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Anti-Semitism In The United States
Barring U.S. Doors To Aliens/Refugees
News Of Extermination Reaches U.S.
President Roosevelt'S Apparent Reluctance To Help Europe'S Jews
Press Reaction
Bermuda Conference
Something Can Be Done: War Refugee Board
Bombing Railways And Auschwitz
Anti-Semitism In The United States
- Newspaper classified job ads for "gentiles" only
- With Hitler's rise to power in Germany, anti-Semitic fringe
organizations also appeared in the U.S. About 100 such organizations conducted
anti-Jewish hate campaigns during the 1930s. Anti-Semitism before the Second
World War was also common within mainstream American society. Jews were often
excluded from social organizations, summer resorts and neighborhoods. Many
colleges and universities adopted Jewish quotas while employers frequently
refused to hire Jews for jobs at their companies.
Barring U.S. Doors To Aliens/Refugees
Memo from Assistant Secretary of State Breckinridge Long to State
Department Officials dated June 26, 1940, outlining effective ways to obstruct
the granting of U.S. visas.
Letter from Margaret E. Jones, an American Quaker working with European Jews
hoping to emigrate to the U.S., expressing her distress at the impact of
Breckinridge Long's memo.
Visa Application of U.S. State Department, Visa Division, January 1943.
The visa application process was extremely complicated. The double-sided form
itself was more than four feet long.
News Of Extermination Reaches U.S.
U.S. State Department receives information from Switzerland regarding
the Nazi plan to murder the Jews of Europe.
In August 1942, the representative of the World Jewish Congress in Switzerland,
Gerhart Riegner, heard about a German plan to annihilate the Jews of Europe.
His source was a German industrialist with access to top Nazi circles. Riegner
immediately took the information to the American consulate in Geneva, where he
asked the Vice-Consul Howard Elting Jr. to send the information to Washington
and other Allied governments.
Cable from London to Rabbi Stephen Wise regarding the "Final Solution."
The State Department decided that the information passed on by Gerhart Riegner
was nothing more than a "fantastic" war rumor. It did not pass the telegram to
American Jewish leaders. However, Riegner had also informed the British
consulate, who cabled the information to the Foreign Office in London, where it
was passed on to a member of Parliament, Samuel Sydney Silverman. On August
28, 1942 Silverman sent it to Rabbi Stephen Wise.
Undersecretary of State Sumner Welles tells Rabbi Stephen Wise he has
information confirming that the Nazis plan to kill all of Europe's Jews.
Stephen Wise was extremely distressed by Gerhart Riegner's information. Not
realizing the State Department had already received Riegner's message he passed
it on to Undersecretary of State Sumner Welles. Welles asked Wise not to
release the message to the press until the State Department had been able to
confirm it. This process took more than two months.
In January 1943, the American legation in Switzerland sends information to
Sumner Welles, Undersecretary of State, confirming reports of mass executions
of Jews in Poland.
The State Department sends a memo to the American legation in Bern, on
February 10, 1943, stating that in the future they not transmit reports to
private citizens, since they "circumvent neutral countries' censorship."
As more information about the progress of the Holocaust continued to arrive in
the U.S. from Switzerland, the State Department tried to prevent news of this
sort from reaching U.S. citizens. The ban on information from Europe imposed
by this memo lasted two months.
President Roosevelt'S Apparent Reluctance To Help Europe'S Jews
Entry from Assistant Secretary of State Breckinridge Long's diary in which
he notes that President Roosevelt supports his policy of encouraging consulates
to "postpone and postpone and postpone" the granting of visas.
A report written by Adoph Held, the president of the American Jewish Labor
Committee recounting President Roosevelt's 29-minute meeting on December 8,
1942 with a small delegation of American Jewish Leaders.
After the State Department confirmed reports that Hitler was planning to murder
all the Jews in territories under German control, several American Jewish
leaders including Rabbi Stephen Wise managed to arrange an audience with
President Roosevelt. At this meeting, the only one FDR had with Jewish leaders
about the Holocaust, the President was presented with a document outlining the
Nazi plan to annihilate European Jews. As this report of the meeting
indicates, the president was acquainted with details of the atrocities being
committed by the Nazis.
