BGuthrie Photos: DC -- U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum -- Exhibit: Americans and the Holocaust

DC -- U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum -- Exhibit: Americans and the Holocaust:

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Description of Pictures: Americans and the Holocaust
Opened April 23, 2018
This exhibition is a portrait of American society that shows how the Depression, isolationism, xenophobia, racism, and antisemitism shaped responses to Nazism and the Holocaust. It reveals how much information was available to Americans at the time and asks why rescuing Jews did not become a priority, except for a few individuals who took the risk to help.
Lead sponsor Jeannie & Jonathan Lavine generously supported this special exhibition. Other major support was provided by the Bildners—Joan & Allen z”l, Elisa Spungen & Rob, Nancy & Jim; and Jane and Daniel Och. Additional support was provided by other donors.
The Museum’s exhibitions are also supported by the Lester Robbins and Sheila Johnson Robbins Traveling and Special Exhibitions Fund, established in 1990.

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Copyrights: All pictures were taken by amateur photographer Bruce Guthrie (me!) who retains copyright on them. Free for non-commercial use with attribution. See the [Creative Commons] definition of what this means. "Photos (c) Bruce Guthrie" is fine for attribution. (Commercial use folks including AI scrapers can of course contact me.) Feel free to use in publications and pages with attribution but you don't have permission to sell the photos themselves. A free copy of any printed publication using any photographs is requested. Descriptive text, if any, is from a mixture of sources, quite frequently from signs at the location or from official web sites; copyrights, if any, are retained by their original owners.

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Specific picture descriptions: Photos above with "i" icons next to the bracketed sequence numbers (e.g. "[1] ") are described as follows:
1. HOLOA1_180902_015.JPG: Americans and the Holocaust Holocaust history raises important questions about what Europeans could have done to stop the rise of Nazism in Germany and its assault on Europe's Jews. Questions also must be asked of the international community, including the United States. What did the US government and the American people know about the threats posed by Nazi Germany? What responses were possible? And when? By the time Nazi Germany forced the world into war, democratic civilization itself was at stake. The US military fought for almost four years to defend democracy, and more than 400,000 Americans died. The American people -- soldiers and civilians alike -- made enormous sacrifices to free Europe from Nazi oppression. Yet saving Jews and others targeted for murder by the Nazi regime and its collaborators never became a priority. The United States alone could not have prevented the Holocaust, but more could have been done to save some of the six million Jews who were killed. This exhibition examines the motives, pressures, and fears that shaped Americans' responses to Nazism, war, and genocide.
2. HOLOA1_180902_020.JPG: Holocaust history raises important questions about what Europeans could have done to stop the rise of Nazism in Germany and its assault on Europe's Jews. Questions also must be asked of the international community, including the United States. What did the US government and the American people know about the threats posed by Nazi Germany? What responses were possible? And when? By the time Nazi Germany forced the world into war, democratic civilization itself was at stake. The US military fought for almost four years to defend democracy, and more than 400,000 Americans died. The American people -- soldiers and civilians alike -- made enormous sacrifices to free Europe from Nazi oppression. Yet saving Jews and others targeted for murder by the Nazi regime and its collaborators never became a priority. The United States alone could not have prevented the Holocaust, but more could have been done to save some of the six million Jews who were killed. This exhibition examines the motives, pressures, and fears that shaped Americans' responses to Nazism, war, and genocide.
3. HOLOA1_180902_031.JPG: It is 1933... * On his first day as president, Franklin D. Roosevelt told Americans: "The only thing we have to fear is fear itself." * In the fourth year of the Great Depression, 25 percent of US workers were unemployed. * Public facilities, churches, and schools were racially segregated. * The United States continued to limit immigration, especially by people of "undesirable" national origin, including eastern European Jews. * Nazi Party leader Adolf Hitler was appointed to lead Germany's government.
4. HOLOA1_180902_035.JPG: Nazism in the News American newspapers reported frequently on Hitler and Nazi Germany throughout the 1930s. At least 2,000 daily newspapers were printed in the United States in 1933, and most American households received one. US press coverage included reports on the Nazis' persecution of Jews, Communists, and other political opponents. Yet American readers could not imagine that this persecution would lead to Germany's mass murder of Jews and other civilians by 1941.
5. HOLOA1_180902_041.JPG: "I Saw Hitler!"
6. HOLOA1_180902_074.JPG: Fear Itself
7. HOLOA1_180902_075.JPG: Public Opinion Poll November 1936 Q: Do you think there will be another serious depression?
8. HOLOA1_180902_079.JPG: Yes: 67% No: 33%
9. HOLOA1_180902_086.JPG: Protesting Nazism "What is happening in Germany today may happen tomorrow in any other land on earth unless it is challenged and rebuked. . . . We must speak out." -- Rabbi Stephen S. Wise, March 1933
10. HOLOA1_180902_087.JPG: "Don't Buy German Goods"
11. HOLOA1_180902_089.JPG: Many American Jewish organizations issues anti-Nazi stamps to encourage to boycott of German-made goods. Some people affixed such stamps to letters and envelopes to demonstrate their support.
12. HOLOA1_180902_121.JPG: Protesting Nazism "What is happening in Germany today may happen tomorrow in any other land on earth unless it is challenged and rebuked. . . . We must speak out." -- Rabbi Stephen S. Wise, March 1933 American Jewish leaders hoped to persuade the US government to condemn the Nazi persecution of Jews in Germany but disagreed on strategy and tactics. Some favored public demonstrations and a boycott of German goods, but others advocated working quietly behind the scenes, perhaps concerned about an antisemitic backlash in the United States. These silent historic films show some of the anti-Nazi protests in more than 65 American cities during the spring of 1933, in the first months of Nazi Party rule in Germany.
