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HOLOCAUST & THE U.S.   Term Paper ID:24128 Click to get this paper

Essay Subject: Examines possible passive & active role of U.S. leaders in Nazi campaign against Jews. Development of Final Solution, Amer. knowledge of Jewish persecution, effects on U.S. history.... More...

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Paper Abstract: Examines possible passive & active role of U.S. leaders in Nazi campaign against Jews. Development of Final Solution, Amer. knowledge of Jewish persecution, effects on U.S. history. Paper Introduction: The purpose of this research is to examine the oppression of the Jews during the Holocaust and its effects on the U.S. The plan of the research will be to set forth the historical context in which issues surrounding the impact of the Holocaust on the U.S. emerged and then to discuss the extent of knowledge and belief of the events of the Holocaust in the U.S., reactions from and behavior of various sectors of society when they learned what was happening to Jews in Europe, and in what ways the American response to the Holocaust had an impact on American society during the years of the Third Reich and afterward. Any judgment of the impact that oppression of the Jews had on the U.S. must begin with a look at the oppression in Europe. The evidence of Europe is that the apparatus of oppression was built systematically and the very "thinkability" of the methods Nazis Text of the Paper: The entire text of the paper is shown below. However, the text is somewhat scrambled. We want to give you as much information as we possibly can about our papers and essays, but we cannot give them away for free. In the text below you will find that while disordered, many of the phrases are essentially intact. From this text you will be able to get a solid sense of the writing style, the concepts addressed, and the sources used in the research paper. New York: Bantam Books, 1975.---. could be "acog in the military machine of Europe" (Leuchtenberg 197). The purpose of this research is to examine the oppression of the Jewsduring the Holocaust and its effects on the U.S. Mainstream political conservatives' distrust of FDR andthe New Deal in general was instrumental for and fused with the agenda ofmobilized activists like Curtis, whose appeals were "anti-Roosevelt, anti-British, anti-communist, and anti-Semitic." Frederickson adds: Curtis and her followers differed significantly from the larger isolationist movement in their overt anti-Semitism and their tendency to suspect elaborate conspiracies. In any case, the evidencesupports Alexander's judgment, after Dawidowicz, that "if the pacifists,appeasers, and isolationists of the 192 's and 193 's had not had their wayin England and America, Hitler would not have had his way in Europe"(Alexander 33). "Cathrine Curtis and Conservative Isolationist Women, 1939-1941." Historian: A Journal of History 58 (Summer 1996): 825-839.Hilberg, Raul. "Anatomy of the Holocaust." Scholastic Update, 2 April 1993: 6-1 .Dawidowicz, Lucy S. . Hilberg describes theprogressive alienation of Jews: through a systematic definition of whatconstitutes a Jew; expropriation (of rights, property, food, and othernecessities); and concentration (of Jews into specific geographical areas),by means of expulsion and/or deportation from the Reich, at first todestinations the Jews could choose but gradually into Nazi-controlled areas(Hilberg vii, et passim). "What the Holocaust Does Not Teach." Commentary 95 (February 1993): 32-6.Buchsbaum, Herbert. Protestant and Catholic fundamentalists--mobilized against the New Deal, the international Jew, and internationalcommunism--seized upon support from prominent members of the German-American Bund, which rallied 22, strong in New York in February 1939.Meanwhile, in what appears to have been an attempt to hold his(traditionally Anglophobic) Irish-Catholic radio audience, firebrand FatherCoughlin "had abandoned 'social justice' for Jew-baiting" (Leuchtenberg277). . Even somepacifists were "disturbed by the unanticipated consequences of theirbeliefs," to the degree neutrality meant "treating the aggressor and hisvictim alike" (211). . "Observations: Perversions of the Holocaust." Commentary 88 (October 1989): 56-6 .---. Frederickson describes the isolationist activism ofone Cathrine Curtis, who headed the Mothers' Movement, a network of right-wing women's organizations prominent during the years of U.S. Now what makes all thispreliminary is that systematic murder in facilities designed for thatpurpose had not yet begun. New York: Pantheon Books, 1984. The Nuremberg Laws were loaded with implication, the Reich CitizenshipAct depriving Jews of citizenship and making them subjects with alienstatus, and the German Blood Protection Act depriving them of contact withfellow Aryan citizens. "Movie Reviews--America and the Holocaust: Deceit and Indifference, produced by Marty Ostrow." Journal of American History 81 (December 1994): 14 9-141 .Frederickson, Kari. Guided by the "Hidden Hand" of Bernard Baruch, the repeal was supposedly the first stage in a larger communist plot (Frederickson 828). . One measure led to another,until the logic of the Holocaust, became concrete. The evidence of Europeis