Assess the US government’s reaction to the Holocaust. Do you think the response was appropriate (why)?

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Assess the US government’s reaction to the Holocaust. Do you think the response was appropriate (why)?

Discussion 4: America’s Response to the Holocaust
Calvo
AMH 2020
Due March 8, 11:59pm
5% of final grade
Module 4 showcases American participation in World War II. Before and during the conflict, Americans received information regarding the genocide perpetuated against European Jews. The US government knew of the deplorable treatment and persecution of European Jews at the hands of the Nazis long before the Holocaust began. Contemporaries and historians have since argued that the American government had a moral obligation to act in a more assertive fashion to end the genocide, as well as play a more active role in facilitating the settlement of European Jewish refugees.
For this discussion, students should reflect on and respond to the following topic:
Assess the US government’s reaction to the Holocaust. Do you think the response was appropriate (why)?
Students will need to take an assertive position in their discussion. This is an argumentative discussion. The argument will be supported by analysis of the documents provided below. Your assessment of US policy toward the Holocaust will constitute the thesis, and might be framed around answering the following questions:
-How was information about the Holocaust treated by the US government and why?
-When do you think the US should have become involved in helping the Jews?
-Were historians and contemporaries correct in their criticisms that the US was slow to react to news of the genocide?
-What were some of the factors that shaped the US response?
-Were there domestic forces that contributed to America’s delayed response?
-What did ordinary Americans think and know about the Holocaust?
-How did the US treat Jewish refugees flee Nazi Europe?
-Why do you think the government finally decided to set up the War Refugee Board?
You do not have to answer all or even any of the above questions. I am most interested in seeing you develop a sharp understanding and accounting of American policy toward the Holocaust, a clear assessment of that policy, and most importantly, the ability to craft an argumentative position around your understanding and assessment. But I am also interested to read your opinion–do you think the American response to the Holocaust was appropriate?
The readings associated with the discussion are found below.
Writing Standards:
Requirements for discussion.
The discussion will be 2-3 pages long.
Standard margins.
12 point times new roman font.
In-text parenthetical citations. For example: (Foner, 3), or (Johnson, 25).
The discussion needs to reference/cite at least 3 sources from the list of required resources (readings/videos). If the essay does not reference at least 3 sources, the grade will be penalized.
Students must respond to a classmate’s post. The response to your classmate’s discussion should be a full paragraph long.
Proofread the discussion and the response. If I can’t understand the writing, the grade will be penalized.
There is no need to consult outside sources. All of the information needed to complete this essay is found in the module.
The discussion and response to a classmates’ post should be submitted via canvas by the due date.
–Your response to every discussion prompt should be written in an argumentative format. It should answer the question in language that takes a strong position and makes your answer to the question abundantly clear. Do not simply write a narrative of events, and avoid writing a response that offers only a general discussion of the topic. Rather, write in such a way that makes clear you are trying to prove a point—to convince somebody of an argument.
–To write an argumentative essay you must have a thesis statement that presents your argument in clear and coherent language, in this case, your answer to the discussion question. The response must cite specific pieces of evidence. The evidence helps prove the argument. The evidence is sourced to the course readings.
Because there are no page numbers in the Yawp, you will cite the chapter and section. For instance: (Yawp, 13, II)—13 is the chapter, II is the section.
For the Johnson, indicate the authors and page number, for instance: (Carnegie, 100).
Resources
Students must incorporate at least 3 sources from the following list of documents.
Documents 1-4 are excerpts taken from monographs written by post-war historians. These four documents capture some of the broader, more popular arguments related to the American response to the Holocaust.
Document 1
“I feel that more might have been done but I am also aware that there were many factors in the rescue situation which were simply beyond the Roosevelt Administration’s control. Not the least of these was Berlin’s determination to liquidate the Jews and the great difficulty of assigning to a modern nation state a humanitarian mission to rescue a foreign minority for which it had no legal responsibility. It is a moral and humanitarian response we seek from the Roosevelt Administration. Such responses are rare in history and practically nonexistent during wartime.” Henry L. Feingold, The Politics of Rescue: The Roosevelt Administration and the Holocaust, 1938-1945 (New Brunswick: Rutgers University Press, 1970, p. xiii.)