13. HOLOA1_180902_125.JPG: "We Must Speak Out"
14. HOLOA1_180902_128.JPG: Rabbi Stephen S. Wise at Madison Square Garden, March 27, 1933
15. HOLOA1_180902_130.JPG: "It has been a favorite pastime of the SA men to attack the Jews and one cannot avoid the plain language of stating that they do not like to be deprived of their prey." -- George Messersmith, US Consul General, Berlin, July 26, 1933
16. HOLOA1_180902_137.JPG: William Dodd, US Ambassador to Germany, 1933-1937
17. HOLOA1_180902_139.JPG: George Messersmith, US Consul General, Berlin, 1930-1934
18. HOLOA1_180902_141.JPG: "Not a Governmental Affair" "It has been a favorite pastime of the SA men to attack the Jews and one cannot avoid the plain language of stating that they do not like to be deprived of their prey." - George Messersmith, US Consul General, Berlin, July 26, 1933 American diplomats in Germany were well aware of the Nazi persecution of Jews and political opponents. Yet the US government respected Germany's right to govern its own citizens and was hesitant to aid those being targeted. Anti-Nazi Petitions Throughout spring 1933, tens of thousands of Americans signed petitions protesting the Nazis' treatment of Jews. Hundreds of petitions were sent to the State Department, but the US government made no official statement against the German regime. Attacks on Americans But when members of the Nazi Party's SA militia physically assaulted Americans in Germany -- as happened at least 35 times during 1933 alone -- US diplomats did protest. During their first meeting, Hitler assured US Ambassador William Dodd that attacks on Americans in Germany would end, and many fewer occurred after 1933.
19. HOLOA1_180902_145.JPG: "Not a Governmental Affair"
20. HOLOA1_180902_147.JPG: Q: Should America refuse to participate in the Olympic games which are to be held in Germany this coming year?" -- American Institute of Public Opinion, March 1935
21. HOLOA1_180902_149.JPG: Yes -- 43% No -- 57%
22. HOLOA1_180902_152.JPG: Boycott the Olympics?
23. HOLOA1_180902_170.JPG: Track and field stars Jesse Owens, left, and Ralph Metcalfe pose together in July 1936. Both athletes faced pressure to boycott the 1936 Berlin Olympics, but chose to attend and won multiple medals for the United States. During the boycott debate, African-American and Jewish athletes faced pressure from within their respective communities to take a moral stand against Nazism. Some resented being asked to protest the discrimination against Jewish athletes in Germany while America had its own pervasive and segregationist Jim Crow laws. Eighteen African-American athletes participated in the Games and dominated the track and field events. Their victories abroad, however, did little to diminish racial discrimination and segregation at home.
24. HOLOA1_180902_174.JPG: American Newsreels During the 1930s, 80 million Americans -- nearly two-thirds of the country's population -- went to the movies each week. Newsreels shown before the feature film, along with radio broadcasts, newspapers, and magazines, shaped how Americans understood the world in the era before television. The newsreel clips in this six-minute compilation, depicting both national and international events, were shown in American theaters between 1934 and 1938.
25. HOLOA1_180902_177.JPG: In 1937, the residents of Southbury, Connecticut, successfully opposed the Bund's efforts to establish a summer camp in their town.
26. HOLOA1_180902_184.JPG: Nazis in America
27. HOLOA1_180902_185.JPG: The American Magazine warns of nine American Nazi camps across the United States where German American youth train in military tactics and the philosophy of Adolf Hitler. August 1937.
28. HOLOA1_180902_188.JPG: Applicants for German American Bund membership had to swear that they were "of Aryan origin, free from jewish or colored blood [sic]." Ca 1937
29. HOLOA1_180902_195.JPG: The German American Bund, a pro-Nazi organization for Americans of German descent, demonized Jews and Communists and dreamed of a fascist America. Fritz Kuhn, the Bund's leader, tried to portray himself as the "American f�hrer," though he never received the support from the Nazi Party in Germany that he desired. The Bund's membership probably never exceeded 25,000, yet its pro-Nazi propaganda and mass demonstrations sometimes reached large crowds. At one Bund rally at New York's Madison Square Garden in 1939, more than 20,000 attendees booed any mention of President Franklin D. Roosevelt and cheered "Heil Hitler!" Thousands of anti-Nazi protesters filled the streets outside the arena. The Bund established more than a dozen summer camps around the United States to indoctrinate German American children. Campers wore uniforms of the Hitler Youth and carried Nazi banners.
30. HOLOA1_180902_199.JPG: In May 1938, The Anti-Nazi Bulletin, a publication by the Non-Sectarian Anti-Nazi League, printed this map depicting the locations of German American Bund training camps in the United States.
31. HOLOA1_180902_202.JPG: Public Opinion Poll January 1937 Q: Do you think it was a mistake for the United States to enter World War I?
32. HOLOA1_180902_211.JPG: Yes: 70% No: 30%
33. HOLOA1_180902_214.JPG: Nazis in America The German American Bund, a pro-Nazi organization for Americans of German descent, demonized Jews and Communists and dreamed of a fascist America. Fritz Kuhn, the Bund's leader, tried to portray himself as the "American f�hrer," though he never received the support from the Nazi Party in Germany that he desired. Rallies The Bund's membership probably never exceeded 25,000, yet its pro-Nazi propaganda and mass demonstrations sometimes reached large crowds. At one Bund rally at New York's Madison Square Garden in 1939, more than 20,000 attendees booed any mention of President Franklin D. Roosevelt and cheered "Heil Hitler!" Thousands of anti-Nazi protesters filled the streets outside the arena. Summer Camps The Bund established more than a dozen summer camps around the United States to indoctrinate German American children. Campers wore uniforms of the Hitler Youth and carried Nazi banners.
34. HOLOA1_180902_219.JPG: The proposed site of a German-American Bund camp in Southbury, Connecticut.
35. HOLOA1_180902_225.JPG: Flyer asking Southbury residents to protest against the Nazi "swastika and goose step" invading their hometown.
36. HOLOA1_180902_229.JPG: The Bridgeport, Connecticut, Sunday Herald touted the resilience of Southbury's Congregational Church and its outspoken, anti-Nazi leader, Reverend M. Edgar N. Lindsay. December 5, 1937.
37. HOLOA1_180902_244.JPG: It is 1938... * Unemployment spiked to 19 percent during a new economic recession. * Most Americans wanted to keep refugees out of the United States. * More than 100 African Americans had been lynched since 1930. * Two-thirds of Americans believed German Jews were either "entirely" or "partly" to blame for their own persecution. * Germany expanded its territory by annexing Austria in March and the Sudetenland of Czechoslovakia in September. * The peacetime US Army ranked 17th in the world, both in size and combat power.
38. HOLOA1_180902_248.JPG: "Still No Solution," a widely syndicated political carton by Herblock [Herbert L. Block], January 1939.