that the apparatus of oppression was built systematically and the very"thinkability" of the methods Nazis used to accomplish what became calledthe Final Solution found resonance in both Europe and the U.S. Dawidowicz rejects analysisbased on what official American did not do for the Jews, instead pointingtoward what Germany did do successfully to mobilize its population againstthe Jews. Any judgment of the impact that oppression of the Jews had on the U.S.must begin with a look at the oppression in Europe. The controversy in this area turns on accusations of official Americanwartime complicity in the Holocaust. What could be called the preliminary administrative phase of theHolocaust took place from 1933 to late 1938, culminating in Kristallnachtin November of that year, when Nazi storm troopers looted and burned Jewishbusinesses and synagogues and terrorized, arrested, or killed Jews acrossGermany. when therewere millions of jobless in the United States. Trans. But the focus was not on exterminationof the Jews as a primary project of state. The Destruction of the European Jews. It was in the year of the Wannsee Conference, 1942, that informationabout mass killings reached the U.S. All That Glitters Is Not Gold. This filmreconfirmed the fact that FDR's State Department "used the federalbureaucracy to prevent the refugees from reaching American shores. Once the legal abstraction was achieved, the stagewas set for virtually any implementation that reflected the abstraction. Afterward, Jews were levied fines to cover damage done by Nazis.Dawidowicz says that "where compensation was paid to Jews, the Germangovernment would arrange to confiscate those payments. "Paradise Denied: The State Department, the Caribbean, and the Jews of Europe." The National Interest 42 (Winter 1995): 78-84.Wieser, Paul. "The American Press and the Holocaust." Social Education 59 (October 1995): C1-2.Wistrich, Robert S. . FDR's behavior toward both Latin America and Europe through much ofthe 193 s appeared to support an isolationist line. Wise announced: "I would as little support a war to crush Hitlerism as a war for the strengthening of Jewish claims in Palestine." . TheAmerican diplomatic and press corps found Hitler and Nazism repugnant;FDR's Secretary of State Cordell Hull publicly rebuked Germany's anti-Jewish policies when German diplomats complained about antifascistdemonstrations in Chicago and New York (Leuchtenberg 21 -11). Many argued that if war were to be avoided, Hitler should be accommodated. Dawidowicz, whose credentials asHolocaust historian are beyond dispute, rejects Wyman's analysis asimplausible and his criticism of FDR as unworthy, citing three factors:Nazi extermination as fundamenal, not ancillary, to its war effort; thecommitment of the full-scale American mobilization against Germany inEurope; and the potential for collateral damage to concentration campprisoners from precision bombing on the other. But of course the Nazis were different. The War Against the Jews. At first, this mass emigration was to be to Madagascar; whenthat proved impractical, the "final solution" took shape. . Perl cites the press conference at whichFDR said that the U.S. But as Leuchtenbergnotes, FDR "was deeply troubled by reports from Europe and Asia" (21 ). . . Unknown at the time wasthe background of that announcement, that the U.S. . . Indue course, Jews were denied education, the right to practice theprofessions, the right to "Christian" names, access to the public streets,communication with the non-Jewish population (Hilberg 5). The reaction of Americans who learned of state-sanctioned crimesagainst German Jews was a function of domestic politics of the period.During the so-called first hundred days of FDR's regime--roughly the samefirst hundred days of Hitler's taking office--there were reports of Jewsbeing beaten on the streets in Germany, "a peril most Americans chose toignore," says Leuchtenberg (197). Some Mothers' members argued that Jews had started World War II as part of a plot to destroy Christianity. was directlyculpable in Jewish genocide by delaying creation of the War Refugee Board,by avoiding pressure on Germany to release the Jews, by denying support toa Jewish state in Palestine, and above all by dismissing wartime pleas fromJewish sources in Central Europe, intelligence from Auschwitz escapees, andAllied aerial reconnaissance to precision-bomb Germany's genocide apparatusout of existence (Wyman 292, et passim). By making themselves out to be "have not" nations, Germany and Italy persuaded some Americans that the fascist powers were the sharecroppers of world politics (Leuchtenberg 198).Curiously, it was also during this period that American liberals who hadlong criticized American intervention in Latin American politics faultedFDR's noninterventionist Good Neighbor Policy, as the governments ofPanama, Haiti, and Cuba moved toward right-wing dictatorship (Leuchtenberg2 7-8). Another significant point madeby the film was based on analysis by Wyman, who says the U.S. New York: Walker and Company, 1965.Lipstadt, Deborah E. The period of concentration of Jews in ghettos had been a "makeshiftdevice in preparation for the ultimate mass emigration of the victims"(Hilberg 144). Instead, it was a failure of