Document 2
“How ironic that our greatest president of this century—the man Hitler hated most, the leader constantly derided by the anti-Semites, vilified by Goebbels as a ‘mentally ill cripple’ and as ‘that Jew Rosenfeld,’ violently attacked by the isolationist press—how ironic that he should be faulted for being indifferent to the genocide. For all of us, the shadow of doubt that enough was not done will always remain, even if there was little more that could have been done. But it is the killers who bear the responsibility for their deeds. To say that ‘we are all guilty’ allows the truly guilty to avoid that responsibility. We must remember for all the days of our lives that it was Hitler who imagined the Holocaust and the Nazis who carried it out. We were not their accomplices. We destroyed them.”
William J. vanden Heuvel, “America, Franklin D. Roosevelt and the Holocaust,” Keynote Address, Fifth Annual Franklin and Eleanor Roosevelt Distinguished Lecture, held October 17, 1996, at Roosevelt University, Chicago, Illinois. http://newdeal.feri.org/feri/wvh.htm (Links to an external site.)
Document 3
“With almost sixty years of hindsight, Roosevelt’s silence about the plight of European Jews seems a strange lapse in the record of a President who normally spoke to Americans on grave world issues with courage, candor and foresight. That lapse is underscored by Roosevelt’s lateness in pushing his officials to save Jewish refugees and his reluctance to seriously entertain whether bombing Auschwitz might save some of Hitler’s intended victims without postponing victory in Europe.”
Michael Beschloss, The Conquerors: Roosevelt, Truman and the Destruction of Hitler’s Germany, 1941-45 (New York: Simon & Schuster, 2002), p. 285.
Document 4
“Authenticated information that the Nazis were systematically exterminating European Jewry was made public in the United States in November 1942. President Roosevelt did nothing about the mass murder for fourteen months, then moved only because he was confronted with political pressures he could not avoid and because his administration stood on the brink of a nasty scandal over its rescue policies. . . . Franklin Roosevelt’s indifference to so momentous an historical event as the systematic annihilation of European Jewry emerges as the worst failure of his presidency.”
David S. Wyman, The Abandonment of the Jews: America and the Holocaust, 1941-1945 (New York: Pantheon Books, 1984).
Documents 5-9 are primary sources.
Document 5
FDR statement on Krystallnacht, Nov 15, 1938
“I myself could scarcely believe that such things could occur in a twentieth century civilization.” Handwritten addition by FDR to his statement to the Press after Krystallnacht (Nov 15, 1938): http://www.fdrlibrary.marist.edu/archives/pdfs/holocaust.pdf (Links to an external site.)
Document 6
In a December 13, 1942 radio broadcast listened to by millions, popular newsman Edward R. Murrow described the situation faced by Jews in Germany as:
“a horror beyond what imagination can grasp . . . there are no longer ‘concentration camps’—we must speak now only of ‘extermination camps.’” http://www.fdrlibrary.marist.edu/archives/pdfs/holocaust.pdf (Links to an external site.)
Document 7
From a report by the OSS (predecessor to the CIA) regarding a further escalation of Nazi violence against Jews, received in the White House Map Room on March 17, 1943:
“The new Nazi policy is to kill Jews on the spot rather than to deport them to Poland for extermination there.”
FDR Library, “FDR and the Holocaust,” Doc #6, Map Room Papers; MR 203(12); Sec. 1; OSS Numbered Bulletins, March-May 1943, Box 72. http://www.fdrlibrary.marist.edu/archives/pdfs/holocaust.pdf (Links to an external site.)