Memorandum of Conversation by Mr. Harry L. Hopkins, Special Assistant to
President Roosevelt regarding a meeting with Anthony Eden March 27, 1943
Four months after the State Department confirmed the dimensions of the
Holocaust, British Foreign Secretary Anthony Eden met in Washington with
President Roosevelt, Secretary of State Cordell Hull and Undersecretary of
State Sumner Welles. At this meeting, Eden expressed his fear that Hitler
might actually accept an offer from the Allies to move Jews out of areas under
German control. No one present objected to Eden's statement.
"Washington Times Herald" report on the march of 400 Orthodox rabbis to the
White House
On October 6, 1943, 400 Orthodox rabbis marched to the Capitol where they
handed Vice-President Henry A. Wallace a petition for a government rescue
agency. Later that day they walked to the White House, and handed the document
to a presidential secretary. The rabbis had tried for weeks to arranged to
meet FDR in person. The White House claimed the President was unable to see
them because of "pressure of other business." FDR's appointment diaries show
that he had a light schedule that day.
Press Reaction
Throughout the Holocaust, the American press typically buried the news
of the annihilation of the Jews on their inside pages or omitted it altogether.
When Rabbi Stephen Wise announced to the media that the State Department had
confirmed the Nazis were systematically killing the Jews in Europe, the "New
York Times" report appeared on page 10, "The Washington Post" ran its article
on page 6.
Article on Rabbi Wise's announcement -- NYT November 25, 1942 page
10
Article on Rabbi Wise's announcement -- WP November 25, 1942 page
6
Bermuda Conference
Memorandum, "Views of the Government of the United States Regarding
Topics Included in the Agenda for Discussion with the British Government."
[March 1943]
The 12-day Bermuda Conference which opened on April 19, 1943 grew out of
concerns in the British public about news reports that the Nazis were
slaughtering Europe's Jews. The U.S. agreed to hold a closed-door conference
with Britain to discuss the issue. But American delegates arrived with secret
directives from the State Department to accomplish little or anything.
Excerpt from a plan for rescue of refugees that was submitted to the Bermuda
Conference by Jewish leaders.
American Jewish leaders tried to push for a small Jewish delegation to make a
case at the Bermuda Conference, but this idea was rejected. As a final effort
to influence the conference, Jewish leaders sent a list of specific rescue
proposals.
Excerpt from "Report to the Governments of the United States and the United
Kingdom from Their Delegates to the Conference on the Refugee Problem Held at
Bermuda, April 19 -29, 1943."
The delegates to the Bermuda conference came up with almost no concrete
proposals. Perhaps because of this they decided to keep their report secret.
Something Can Be Done: War Refugee Board
"Report to the Secretary on the Acquiescence of this Government in the
Murder of the Jews," initialed by Randolph Paul for the Foreign Funds Control
Unit of the Treasury Department, January 13, 1944.
In the summer of 1943 members of the U.S. Treasury Department became aware of
the State Department's obstructionist attitude towards rescuing European Jews.
The World Jewish Congress representative in Geneva, Gerhart Riegner had
recently proposed a plan to save Rumanian and French Jews that involved Jewish
organizations in the U.S. transferring funds to frozen accounts in Switzerland.
When approached with this plan, the State Department took no action for 11
weeks. But when Treasury Department officials became aware of the plan, they
quickly issued the licenses that were required during World War II for funds to
be transferred overseas. Even so for months more the State Department secretly
continued to hold up the licenses. Near the end of the year Treasury Department
staffers discovered the State Department's obstructions and they prepared the
following damning indictment, in which they asserted the State Department was
"guilty not only of gross procrastination and willful failure to act, but even
of willful attempts to prevent action from being taken to rescue Jews from
Hitler." A condensed version of the report was presented to the President by
Secretary of the Treasury Henry Morgenthau, Jr. on January 16, 1944.
Executive Order No. 9417 Establishing a War Refugee Board
Within days of receiving the Treasury Department's indictment of the
Government's failure to rescue Jews from the Nazis, President Roosevelt
established the War Refugee Board. Among other things it was charged with "the
rescue, transportation, maintenance and relief of the victims of enemy
oppression," and with "the establishment of havens of temporary refuge for such
victims." Although the WRB was not adequately funded, and some of its programs
met with very limited success, board representatives managed to help save the
lives of approximately 200,000 European Jews.