39. HOLOA1_180902_253.JPG: "Inhumanity of Our Times"
40. HOLOA1_180902_275.JPG: The Refugee Crisis Germany's sudden annexation of Austria (Anschluss) in March 1938 brought approximately 200,000 additional Jews under Nazi rule. President Roosevelt called for an international conference on the refugee crisis. Delegates from 32 countries gathered in Evian, France, in July 1938, but most countries refused to change their laws to assist Jewish refugees. In mid-1938, nearly 140,000 Germans and Austrians, most of whom were Jews, had applied for US visas. Within a year, that number had increased to more than 300,000, creating an 11-year waiting list.
41. HOLOA1_180902_296.JPG: German censors sought to block images of Kristallnacht from reaching the United States. Life magazine, celebrating its second anniversary, boasted of publishing the "best of the few pictures that seeped through the censorship." Life, November 28, 1938
42. HOLOA1_180902_300.JPG: Public Opinion Poll January 1939 Q: It has been proposed that the government permit 10,000 refugee children from Germany to be brought into this country and taken care of in American homes. Do you favor this plan?
43. HOLOA1_180902_304.JPG: Yes: 26% No: 66% No opinion: 8%
44. HOLOA1_180902_308.JPG: Roosevelt Denounces Nazis At his press conference five days after Kristallnacht, President Franklin D. Roosevelt said that the attack had "deeply shocked" the American public. He ordered the US ambassador in Germany to return home as a sign of protest and allowed 12,000 Germans -- most of them Jews -- who were temporarily in the United States to remain indefinitely. "I cannot, in any decent humanity, throw them out," he explained to reporters. But Roosevelt also said that US immigration quotas would not be changed to admit more Jewish refugees.
45. HOLOA1_180902_316.JPG: Reporter: "Would you recommend a relaxation of our immigration restrictions so that the Jewish refugees could be received in this country?" President Roosevelt: "This is not in contemplation; we have the quota system." -- Press conference, November 15, 1938
46. HOLOA1_180902_319.JPG: "I myself could scarcely believe that such things could occur in a twentieth century civilization." FDR made an exception to his practice of off-the-record press conferences by allowing newspapers to quote this statement from his November 15, 1938, meeting with reporters. The handwritten edits were made by the president.
47. HOLOA1_180902_330.JPG: Admit Refugee Children? In February 1939, Democratic senator Robert Wagner of New York and Republican congresswoman Edith Nourse Rogers of Massachusetts introduced legislation in Congress to admit 20,000 German refugee children under the age of 14 over a two-year period. The bill specified that the 10,000 children per year would enter the United States outside the existing restrictive immigration quota laws. In Favor First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt backed the Wagner-Rogers Bill, the first time that she publicly endorsed any pending legislation as first lady. Despite Mrs. Roosevelt's urging, FDR never officially commented on the proposal to admit refugee children. Opposed Senator Robert Reynolds, a Democrat from North Carolina and a vocal opponent of the bill, had recently proposed banning all immigration for ten years or until the nation solved its unemployment problems. His compromise, a five-year total ban on all immigration in exchange for passing the child refugee bill, was rejected. The American people agreed with Reynolds: 66 percent of Americans polled in January 1939 opposed expanding immigration to aid the refugee children. The Wagner-Rogers Bill never made it to a vote in Congress.
48. HOLOA1_180902_336.JPG: "Please. Ring the Bell for Us," by Francis Knott for the Dallas Morning News, July 7, 1939. This cartoon accompanied an editorial that described admitting refugee children to the United States as an "act of simple humanity."
49. HOLOA1_180902_342.JPG: A 1939 pamphlet published by the Non-Sectarian Committee for German Refugee Children urged Americans to ask their Congressional representatives to support the Wagner-Rogers Bill.
50. HOLOA1_180902_370.JPG: Public Opinion Poll November, 1938 Q: Do you approve or disapprove of the Nazi treatment of Jews in Germany?
51. HOLOA1_180902_375.JPG: Approve: 6% Disapprove: 94%
52. HOLOA1_180902_378.JPG: The Challenges of Escape It was very difficult to immigrate to the United States. In 1924, the US Congress passed the Johnson-Reed Act in order to set limits on the maximum number of immigrant visas that could be issued per year to people born in each country. These quotas were designed to limit the immigration of people considered "racially undesirable," including southern and eastern European Jews. After 1938, only 27,370 people born in Germany could immigrate to the United States each year. Potential immigrants to the United States had to collect many types of documents, including proof of identity, police certificates, medical clearances, tax documents, a ship ticket, and exit permits prior to obtaining a visa. Most also had to find an American financial sponsor who had the resources to guarantee they would never become a burden on the United States. The US government made no exceptions for refugees escaping persecution, and did not adjust the immigration laws in the 1930s or 1940s. The waiting lists for US immigrant visas grew as hundreds of thousands of Jews attempted to flee Europe.
