience of the World or the Conspiracy of Silence to the Anniversaries of the Evian and Bermuda Conferences". Vestnik MGIMO-Universiteta.
  10. Raphael Medoff (November 16, 2007). "A Thanksgiving plan to save Europe's Jews". Jewish Standard. Retrieved 2007-11-25.
  11. Kizzia, Tom (19 May 1999). "Sanctuary: Alaska, the Nazis, and the Jews". Anchorage Daily News. Retrieved 14 October 2012.
  12. Walters, Kathryn (2019-07-11). 20,000 Fewer: The Wagner-Rogers Bill and the Jewish Refugee Crisis (Thesis). VA Tech. hdl:10919/91429.
  13. "America and the Holocaust". Facing History and Ourselves.
  14. Cremoni, Lucilla (28 May 2010). "Antisemitism and populism in the United States in the 1930s: The case of father Coughlin". Patterns of Prejudice. 32 (1): 25–37. doi:10.1080/0031322X.1998.9970245.
  15. "American Response to the Holocaust". HISTORY. A&E Television Networks.
  16. Brazeal 2011, p. 58.
  17. Medoff 2008, p. 6.
  18. Wyman, David (1984). The Abandonment of the Jews: America and the Holocaust 1941-1945 (1 ed.). New York: Pantheon Books.
  19. Kennedy 1999, p. 796.
  20. Miller, Paul (2003). "David S. Wyman and the Controversy over the Bombing of Auschwitz". Journal of Ecumenical Studies. 40 (4).
  21. Medoff 2008, pp. 40–52.
  22. Medoff 2008, p. 55, 64.
  23. Penkower, Monty (July 1980). "Jewish Organizations and the Creation of the U. S. War Refugee Board". The Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science. 450: 122–139. doi:10.1177/000271628045000111. JSTOR 1042563. S2CID 145103156.
  24. "FORT ONTARIO EMERGENCY REFUGEE SHELTER". USHMM.
  25. Dobkowski, Michael (April 1988). "Reviewed Work: Token Refuge: The Story of the Jewish Refugee Shelter at Oswego, 1944-1946 by Sharon R. Lowenstein". New York History. 69 (2): 240–242. JSTOR 23178308.
  26. Contributor (Dec 28, 2015). "Efforts Under Way to Elevate Fort Ontario to National, International Status". Dot Publishing. Oswego County Today. Retrieved 4 April 2017.
  27. Novick 1999, p. 2.
  28. Knickerbocker, H.R. (1941). Is Tomorrow Hitler's? 200 Questions On the Battle of Mankind. Reynal & Hitchcock. p. 363. ISBN 9781417992775.
  29. Max Frankel (November 14, 2001). "Turning Away From the Holocaust". The New York Times.
  30. Leff 2005, p. 357.
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