Transcript A History of Antisemitism

AMERICA AND THE HOLOCAUST
THE HISTORY OF ANTISEMITISM
“Let me give you my honest advice. First their
synagogues or churches should be set on fire,
and whatever does not burn should be covered or
spread over so that no one may ever be able to
see a cinder of it.
And this ought to be done for the honor of God
and Christianity…”
-Martin Luther (1543)
HISTORY OF ANTISEMITISM
In your notebook, write your own definitions for the
following”
– Antisemitism
– Prejudice
– Stereotypes
When you have finished, share your definition with
the person sitting next to you. See if you have any
differences in wording, etc. Be prepared to then
share with the class.
HISTORY OF ANTISEMITISM
“Antisemitism is a very peculiar pathology that
recognizes no national borders. It is a mental condition
conducive to paranoia and impervious to truth. Its
lexicon has no word for individuality. It is fixated on
group identity. It is necessarily dehumanizing when
people become abstractions. Once an emotional
stereotype has been created—of the Jews, of blacks, of
Catholics, of Muslims—it is readily absorbed in the
bones like strontium 90, an enduring poison that distorts
the perceptions of the victims. All minority groups have
suffered, but none have been stereotyped more heinously
and more durably than Jews.”
-Sir Harold Evans
Editor at large, Thomson Reuters
THE BLOOD LIBEL AND PROTOCOLS
“The truth is not hard to kill, but a lie well told lives
forever”
-Mark Twain
Blood Libel
After watching the video, The Power of a Lie: The History
of Blood Libel, and reading the excerpt from A Convenient
Hatred: A History of Antisemitism, answer the questions on
your worksheet.
Protocols of the Elders of Zion
Read the mini article provided and answer the analysis
questions
Book cover from Mexico
Book cover from Syria
EVOLUTION OF AMERICAN
POLICIES
1933-1945
FIRST PHASE: 1933-SEPT 1939 (WWII
BEGINS)
• U.S. Political Environment
– Great Depression, massive unemployment
– Isolationism
– Congress opposed increased immigration
– Heightened hostility to minorities
• Critical time period in Europe
– German and Austrian Jews could emigrate if other
countries would accept them
AMERICAN ATTITUDES
• 1938 Roper survey: “What do you object to?” 38% said
Jews (#1 response)
• 1939 Poll: 77% opposed allowing “a large number of
Jewish exiles from Germany to come into the U.S. to
live”
• April 1939: poll on expanding quota for European
refugees, 83% opposed
• 1940 poll: 53% of Americans believed Jews should be
restricted in business and social interaction with nonJews
AMERICAN ATTITUDES
• In 1939, 42.3% of Americans believed German
violence against Jews was justifiable
• Jan. 1943: Even after Allies issued declaration
condemning atrocities against Jews, more than half of
Americans polled did not believe Nazis were
deliberately killing the Jews.
• December 1944: A majority of Americans were aware
that Hitler had been cruel to the Jews but they didn’t
know the extent
– Only 4% believed that over 5,000,000 Jews were
put to death
EVIAN CONFERENCE (MARCH 1938)
• Worldwide meeting called by FDR
• 32 countries attended
• Was intended to find locations/countries for Jews to
emigrate to
• Despite voicing sympathy, most countries made
excuses for not accepting refugees
THE ST. LOUIS (1939)
• The St. Louis sailed to Cuba with approximately 900
Jews
• Turned away from Cuba
• Headed to the U.S.
– Because the refugees had not been able to secure
necessary documents before leaving, and because of
strict immigration laws, U.S. government denied
entry to the refugees
– Forced them to return to Europe
– Many ended up dying in the concentration camps
WAGNER-ROGERS BILL (FEB. 1939)
• Would allow for the admittance of 20,000 German
refugee children
• Many religious figures, labor organizations, prominent
politicians, and editors supported
• Isolationists and patriotic groups opposed
• Public poll: 61% opposed, 30% supported, 9% had no
opinion
• Was not passed by the Senate
EVALUATION OF FDR IN FIRST
PHASE
• Supported Jewish immigration within context of
political realities
– Congress and public opposition and conflicting
advice from Jewish groups
• 1933-1940: More Jews entered U.S. than all other
countries combined (105,000). Second most was to
Palestine (56,000)
RESPONSE OF AMERICAN JEWS
• Leaders of Jewish organizations disagreed
about degree of danger presented by the Nazis
• Many opposed allowing in Jewish refugees out
of fear it would contribute to anti-Semitism at
home
• Some were verbal against German violence
– held demonstrations
– boycotted German products
SECOND PHASE: SEPT 1939-DEC 1943
• War not going well for Allies
• Genocide by Nazis had begun
– Gestapo prohibited Jewish emigration
• Political environment in U.S. largely unchanged
– State Dept. pushed for even more strict
immigration standards
– Idea of the 5th Column: people inside the U.S. who
would undermine the gov’t to help enemies
FIRST ACKNOWLEDGMENT
• 1941: The mass killings of Jews begin by gassing in
specially designed vans at Chelmno
• June 20, 1942: The New York Times carried report
from the World Jewish Congress that the Germans
had massacred one million Jews, and Nazis had
established a "vast slaughterhouse for the Jews" in
Eastern Europe
RESPONSE OF AMERICAN MEDIA
• Treated the mass murder of the Jews as minor
news
• Most Americans weren’t aware of the atrocities
until well into 1944
• International news services delivered extensive
information to American newspapers, but
papers usually buried this info in its inner
pages that no one read
• Radio and magazine coverage sparse
PROBLEMS WITHIN THE GOV’T
• Despite attempts by FDR to
help, many efforts were
undermined or sabotaged by
American government officials
• Most well known of these was
Breckinridge Long
– Head of Special War
Problems section in State
Dept.