53. HOLOA1_180902_385.JPG: Immigration Visas 1933-1941
54. HOLOA1_180902_391.JPG: How Many Refugees Came to the United States from 1933-1945? How did US immigration law affect people hoping to escape Nazi Germany and enter the United States? Learn how many people were able to leave Europe, how many people remained on the waiting list, and how immigration to the United States changed over time. 1900 - 1915 Before World War I, millions of Europeans immigrated to the United States. The US government placed no overall limits on the number of immigrants who could enter the country. 1915 - 1924 World War I (1914-1918) made emigration from Europe to the United States difficult, and immigration levels fell. 1924 In 1924, Congress passed a law to set immigration quotas by country and limit total immigration to about 164,000 people per year. The quotas were designed to "protect" America's "racial stock" by severely limiting "undesirable" immigrants, including Jews, Asians, and Africans. There were no quotas for immigrants from North or South America. 1925 - 1932 Immigration fell significantly after the 1924 law went into effect. In 1929, the Great Depression began. President Herbert Hoover ordered the State Department to make sure immigrants would not become economic burdens to the United States. Immigration plummeted even further. 1933 Adolf Hitler became chancellor of Germany. The Nazi regime immediately started discriminating against German Jews, and thousands sought to leave. The 1924 US quota law set a limit of 25,957 immigration visas for people born in Germany. In 1933, the State Department issued visas to only 1,241 Germans. Although 82,787 people were on the German waiting list for a US visa, most did not have enough money to qualify for immigration. 1934 - 1937 Between 1934 and 1937, there were between 80,000 and 100,000 Germans on the waiting list for a US immigration visa. Most were Jewish. Although, the State Department slowly began to issue more visas, the German quota went unfilled. 1938 After Germany annexed Austria in March 1938, President Franklin Roosevelt combined the German and Austrian quotas, making 27,370 visas available each year for people born in these countries, who were now all considered "German." As antisemitic persecution increased and Germany began to expand its territorial holdings in Europe, the waiting list grew. 1939 In 1939, the State Department issued the maximum number of visas available to Germans for the first time. Yet nearly ten times that number remained on the waiting list. 1940 After World War II began in September 1939, it became more difficult for people to emigrate from Europe. More than 300,000 people, most of them Jewish, were on the waiting list. The State Department almost filled the German quota in 1940. 1941 With Europe at war, the State Department implemented new restrictions designed both to protect the nation's security and further limit immigration. In July 1941, Nazi Germany ordered US consulates in Nazi-occupied territory to close, trapping potential immigrants. Only German refugees who had already escaped Nazi territory could obtain US immigration visas. Immigration became almost impossible, and the State Department canceled the waiting list. The United States entered World War II in December 1941. 1933 - 1945 Many more people could have reached the United States had the State Department filled the German quota beginning in 1933, or had Congress changed immigration laws to address the refugee crisis. Approximately 125,000 Germans, most of them Jewish, immigrated to the United States between 1933 and 1945. Long Odds Though estimates vary, somewhere between 180,000 and 220,000 European refugees immigrated to the United States between 1933 and 1945. The United States accepted more refugees fleeing Nazi persecution than any other country in the world. Most of these refugees were Jewish and from central and western Europe. During World War II, Nazi Germany invaded and occupied Eastern Europe, including Poland and the Soviet Union, which was home to millions of Jews. The US quotas for these countries were very small, and Eastern European Jews had almost no hope of immigrating. The vast majority were murdered by Nazi Germany and its collaborators.
55. HOLOA1_180902_403.JPG: The Doors Close Nazi Germany conquered nearly all of Europe by 1941, and some 9 million Jews fell under its control. On October 23, 1941, Germany banned all emigration of Jews from its occupied lands. With Europe at war, Jews seeking to emigrate had almost no chance of escape.
56. HOLOA1_180902_405.JPG: Refugee Ships at Sea More than 1,200 ships carrying nearly 111,000 Jewish refugees arrived in New York between March 1938, when Germany annexed Austria, and October 1941, when Germany banned emigration.
57. HOLOA1_180902_407.JPG: One Couple, Fifty Children
58. HOLOA1_180902_415.JPG: The Krauses' daughter Ellen wrote this school report about her parents' rescue mission in Vienna.
59. HOLOA1_180902_421.JPG: Just one week after he arrived in Philadelphia, 6-year-old Friedrich "Fred" Lifschutz received this postcard from his mother in Vienna. June 13, 1939.
60. HOLOA1_180902_432.JPG: The American Friends Service Committee The American Friends Service Committee, an organization formed by the Religious Society of Friends (also known as the Quakers), was the largest non-Jewish American organization assisting refugees escaping Nazi persecution. The AFSC worked in French internment camps, hid Jewish children, and assisted thousands of Jewish and non-Jewish refugees with immigration and resettlement to the United States. There were only an estimated 112,000 Quakers in the United States in 1930, or less than one-tenth of one percent of the overall population -- but Quakers had always been active in social movements and when confronted with Nazi persecution of Jews, took action. The American Friends Service Committee (AFSC) had been created in 1917 to address the tremendous humanitarian need during World War I. At its peak between 1920 and 1924, the AFSC provided meals for around a million European children a day. Funding for some of this work came from the American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee, which continued to support the AFSC's work throughout the 1930s and 1940s. After the violent anti-Jewish Kristallnacht pogroms of November 9–10, 1938, the AFSC expanded its work and established a Refugee Division to assist individuals and families in need. While Quaker relief efforts continued, the AFSC also began helping people flee Nazi Europe, communicate with loved ones, and adjust to life in the United States. The AFSC formed the center of a network of refugee aid agencies in Europe and fielded hundreds of requests every month from individuals seeking to escape Nazism. In practice, the AFSC primarily worked with "non-Aryan Christians" (those considered "racially Jewish" by the Nuremberg Laws but who did not consider themselves Jewish by religion) and those in mixed marriages between Jews and non-Jews. One of those refugees was Tom Doeppner, an 18-year-old who escaped from Germany into the Netherlands and asked the Quakers to help him immigrate to the United States. The AFSC worked to get Doeppner admitted to McPherson College, a small Christian college in Kansas. McPherson was one of more than 200 colleges that actively recruited refugees, with students raising funds to pay for scholarships. Doeppner struggled to obtain a US visa as a student, since he technically did not have a country to return to after graduation. The Quakers helped him secure a visa and paid for his passage to the United States. After college, Doeppner enlisted in the US Army in 1944. By the time the Refugee Division ceased operations in the early 1950s, AFSC staff had opened more than 22,000 case files for individuals and families, responding with immigration and settlement assistance, financial help, or just a sympathetic ear. They had aided people seeking affidavits to come to the United States -- a critical step in the process -- by locating American citizens willing to sponsor them. Within the United States, they helped newly arrived refugees learn English and prepare for their new lives. The AFSC also played a key role in helping hundreds of children, including Jewish refugees and the children of Spanish Republicans, come to the United States under the care of the US Committee for the Care of European Children in 1941–42. For their relief efforts, their work with refugees, and for their overall promotion of peace, the American Friends Service Committee and their British counterparts, the Friends Service Council, were awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1947.
61. HOLOA1_180902_436.JPG: Ledger book kept by the American Friends Service Committee to record the names of refugees they sought to help.
62. HOLOA1_180902_443.JPG: Tom Doeppner used his Dutch identity card to enter the United States after his German passport was stamped "not valid for foreign travel."
63. HOLOA1_180902_448.JPG: Emergency Escape
64. HOLOA1_180902_453.JPG: La Prisee du Prise, by Marc Chagall, a lithograph given by Chagall to Varian Fry in 1941 after Fry aided his escape from France to the United States.