imagination--even (orespecially) in the heat of a war effort that revealed none of thearistocratic/gentlemanly battlefield camaraderie that had surfaced fromtime to time in World War I--to recognize the literalism-beyond-metaphor ofmurder in the phrase Endlosung der Judenfrage, i.e., final solution to theJewish question (Gould 2). New York: Schocken, 1992.Feingold, Henry L. That is why the attempt by an American Jewish committee to have FDRpetition Hitler in 1943 for a release of some surviving Jews cannot be seenthe way Wyman sees it (16 ff), as failure of compassion by the Rooseveltadministration. Richard Barry, Marian Jackson, and Dorothy Long. . Jews would also bemade liable to repair the damages" (Dawidowicz 138). The plan of the researchwill be to set forth the historical context in which issues surrounding theimpact of the Holocaust on the U.S. But there is no doubt that both before and during the war, theeffects on American policy of the oppression of Jews in Europe werefiltered through domestic and not internationalist politics. emerged and then to discuss the extentof knowledge and belief of the events of the Holocaust in the U.S.,reactions from and behavior of various sectors of society when they learnedwhat was happening to Jews in Europe, and in what ways the Americanresponse to the Holocaust had an impact on American society during theyears of the Third Reich and afterward. Works CitedAlexander, Edward. By 1939, as Dawidowicz comments, "Everythingrelating to the Jewish question, it seemed, had been disposed of, exceptthe Jews themselves" (Dawidowicz 139). It thentried to stem the crucial flow of information from the World JewishCongress in Switzerland and generally did all in its power to prevent amore active rescue effort" (Feingold 14 9). New York: Putnam, 1972.Krausnick, Helmut. That is, the transformation of Nazi policy from persecutionto extermination, was not met by a transformed American policy, whichpursued a general wartime strategy instead of making a special projectagainst Hitler's war against the Jews. It is even possible that those in America who had for so long beensuccessful in capturing popular imagination did not have the wit toappreciate the implications of that phrase. By 1939 FDR "all but renounced"isolationism, though Lend Lease had great opposition and many sneered atanti-fascist failures of France and Britain (Leuchtenberg 288 et passim;Frederickson passim). Krausnick comments on "Hitler's realintentions" with the Nuremberg laws, quoting transcribed Nazi notes madeafter the announcement: "Out with them from all the professions and intothe ghetto with them; fence them in somewhere where they can perish as theydeserve while the German people look on, the way people stare at wildanimals" (Krausnick 34). This was partly because of America'spreoccupation with the Depression, but partly as well because of a curiousalliance of progressive pacifist and reactionary isolationist-nationaliststrands of American thought. On the other hand, whatever isolationist attitude FDR adopted vis-à-vis evidence of oppression of the Jews, it was little enough to some well-mobilized Americans. Chamberlain's infamous abandonment of Czechoslovakiaoccurred two months later at Munich, and Kristallnacht two months afterthat. But even Congressional advocates of the Jewish cause "opposedchanging the quota system to give asylum to more refugees . Antisemitism: The Longest Hatred. neutrality.Curtis, not a liberal-pacifist but right-wing isolationist and skilledlobbyist, promulgated a specious "maternalist" critique (Curtis wascontemptuous of her mass-market membership) as a rhetorical device againstwhat American fascists called the "Jew Deal" (Leuchtenberg 277;Frederickson 828). But neither the U.S. . It was to this pass that matters had come when in July 1938 FDR calleda conference of democratic nations in Evian, France, to discuss the issueof refugees trying to flee Germany. Lyrl Clark Van Hyning, leader of a Chicago Mothers' group, held Britain responsible for the war and warned that the British were plotting to betray the United States. Rabbi Stephen S. Little attempt appears to have been made to decode the reports in ameaningful way. Agnes Waters, leader of a New York Mothers' organization, claimed that Roosevelt's scheme to repeal the arms embargxo was part of an international conspiracy involving Jews, New Dealers, blacks, anarchists, and radicals. would not liberalize its immigration policies orpermit its territories and possessions to do so. Controversy surrounds the American wartime response to evidence of theHolocaust, and it was aggravated by a 1994 television documentary filmtitled America and the Holocaust: Deceit and Indifference. On the pacifist side were Americans, Jew and Gentile alike, who werestill recoiling from what was perceived as the horror of U.S. Culpability of Gentile European populations in the full range ofofficial Nazi policy before and during World War II has been at issue sincethe end of the war. London: Methuen, 1991.Wyman, David S. Van Hyning, a member of the German-American Bund, who "advocated anegotiated peace with Germany and expulsion of Jewish refugees," also"dismissed the Holocaust as a fabrication and supported Hitler's 'ChristianFascism' in its fight