Bombing Railways And Auschwitz
Summary of the Auschwitz escapees report by Gerhart Riegner, World Jewish
Congress, Geneva, sent under cover of R.E. Shoenfeld, U.S. chargé to
Czech government in London, to Cordell Hull, Secretary of State, July 5,
1944
On April 7, 1944, two Slovakian Jews escaped from Auschwitz. By the end of the
month they had reached the Jewish underground in Slovakia where they gave a
detailed account of the mass murder operations at the camp. The two men also
warned that preparations were underway to murder the Jews of Hungary. Their
report initiated a series of requests that the U.S. bomb the crematoria at
Auschwitz and key rail links that would be used to transport Hungarian Jews to
Poland.
Henry Morgenthau, Jr., Secretary of the Treasury to Assistant Secretary of
War, Jan 28, 1944, asking that Theater Commanders be advised to cooperate with
WRB rescue operations.
Shortly after the establishment of the War Refugee Board, Henry Morgenthau, Jr.
Secretary of the Treasury asked the War Department to advise theater commanders
that they would be expected to cooperate with the Board in aiding "Axis victims
to the fullest extent possible." No message to this effect was ever sent to
military commanders.
Minutes of a meeting between Colonel Davis, Lt. Rockefeller and Colonel
Gerhardt, February 11, 1944, discussing the cable to be sent to theater
commanders concerning the War Refugee Board.
The extracts from the minutes of this meeting show the War Department had
decided its policy should be not to cooperate in refugee relief efforts.
Thomas T. Handy, Assistant Chief of Staff, Memorandum for the Chief of
Staff, February 8, 1944, on reassuring the British that military forces will
not be used to rescue refugees
Cable from Switzerland to Agudas Israel World Organizations, New York June
12, 1944 describing situation of Hungarian Jews and calling for bombing
deportation railways
As the Nazis began deporting Jews from Hungary to the Auschwitz death camp in
Poland, requests to bomb the deportation railways were sent to the United
States.
Jacob Rosenheim, Agudas Israel World Organization, New York, to Henry
Morgenthau, Jr., Secretary of the Treasury, June 18, 1944, asking that
deportation rail lines be bombed
Thomas Handy, Assistant Chief of Staff, War Department, to Director, Civil
Affairs Division, June 26, 1944, conveying the Operations Division's conclusion
that bombing the deportation railways is "impracticable."
In line with its undeclared policy not to aid in the rescue of refugees, the
War Department routinely turned down requests to bomb deportation railways. No
studies were ever conducted to check the feasibility of such bombing raids.
Benjamin Akzin, War Refugee Board, to Lawrence S. Lesser, War Refugee Board,
June 29 1944, urging the bombing of Auschwitz and Birkenau.
The World Jewish Congress in New York asks the War Department to bomb the
crematoria at Auschwitz, August 9, 1944. The War Department turns down the
request (August 14, 1944)
John J. McCloy, Assistant Secretary of War, explains to John W. Pehle,
Director, War Refugee Board, that the War Department cannot authorize the
bombing of Auschwitz, November 18, 1944.
The War Department received several requests to bomb Auschwitz, but it turned
each down claiming that the raid would divert air support from the war effort.
The Department also claimed that the camp was beyond the maximum range of
bombers located in Britain, France or Italy.
These assertions were false: In July of 1944, the Allies began a series of air
raids on Germany's synthetic-oil industry which was based in Upper Silesia near
Auschwitz. On August 20, 127 Flying Fortresses dropped thousands of pounds of
high explosives on the factory areas of Auschwitz which were less than five
miles from the gas chambers. Three weeks later, the U.S. targeted those same
sites. This time two bombs accidentally fell near the killing installations
and one actually damaged a rail line leading to the gas chambers.
Extracts from the U.S. Strategic Bombing Survey, summarizing 15th Air Force
bombing attacks in August and September 1944 on Oswiecim (Auschwitz)
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