65. HOLOA1_180902_458.JPG: Getting Children to Safety
66. HOLOA1_180902_469.JPG: Americans Who Dared
67. HOLOA1_180902_472.JPG: It is 1939... * World War II begins in Europe after Germany invades Poland on September 1. * More than 90 percent of Americans oppose going to war against Germany. * The US Army ranks 17th n the world in size and combat power. * Congress passes the third Neutrality Act in five years, which lifts the ban on selling arms to warring nations. * President Roosevelt assures Americans, "This nation will remain a neutral nation."
68. HOLOA1_180902_476.JPG: Public Opinion Poll July 1940 Q: Do you believe that Germany has already started to organize a 'Fifty Column' [of spies] in this country?
69. HOLOA1_180902_479.JPG: Yes; 71% No: 7% Don't Know: 22%
70. HOLOA2_180902_001.JPG: Fear of Spies "Federal Bureau of Investigation . . . director, J. Edgar Hoover, revealed complaints and tips on acts against the national defense have reached the astounding maximum of nearly 3,000 a day." -- Washington Post, June 12, 1940 After the war in Europe began, warnings about spies, sometimes referred to as a "fifth column," dominated American culture. Fears worsened in the spring of 1940 when Nazi Germany invaded and quickly defeated France, leading Americans to worry that enemy agents had brought the country down from within. In a June 1940 poll, 72 percent of Americans believed Germany had already placed spies in the United States, and 22 percent weren't sure. FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover published cautionary articles in popular magazines about spies and saboteurs in the United States. In a May 1940 radio broadcast to the American public -- one of his many "fireside chats" -- President Roosevelt called spies a significant threat to national security. The State Department put additional security measures in place to screen potential immigrants, making an already difficult process even harder.
71. HOLOA2_180902_006.JPG: "Federal Bureau of Investigation . . . director, J. Edgar Hoover, revealed complaints and tips on acts against the national defense have reached the astounding maximum of nearly 3,000 a day." -- Washington Post, June 12, 1940
72. HOLOA2_180902_011.JPG: The United States Office of War Information produced this poster in 1943 to warn Americans that enemy spies committing sabotage were a significant threat to national security.
73. HOLOA2_180902_017.JPG: National Security Concerns
74. HOLOA2_180902_025.JPG: Public Opinion Poll May 1940 Q: Do you think the United States should declare war on Germany and send out army and navy abroad to fight?
75. HOLOA2_180902_028.JPG: Yes; 7% No: 93%
76. HOLOA2_180902_029.JPG: America First Committee In 1940, a group of Yale University students founded the America First Committee to oppose US intervention in the European war. They quickly mobilized hundreds of other antiwar students to join the organization, and persuaded one of the nation's most outspoken isolationists, Charles Lindbergh, to support its cause. Lindbergh's enormous celebrity -- dating to his 1927 solo, nonstop flight across the Atlantic Ocean -- helped the America First Committee become a national organization with as many as 800,000 members. "War Agitators" After Lindbergh accused Jews of being "war agitators" in a speech at Des Moines, Iowa, on September 11, 1941, the America First Committee's reputation changed significantly. Newspapers and magazines across the country denounced Lindbergh and the committee for promoting antisemitism and intolerance. Political cartoonists, including PM newspaper artist Theodor Geisel (Dr. Seuss), accused Lindbergh of spreading Nazi propaganda. America First Committee leaders denied the accusation, but the criticism continued. As soon as the United States entered World War II in December 1941, the committee disbanded.
77. HOLOA2_180902_038.JPG: "When I mentioned the three major groups agitating for war -- the British, the Jewish, and the Roosevelt Administration -- the entire audience seemed to stand and cheer." Lindbergh kept this diary during 1941, often recording ideas for speeches and reflections on his public appearances for the America First Committee.
78. HOLOA2_180902_040.JPG: This Service Cross of the German Eagle pin was given to Charles Lindbergh on behalf of Adolf Hitler for his contributions to world aviation. Lindbergh was surprised to receive it during his October 1938 visit to Germany to assess its air power. He refused to return the pin after Kristallnacht, just one month later, reinforcing suspicions that he was a Nazi sympathizer.
79. HOLOA2_180902_055.JPG: This America First Committee poster warns that liberty itself will be a casualty if the United States enters World War II.
80. HOLOA2_180902_083.JPG: "Wring Hitler's Neck!"
81. HOLOA2_180902_099.JPG: " 'Tis Roosevelt, Not Hitler, that the World Should Really Fear."
82. HOLOA2_180902_103.JPG: "And on this platform, folks, that most perplexing people... the Lads with the Siamese Beard! Unrelated by blood, they are joined in a manner that mystifies the mightiest minds in the land!"
83. HOLOA2_180902_108.JPG: The Isolationist Said a whale, "There is so much commotion, Such fights among fish in the ocean, I'm saving my scalp Living high on the Alp. ... (Dear Lindy! He gave me the notion!")
84. HOLOA2_180902_110.JPG: Spreading the Lovely Goebbel Stuff
85. HOLOA2_180902_115.JPG: Stop Wringing the Hands That Should Wring Hitler's Neck! Ah Me! Ah Woe! The democracies are finished!
86. HOLOA2_180902_119.JPG: Dr. Seuss's September 18, 1941 cartoon in PM newspaper accused Lindbergh of collaborating with Nazi Minister of Public Enlightenment and Propaganda Joseph Goebbels by giving antiwar, antisemitic speeches. "... and the Wolf chewed up the children and spit our there bones... But those were Foreign Children and it really didn't matter."
87. HOLOA2_180902_124.JPG: He Never Knew What Hit Him
88. HOLOA2_180902_128.JPG: Waiting for the Signal From Home...
89. HOLOA2_180902_139.JPG: "On the Verge of War" Most Americans hoped the United States would stay out of the war in Europe. President Franklin D. Roosevelt faced the challenge of trying to prepare an isolationist nation for the possibility of war while running for an unprecedented third term as president. Watch a short documentary showing how FDR steered the US toward war between 1939–41.
90. HOLOA2_180902_142.JPG: This microphone was originally owned by Carleton Smith, a radio announcer who introduced President Roosevelt before many of his national radio broadcasts popularly known as "fireside chats."