against 'Jew-Directed Communism'" (Frederickson 829).Waters wrote anti-Semitic articles and in 1939 lobbied against admittingJewish refugee children while claiming that the U.S. There were some exceptions for what may be termed "specialcases," and the details of implementing the idea were many, but the basicidea was that "Europe was 'to be combed through from west to east' forJews, who would be evacuated 'group by group, into so-called transitghettos, to be transported from there farther to the East'" (Dawidowicz183). . His plea for "living space" appeared not unreasonable and his desire to unite all Germans under one flag seemed to some a more faithful application of the principle of self-determination than Wilson had achieved at Versailles. As Wistrich (passim)explains, both Church and state in Europe, from the Christian era throughthe Middle Ages had placed, then lifted, then replaced, similarrestrictions on Jews. The Abandonment of the Jews. State Department, whichwas not friendly to the problems of European Jews, had publicly positioneditself (i.e., in Evian) so as to be seen seeking a resolution of thegrowing refugee problem--while in fact undercutting meaningful efforts inthat line (79-82). What Is the Use of Jewish History? According to Wyman, 24% of Americans consideredJews a social menace even after the war had started (Wyman 58 et passim). "The Persecution of the Jews." Anatomy of the SS State. involvementin the Great (European) War. Safely ghettoized, the Jews could be rounded upand murdered more efficiently. Throughout the period,the concentration camps were being formed, and thousands of Jews had died,committed suicide, or had been murdered. Why American pacifist-progressive liberalsand isolationist-nationalist conservatives for different reasons recoiledtogether at the thought of American involvement in a European war againstfascism, while (for different reasons and at different times) urgingmilitary intervention in Latin America is a provocative question ofcomparative politics and national psychology--and outside the scope of thisresearch. Meanwhile, anticommunist conservatives urged FDR to annex part ofnorthern Mexico when Mexican president Lazaro Cardenas nationalizedAmerican oil interests in 1938. For example, as Hilberg notes, the [Gentile] presidentof the Reichbank (Schacht) "did not oppose anti-Jewish action. The effect of these laws was to strip Jews of theirmembership in the political system on one hand and of membership in thehuman community on the other. Elsewhere, Leuchtenberg says that the late 193 s, asfascism rose in Europe and political opponents were fearfully characterizedas communists and fascists, were one of liberal democracy's "sorriesthours" (275). In this regard, she cites the ability of reactionary populism tohinder effective American policy aimed at saving the Jews (Dawidowicz, Use45ff), by means of mobilizing or influencing reactions of the Americanpeople. At the same timethey were compelled to call attention to their "Jewishness" by carryingspecially marked ID cards, marking their addresses with a star of David,and wearing armbands, belts, and badges with the star on them. .Schacht never opposed anti-Jewish decrees; to the contrary, he welcomedthem and was impatient when they were not issued quickly enough" (Hilberg22). New York: Harper & Row, Publishers, 1961.Johnson, William O., Jr. Harper Torchbooks. nor otherconference attendees increased their Jewish immigration quotas, and nocountry protested when Britain tightened Jewish immigration into Palestinelater that year (Buchsbaum 1 ). . During theelection of 1932, indeed, FDR bowed to the demand of the "militantlychauvinist" publisher William Randolph Hearst to disavow the League ofNations. . For every refugee who cameto this country, many more who could have been saved died in Hitler'sextermination chambers" (Leuchtenberg 286). Indeed, the fact that Avery Brundage, president ofthe American Athletic Union before World War II and of the InternationalOlympic Committee after it, was president of the German-American Bund untilresigning from on December 8, 1941 (Johnson 8 ), says something aboutrelative tolerance of American popular imagination for nationalist andinternationalist concerns. In thescholarly community, controversy surrounds the issue of whether theHolocaust was sui generis, just one more instance of racism and genocide inhuman history, or something in between (Lipstadt 27; Dawidowicz, "How" 3 ).What does seem undisputed about the earliest Nazi measures is that--ominousand odious as they were, and whatever the Holocaust became eventually--theyappeared to be more a throwback to earlier periods of European history thana programmatic departure from oppression patterns. On the nationalist-isolationist side werelongtime opponents of the League of Nations who feared the U.S. Hepreferred the 'legal' way--that is, certainty instead of uncertainty. At the Wannsee Conference of 1942, the disposition mechanism was setin motion. "could co-exist in aworld dominated by fascism" (829). Instead, as Wieser notes, presscoverage was on generalized to "persecution" and the "refugee problem"(C1). "Not Facing History." New Republic 6 March 1995: 26- 27.Perl, William R. 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