Transcript USA and Holocaust PPOINT #8

AMERICAN
ANTISEMITISM
• According to Leonard Dinnerstein, author of AntiSemitism in America, “By 1943 hostility toward
Jews in the United States had grown enormously
and had assumed unprecedented proportions.”
FATHER COUGHLIN
AND THE
“COUGHLINITES”
• A priest from Michigan
• Staunch anti-Semite.
• Published numerous anti-Semitic articles in his weekly newspaper, Social
Justice
• Made anti-Semitic statements during his radio shows
• Was a Nazi Sympathizer
• Encouraged his followers, known as, Coughlin-ites, to denounce the Roosevelt
administration and the Jewish influence
• Started in 1940, America First was one of the leading
anti-interventionist groups in the U.S. and became a
haven for antisemetic rhetoric
• Evidence for:
• Social Justice endorsed the America First movement
in 88 articles
• September 11, 1941 speech in Des Moines
• Quotes from America First Members
• “Both Franklin and Eleanor Roosevelt are Jewish and
so are 90 percent of the New Dealers”
• “Jews are now in possession of our government and
are causing the panic and wars that ruin everybody”
• Senator Nye, another America First supporter,
denounced Jewish producers in Hollywood for
allegedly making movies designed to win support
for American entry into the European war
AMERICA FIRST
"Who Are the War
Agitators?"
Lindbergh claimed
the three groups,
"pressing this
country toward war
are the British, the
Jews, and the
Roosevelt
Administration"
“LUCKY LINDY”
BECOMES A
SPOKESMAN
“{Jewish} large ownership and
influence in our motion pictures, our
press, our radio and our government”
Dr. Seuss Fights
Anti-Semitism
Not bad, Coughlin, from March
30 1942
Still Cooking with Goebbels
Gas, published in February of
1942
Coughlin-ites, from March 3,
1942
The Great U.S. Side Show,
published on July 8, 1941
Foreign Children, published
on October 1, 1941
Spreading the lovely
Goebbels stuff, published on
September 18 1941
Put your finger here, pal..., published on
December 16 1942
Come on, Sam... Try the great
German manicure, published
on April 1, 1942
ANTI-SEMITISM IN
THE WORK FORCE
•Author Richard H. Minear explains
that, “post Lindbergh, Dr. Seuss saved
some of his most biting cartoons for
issues with Anti-black racism and antiSemitism in the workforce”
•Dr. Seuss criticizes American
employers who pretend to support a
war for democracy while at the same
time restrict the rights and
opportunities of other Americans
I'll run
Democracy's War.
You stay in your
Jim Crow tanks,
published on April
14, 1942
THE EFFECTS OF
ANTI-SEMITISM
• After America’s entry into the war,
Dr. Seuss made only one cartoon
depicting the murder of the Jews of
Europe
• Dr. Seuss chose Pierre Laval as his
topic
• Under Laval’s leadership, Vichy
France deported foreign Jews from
French soil to the Nazi death camps.
Only God can make a tree to
furnish sport for you and me,
published on July 20, 1942
ROOSEVELT’S ROLE
• Condemns the civil
liberty attacks but
because it was
politically unpopular to
give refuge to the Jews,
he stayed quiet on the
issue
• State office was strictly
against Jewish
Assistance especially
with regards to refugees,
refuses to raise quotas
EVIAN
CONFERENCE
• Conference to promote the emigration of
Austrian and German Jewish refugees and
create an international organization whose
purpose would be to deal with the general
refugee problem.
• Total failure!!!
WAGNER-ROGERS BILL (1939)
• The Wagner–Rogers Bill was proposed United States
legislation which would have increased the quota of
immigrants by bringing a total of 20,000 Jewish children
under the age of 14 to the United States from Nazi
Germany.
• IT FAILED TO COME UP FOR A VOTE!!!!
THE PLIGHT OF THE ST. LOUIS
• St. Louis ship carrying over 900 Jews asked America to grant them amnesty. The U.S.
does not …Some will later become victims of the Holocaust
Just like the Nuremburg Laws, America once restricted certain rights
of its citizens and as we discussed in the 1920’s, America also
participated in eugenics policies against its own citizens.
To what extend is it appropriate to compare these historical events?
Could America
have played a
bigger role in
stopping the
Holocaust?
•
“I can only hope and expect that
the other world, which has such
deep sympathy for these
criminals, will at least be
generous enough to convert this
sympathy into practical aid. We,
on our part, are ready to put all
these criminals at the disposal of
these countries, for all I care,
even on luxury ships”