91. HOLOA2_180902_148.JPG: Storm Clouds Gather
92. HOLOA2_180902_149.JPG: Citizens or Enemies?
93. HOLOA2_180902_152.JPG: Citizens or Enemies? "I'm for catching every Japanese in America, Alaska and Hawaii now and putting them in concentration camps." -- Congressman John Rankin (Mississippi), 1942 In February 1942, two months after Japan's attack on Pearl Harbor, President Roosevelt signed an executive order permitting the government to take "every possible protection against espionage and against sabotage." Citing national security concerns, the US government used that order to relocate more than 110,000 Americans of Japanese ancestry -- at least two-thirds of whom were American citizens -- to ten camps across seven inland states. Thousands of people of German and Italian descent also were detained and questioned as a result of the executive order. Japanese Americans challenged curfew, evacuation, and detention restrictions in US courts at least 12 times during the war. Four cases reached the US Supreme Court. In each case, the court concluded that the war powers of Congress and the president justified forcibly detaining American citizens in camps.
94. HOLOA2_180902_158.JPG: "I'm for catching every Japanese in America, Alaska and Hawaii now and putting them in concentration camps." - Congressman John Rankin (Mississippi), 1942
95. HOLOA2_180902_161.JPG: The Crisis, published by the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), pointed out that Americans of Japanese ancestry were interned because of their race.
96. HOLOA2_180902_185.JPG: "We cannot progress if we look down upon any group of people among us because of race or religion. Every citizen in this country has a right to our basic freedoms, to justice and to equality of opportunity." -- Eleanor Roosevelt, Collier's magazine, October 16, 1942
97. HOLOA2_180902_189.JPG: Public Opinion Poll March 1942 Q: Do you think we are doing the right thing in moving Japanese aliens (those who are not citizens) away from the Pacific coast?
98. HOLOA2_180902_192.JPG: Yes; 93% No: 1% Don't Know: 6%
99. HOLOA2_180902_198.JPG: Hollywood and the War
100. HOLOA2_180902_201.JPG: Halt Hitler!
101. HOLOA2_180902_273.JPG: This Is the Enemy Americans understood Nazism as an enemy of American values and a direct threat to Americans' safety. Materials created to encourage Americans to support the war effort rarely mentioned the Nazi regime's ongoing persecution and murder of Europe's Jews. Explore how Americans saw their wartime enemies and were encouraged to rally for victory.
102. HOLOA2_180902_306.JPG: Jacket worn by Charlie Chaplin in his 1940 film The Great Dictator
103. HOLOA2_180902_319.JPG: Gary Cooper received this Academy Award for Best Actor in a Leading Role for Sergeant York from Jimmy Stewart, then serving in the US Army. February 1942.
104. HOLOA2_180902_357.JPG: It is 1942... * The US military quickly grew to nearly four million troops. The United States spent most of 1942 fighting Japan in the Pacific and preparing to battle Nazi Germany. * Two million women entered the workforce. Fewer than five percent of Americans were unemployed. * The US Army was racially segregated, and African Americans launched a "Double-V" campaign to fight for victory against fascism abroad and against racism at home. * Nearly half of Americans believed that Jews had "too much power and influence" in the United States. * In November 1942, Americans learned about the Nazi plan to murder all the Jews of Europe.
105. HOLOA2_180902_360.JPG: "Cold-Blooded Extermination" Mass murder of Jews by German mobile killing squads began in the summer of 1941 as part of the German invasion of the Soviet Union. In January 1942, high-ranking Nazi officials secretly planned what they called the "Final Solution to the Jewish Question," the effort to systematically annihilate Europe's Jews. The US Government Learns about the "Final Solution" Eight months later, news about the "Final Solution" reached Gerhart Riegner, the World Jewish Congress's representative in Switzerland. Riegner attempted to alert the president of the World Jewish Congress, Rabbi Stephen Wise, in New York. The US State Department blocked the message, claiming that the murder of the Jews was a "war rumor." Soon after, however, Rabbi Wise received Riegner's message from a contact in Great Britain. Americans Learn about the "Final Solution" In late November 1942, just weeks after American and British troops began to battle the Germans and their allies in North Africa, Wise informed the US press that two million Jews already had been murdered as part of the Nazi regime's annihilation plan. In response, the United States and eleven other Allied countries issued a stern declaration, vowing to punish the perpetrators of this "bestial policy of cold-blooded extermination" after the war had been won.
106. HOLOA2_180902_363.JPG: The Government Learns August 8 [1942] American and British diplomats learn about the Nazi plan to murder the Jews of Europe in a telegram from Gerhard Riegner (left), World Jewish Congress representative in Switzerland.
107. HOLOA2_180902_366.JPG: August 13 US State Department officials refuse to send Riegner's telegram to Rabbi Stephen S. Wise, president of the World Jewish Congress, in New York. They allege its claims are "one of the many unreliable war rumors."
108. HOLOA2_180902_370.JPG: August 29 Samuel Sydney Silverman (far left), a member of Great Britain's Parliament and the World Jewish Congress representative in London, receives Riegner's message (above) about the Nazi extermination plan. Silverman forwards the information directly to Rabbi Wise (left).
109. HOLOA2_180902_374.JPG: September October November In early September, Rabbi Wise asks Undersecretary of State Sumner Welles (left) to verify the information in Riegner's telegram. Welles checks with sources in Europe and, at the end of November, tells Wise that the information is true.
110. HOLOA2_180902_379.JPG: The Public Learns November 24 [1942] After receiving permission from the State Department, Rabbi Rise tells an Associated Press reporter about the Nazi "extermination campaign." American newspapers throughout the country report the story the next day. Los Angeles Times, November 25, 1942.
111. HOLOA2_180902_388.JPG: "[The Allied nations] condemn in the strongest possible terms this bestial policy of cold-blooded extermination [of Europe's Jews] ... They reaffirm their solemn resolution to insure that those responsible to insure that those responsible for these crimes shall not escape retribution, and to press on with the necessary practical measures to this end." -- Joint Declaration by Allied Nations in response to Germany's "Final Solution," December 17, 1942
112. HOLOA2_180902_394.JPG: In War's Dark Shadow
113. HOLOA2_180902_398.JPG: "What is happening in this: millions of human beings, most of them Jews, are being gathered up with ruthless efficiency and murdered." -- Edward R. Murrow, CBS Radio broadcast, December 13, 1942
114. HOLOA2_180902_401.JPG: "Nazis' Great Crime Against Humanity," PM, August 27, 1943 In 1943, New York's PM newspaper reported that more than 5,000,000 Jews in Europe had been murdered by the Nazis.