– Responsible for Visa
selection
BRECKINRIDGE LONG
• Wrote a secret memo to State Dept. officials to make
Visa granting as difficult as possible
• Convinced FDR of 5th Column threats
• Did not include “Presidential Advisory Committee on
Political Refugees” in State Dept. budget; sabotaged
the project
• Recommended Blood-Van Nuys Acts: authorized Visa
be withheld if person believed to be a threat to the
U.S.
• Attempts to keep State Dept. info on Jewish situation
in Europe from American Jewish leadership
• Ruined FDR’s plan to bribe key German officials to aid
in rescue efforts
RIEGNER TELEGRAM
"Informer reported to have close connections with
highest German authorities who has previously
generally reliable reports says that in Fuehrer's [sic]
headquarters plan under consideration to exterminate at
one blow this fall three and half to four millions Jews
following deportation from countries occupied, controlled
by Germany and concentration in east. Method
execution undecided but prussic acid has been
considered. Information transmitted with reservation as
exactitude cannot be ascertained."
RIEGNER TELEGRAM (AUGUST 1942)
• Gerhard Riegner sent telegram to Rabbi Steven Wise
via the U.S. State Department and to Sydney
Silverman via the London Foreign Office
• Informed of Nazi plan for the mass extermination of
the European Jews was being implemented
• November ‘42: NYT carries announcement on page 10
about slaughter of 2 million Jews. Rabbi Wise hold
press conference to announce Nazi plan to the world.
PRESS INVOLVEMENT
• December 13, 1942: America's most popular
broadcaster, Edward R. Murrow reported the
following:
"Millions of human beings, most of them Jews, are being
gathered up with ruthless efficiency and murdered...It is
a picture of mass murder and moral depravity unequaled
in the history of the world. It is a horror beyond what
imagination can grasp...There are no longer
'concentration camps' - we must speak now only of
'extermination camps'."
FDR SPEAKS – DEC 17, 1942
• FDR warns Hitler and the Germans that they will be
held individually responsible for what they were doing
to the Jews of Europe
• Announcement was joint statement between US,
Britain, and USSR
• Next day, front page story in NYT about atrocities in
Europe
– first public acknowledgment by the U.S.
government and ten other nations of the mass
murder of the Jews
BERMUDA CONFERENCE – APRIL
1943
• British-American Conference held in Bermuda to
discuss the situation of the Jewish victims of the
Genocide
• Official result: only way to help the Jews of Europe is
to win the war
• Largely regarded in its aftermath as a hoax
JAN KARSKI
Jan Karki’s Life
Karski delivered his shocking eyewitness account to
dozens of people – politicians, journalists, writers – the
leaders of the Free World. He reported to British Foreign
Secretary Anthony Eden, U.S. Secretary of State Cordell
Hull, Supreme Court Justice Felix Frankfurter and even
to U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt himself. The
emissary pleaded with leaders to act. Transmitting the
demand of the Jewish leaders, he gave a detailed
account of what he had seen. “I was a camera”, “I was a
machine”, “I was like a gramophone record” – he used to
say later.
Karski’s Meeting with FDR
Karski’s Meeting with Supreme Court
Justice Felix Frankfurter
“My mind, my heart, they are made in such a
way that I can’t accept it. I am a judge of men. I
know humanity. I know men. Impossible! No!
No!”
-Felix Frankfurter
“The Lord assigned me a role to speak and
write during the war, when -- as it seemed to
me -- it might help. It did not. When the war
came to its end, I learned that the
governments, the leaders, the scholars, the
writers did not know what had been happening
to the Jews. They were taken by surprise. The
murder of six million innocents was a secret, a
‘terrible secret’. ... Then I became a Jew. But I
am a Christian Jew. I am a practicing Catholic.
…
My faith tells me the second Original Sin
has been committed by humanity:
through commission, or omission, or selfimposed ignorance, or insensitivity, or
self-interest, or hypocrisy, or heartless
rationalization.
This sin will haunt humanity to the end of
time. It does haunt me. And I want it to be so.”
— Karski said at the International Liberators’ Conference in 1981
A FAILED ATTEMPT (LATE 1943)
• Congress considers legislation that would assist in the
rescue of the Jews by Senator Guy Gillette and
Congressman Will Rodgers, Jr.
• Moves rapidly through the Senate but is held up in
the House when Breckenridge Long gives misleading
testimony
– Under reports numbers of refugees, Jewish
refugees in particular
THIRD PHASE: JAN 1944-END OF WAR
• Victory in Europe seems to be within reach
• U.S. political environment:
– FDR still popular but health is failing
WAR REFUGEE BOARD (JAN 1944)
• War Refugee Board (WRB), an interdepartmental
committee, established
• Deals directly with the plight of the European Jews
and other victims of Nazi terror
– Has authority to circumvent the State Department
– Mandate is to "rescue as many victims of the Nazi
oppression as possible”
• WRB succeeded in rescuing over 200,000 Jews,
including 48,000 Rumanian Jews and at least 70,000
Jews from Budapest, Hungary
BOMBING AUSCHWITZ (JULY 1944)
• Requests made to British that the gassing
installations and the railway lines to Auschwitz be
subjected to aerial bombing
– “The matter received the most careful consideration
of the Air Staff, but I am sorry to tell you that, in
view of the very great technical difficulties involved,
we have no option but to refrain from pursuing the
proposal in present circumstances." (Sept 1944)
BOMBING AUSCHWITZ
• WRB recommended that Crematoria at Auschwitz be
bombed - the War Dept. refused to do so
– Told it was not possible because the bombers would
have to fly from England without fighter support
– In fact, American bombers had been flying to oil
refineries not even 40 miles away from Auschwitz
and even bombed the BUNA refinery at Auschwitz
from airbases in Italy