115. HOLOA2_180902_412.JPG: "Murder, Wholesale," Newsweek September 25, 1944 Newsweek published Soviet photographs of victims' remains (left page, center) and shoes (bottom) at the Majdanek concentration camp and killing center in occupied Poland, two months after the Soviet Army liberated the camp.
116. HOLOA2_180902_427.JPG: "Himmler, Police Chief of Nazi Europe," Time, October 11, 1943 Heinrich Himmler was the senior Nazi official responsible for conceiving and overseeing the implementation of the Nazis' plan to murder the Jews of Europe.
117. HOLOA2_180902_431.JPG: America at War
118. HOLOA2_180902_432.JPG: Pressure to Act In October 1943, a group of 400 Orthodox rabbis marched on Washington to demand an organized US effort to rescue Jews. The march was co-sponsored by Peter Bergson's organization, the Emergency Committee to Save the Jews of Europe. Thomas D. McAvoy/The LIFE Picture Collection/Getty Images. As details of the Nazis' murderous plans trickled out to the public in 1943, American Jews remained divided about how much pressure to exert on the federal government to take special action to rescue Jews. Two non-Americans, Jan Karski and Peter Bergson, played prominent roles in trying to mobilize a US government response. Eyewitness in the White House Jan Karski, a member of the Polish underground resistance, witnessed the horrors suffered by Jews in the Warsaw Ghetto and in a transit camp. Karski met Roosevelt at the White House on July 28, 1943, and told the president about the dire situation in occupied Poland. Karski later recalled that FDR promised the Allies "shall win the war" but made no mention of rescuing Jews. "Action, Not Pity" After news of the "Final Solution" became public, Peter Bergson, born in Lithuania and raised in the British Mandate of Palestine, openly challenged both the US government and American Jewish leaders to take decisive action to save European Jews. Bergson and his prominent supporters, including many Hollywood and Broadway stars, staged the We Will Never Die pageant to call attention to the ongoing murder of Europe's Jews. In November 1943, Bergson persuaded members of Congress to introduce a resolution intended to pressure President Roosevelt to formulate a plan for rescuing Jews in Europe.
119. HOLOA2_180902_436.JPG: Eyewitness in the White House Jan Karski, a member of the Polish resistance, traveled to Washington in 1943 to provide details to American officials about the Nazi occupation of Poland, including Nazi treatment of Jews, 1944.
120. HOLOA2_180902_437.JPG: Jan Karski, a member of the Polish underground resistance, witnessed the horrors suffered by Jews in the Warsaw Ghetto and in a transit camp. Karski met Roosevelt at the White House on July 28, 1943, and told the president about the dire situation in occupied Poland. Karski later recalled that FDR promised the Allies "shall win the war" but made no mention of rescuing Jews.
121. HOLOA2_180902_441.JPG: Diplomatic passport issued to Jan Karski in London on May 7, 1943, prior to his travel to the United States.
122. HOLOA2_180902_445.JPG: White House appointment log book page listing President Roosevelt's meeting with the Polish Ambassador and "Mr. Karsky" at 10:50am, July 28, 1943.
123. HOLOA2_180902_451.JPG: Penny given to Jan Karski by FDR during their meeting
124. HOLOA2_180902_464.JPG: Story of a Secret State, Jan Karski's memoir about his experiences in the Polish underground, was a Book-of-the-Month Club selection in the United States in 1945.
125. HOLOA2_180902_469.JPG: An excerpt from Story of a Secret State appeared in Collier's magazine on October 14, 1944. It described Karski's clandestine visit to a Nazi transit camp in German-occupied Poland.
126. HOLOA2_180902_472.JPG: "Action, Not Pity"
127. HOLOA2_180902_481.JPG: Ben Hecht -- journalist, novelist, and Hollywood screenwriter -- worked closely with Bergson, scripting We Will Never Die and writing a series of full-page newspaper ad intended to promote rescue efforts. Hecht's haunting "Ballad of the Doomed Jews of Europe" was illustrated by Arthur Szyk.
128. HOLOA2_180902_492.JPG: State Department Obstruction Exposed In early 1943, US State Department officials blocked reports about the mass murder of Jews from reaching the United States. Some at the State Department wanted to avoid any increase in public pressure to aid Jews and thought that if the American people did not have information about the atrocities, they would not protest. In April, US and British representatives met in Bermuda to discuss the possibility of assisting European Jews. Neither country, however, intended to loosen its restrictive immigration policies or to actually take any decisive rescue action. Congressional Hearings In November 1943, a group of congressmen, influenced by activist Peter Bergson, introduced bipartisan resolutions in the House of Representatives and Senate calling for President Roosevelt to create a government commission to rescue Europe's Jews. In secret testimony before Congress, Assistant Secretary of State Breckinridge Long declared that the State Department already had admitted 580,000 refugees, a claim soon publicly proven false. Treasury Department Investigation At the same time, US Treasury Department staff investigated the State Department's delays and obstruction in sending relief into Europe to aid Jewish refugees. They discovered that State Department officials had deliberately suppressed reports about the murder of Jews. Secretary of the Treasury Henry Morgenthau Jr. agreed to present their findings to President Roosevelt. As a result of Treasury's efforts, Roosevelt signed an executive order on January 22, 1944, establishing the War Refugee Board. It was charged with the rescue and relief of victims of Nazi oppression as long as it did not interfere with the war effort.
129. HOLOA2_180902_499.JPG: Congress Misled November 26, 1943 In November 1943, a group of congressmen, influenced by activist Peter Bergson, introduced bipartisan resolutions in the House of Representatives and Senate calling for President Roosevelt to create a government commission to rescue Europe's Jews. In secret testimony before Congress, Assistant Secretary of State Breckinridge Long declared that the State Department already had admitted 580,000 refugees, a claim soon publicly proven false. "We were bound by laws -- immigration laws ... We did every legitimate thing we could do." -- Breckinridge Long, Assistant Secretary of State, November 26, 1943
130. HOLOA2_180902_503.JPG: State Department Denounced December 11, 1943
131. HOLOA2_180902_509.JPG: Obstruction Uncovered December 18, 1943
132. HOLOA2_180902_516.JPG: The Treasury Department's report to President Roosevelt described the mass murder of Europe's Jews as "one of the greatest crimes in history." It explained that the State Department staff had tried to "cover up their guilt" through lies and misrepresentations.
133. HOLOA2_180902_518.JPG: President Informed January 16, 1944
134. HOLOA2_180902_521.JPG: January 22, 1944 War Refugee Board Established "We have talked. We have sympathized. We have expressed our horror. The time to act is long past due." -- John Pehle, Assistant Secretary of the Treasury, January 15, 1944 The establishment of the War Refugee Board (WRB) marked the first time the US government adopted a policy of trying to rescue victims of Nazi persecution. The WRB coordinated the work of both US and international refugee aid organizations, sending millions of dollars into German-occupied Europe for relief and rescue. Its representatives abroad pressured neutral nations to provide diplomatic aid to Jews and recruited Swedish businessman Raoul Wallenberg to help save thousands of lives in Budapest, Hungary. The War Refugee Board's final report estimated that it rescued "tens of thousands" of people and assisted "hundreds of thousands" more.
135. HOLOA2_180902_526.JPG: "Direct Bombing" of Auschwitz? "I strongly recommend that the War Department give serious consideration to the possibility of destroying the execution chambers and crematories in Birkenau through direct bombing action." -- John Pehle, Director of the War Refugee Board, to Assistant Secretary of War John McCloy, November 8, 1944 Throughout spring 1944, the War Refugee Board received dozens of recommendations about how to save Jews, including pleas for the Allies to bomb either the rail lines that transported Jews to the Auschwitz-Birkenau killing center, its gas chambers, or the entire camp. In June and in November, board officials forwarded these requests to the US War Department, which refused. Although the US Air Force bombed nearby factories, the War Department told the WRB that bombing Auschwitz-Birkenau would divert the military from its main objective -- winning the war as quickly as possible.
136. HOLOA2_180902_532.JPG: War Refugee Board Request Pehle's letter to McCloy, explaining that he is no longer "hesitant" and is now "convinced" that Auschwitz should be directly bombed, November 8, 1944
137. HOLOA2_180902_544.JPG: Could the Allies Have Stopped the Killing? The US Government learned about the systematic killing of Jews almost as soon as it began in the Soviet Union in 1941. Throughout the war, however, the Allied governments prioritized defeating Nazism, not saving Jews. By November 1942, when Allied troops invaded north Africa, the Germans were operating six killing centers in Nazi-occupied Poland and had murdered four million Jews, most by gassing or mass shootings. By the time the western Allied armies landed in Normandy, France, on D-Day (June 6, 1944), more than five million Jews had been murdered, and two killing centers -- Majdanek and Auschwitz -- were still operating. Both camps were eventually liberated by Soviet troops. What Could the United States Have Done? Beyond the military goal of defeating Nazism, the United States could have publicized information about Nazi atrocities, pressured the other Allies and neutral nations to help endangered Jews, and supported resistance groups against the Nazis. Prior to the war, the US government could have enlarged or filled its immigration quotas to allow more Jewish refugees to enter the country. These acts together might have reduced the death toll, but they would not have prevented the Holocaust.
138. HOLOA2_180902_552.JPG: Naming the Crime "We are in the presence of a crime without a name," -- British Prime Minister Winston Churchill informed radio listeners on August 24, 1941. His announcement came two months after British intelligence had received secret information about German mass shootings of Soviet Jews. Before the war ended in spring 1945, the crime was given a name. A December 3, 1944, editorial in the Washington Post introduced its readers to a new word, genocide, coined by Polish Jewish immigrant Raphael Lemkin: He defined the crime as the "deliberate destruction" of a nation or ethnic group.
139. HOLOA2_180902_555.JPG: Public Opinion Poll November 1944 Q: Do you believe the stories that the Germans have murdered many people in concentration camps?
140. HOLOA2_180902_558.JPG: Yes: 76% No: 12% No Opinion: 12%
141. HOLOA2_180902_566.JPG: A Refugee Camp in New York In August 1944, the War Refugee Board brought 982 refugees from 18 different countries to the Fort Ontario Emergency Refugee Shelter in Oswego, New York. This was the only time during World War II that the US government agreed to bypass immigration laws to allow a group of refugees to reach the United States. Instead of welcoming them as immigrants, however, the refugees were designated as "guests of the President." They were held behind barbed-wire fences at Fort Ontario and were informed that they would be returned to Europe when the war ended. In February 1946, nine months after the Allies defeated Nazi Germany, the Fort Ontario Emergency Refugee Shelter closed. The United States admitted the refugees on immigrant visas.
142. HOLOA2_180902_569.JPG: "Refugees Arrive from Europe," Life August 21, 1944
143. HOLOA2_180902_591.JPG: It is 1945... * The United States emerged as a world power. * President Roosevelt died on April 12, just as American troops first encountered concentration camps in Nazi Germany. * Americans celebrated victory in Europe in May and victory in the Pacific in August. * 16 million Americans had served, and 416,800 were killed, in the war.
144. HOLOA2_180902_594.JPG: America 1945
145. HOLOA2_180902_600.JPG: Liberation In the final days of World War II, American magazines covered victories in war alongside some of the first widely circulated photographs from concentration camps. American soldiers who liberated concentration camps, or toured the newly freed camps, wrote letters to their families to tell them about what they had seen.
146. HOLOA2_180902_602.JPG: Time, May 7, 1945
147. HOLOA2_180902_608.JPG: Life, May 14, 1945
148. HOLOA2_180902_614.JPG: Life published photographs of atrocities at Bergen-Belsen, Buchenwald, Nordhausen, and other concentration camps in its May 7, 1945, issue. Photo captions in the magazine referred to "prisoners" and "slave laborers" of "all nationalities." None mentioned Jewish victims.
149. HOLOA2_180902_620.JPG: "All over Europe the Nazis were writing the book of death... Let me now tell this story to the American people, to the man in the street, in church, on the porches of their houses and in their kitchens and drawing rooms. I am sure they would understand me." -- Raphael Lemkin, a refugee who coined the word "genocide" in 1944
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