Document 8
From a statement by President Roosevelt, March 24, 1944:
“…in most of Europe and in parts of Asia, the systematic murder and torture of innocent civilians – men, women and children – by the Nazis and the Japanese continues unabated. … And one of the blackest crimes in all history – begun by the Nazis in the days of peace, and multiplied by them a hundred fold in time of war – the wholesale systematic murder of the Jews of Europe – goes on unabated every hour. … Hitler is committing these crimes in the name of the German people. I ask every German and every man everywhere under Nazi domination to show the world by his actions that in his heart he does not share these insane criminal designs. Let him hide these pursued victims, help them to get over the border, and do what he can to save them from the Nazi hangman. … In the meantime, and until the victory that is now assured is won, the United States will persevere in its efforts to rescue the victims of brutality of the Nazis and the Japs. In so far as the necessities of military operations permit, this Government will use all the means at its command to aid the escape of all the intended victims of the Nazi and Japanese executioner.” FDR Library, “FDR and the Holocaust,” Document #8: Statement by the President Regarding Atrocities of War, March 24, 1944. President’s Personal File 1-F: Press Releases-Drafts, 1944, Box 18. http://www.fdrlibrary.marist.edu/archives/pdfs/holocaust.pdf (Links to an external site.)
Document 9
While Roosevelt heard frequent complaints about restrictive American immigration policy and the State Department’s intransigent application of the rules to Jewish applicants, he accepted the State Department’s concerns about a more open-door policy. At a press conference on June 5, 1940, Roosevelt stated:
“Now, of course, the refugee has got to be checked because, unfortunately, among the refugees there are some spies, as has been found in other countries. And not all of them are voluntary spies—it is rather a horrible story but in some of the other countries that refugees out of Germany have gone to, especially Jewish refugees, they found a number of definitely proven spies.” US Holocaust Memorial Museum, “Franklin Delano Roosevelt,” Holocaust Encyclopedia http://www.ushmm.org/wlc/en/article.php?ModuleId=10007411 (Links to an external site.)
Document 10 (correspondence)
The U.S. War Department declined repeated requests made by John W. Pehle, Director, U.S. War Refugee Board, that it bomb the extermination camps and access railway lines. Documents J-L below are excerpts from successive replies by John J. McCloy, Assistant Secretary of War:
July 4, 1944 “Dear Mr. Pehle, … The War Department of the opinion that the suggested air operation is impracticable. It could be executed only by the diversion of considerable air support essential to the success of our forces now engaged in decisive operations and would in any case be of such doubtful efficacy that it would not amount to a practical project.”
John J. McCloy, Assistant Secretary of War to John W. Pehle, July 4, 1944. FDR Library, “FDR and the Holocaust,” Document #9 in FDR Library, “FDR and the Holocaust,” at http://www.fdrlibrary.marist.edu/archives/pdfs/holocaust.pdf (Links to an external site.)
(War Refugee Board Records; Projects and Documents File; Measures Directed Toward Halting Persecutions; Hungary No. 5, Box 42).
August 14, 1944 “Dear Mr. Pehle, … such an operation could be executed only by the diversion of considerable air support…now engaged in decisive operations elsewhere and would in any case be of such doubtful efficacy that it would not warrant the use of our resources.” John McCloy to John Pehle, US Holocaust Memorial Museum, “Franklin Delano Roosevelt,” Holocaust Encyclopedia http://www.ushmm.org/wlc/en/article.php?ModuleId=10008041 (Links to an external site.)
November 18, 1944 “Dear Mr. Pehle: … You forwarded the report of two eye-witnesses on the notorious German concentration and extermination camps of Auschwitz and Birkenau in Upper Silesia. The Operation Staff of the War Department has given careful consideration to your suggestion that the bombing of these camps be undertaken. In consideration of this proposal the following points were brought out: At the present critical stage of the war in Europe, our strategic air forces are engaged in the destruction of industrial target systems vital to the dwindling war potential of the enemy, from which they should not be diverted. … Based on the above… the War Department has felt that it should not, at least for the present, undertake these operations.” McCloy to Pehle. 18 Nov. 1944. PBS. The American Experience.
Document 11
Varian Fry, The Massacre of the Jews, reported in the New Republic, December 21, 1942.
Fry’s article, reproduced here with a brief introduction, discusses why Americans hesitated to accept early accounts of Holocaust atrocities.
https://learninglink.oup.com/access/content/schaller-3e-dashboard-resources/document-varian-fry-the-massacre-of-the-jews-new-republic-december-21-1942
Johnson’s Reading the American Past offers the following
“American Jewish Leaders Notify FDR about the Holocaust,” Document 25-2.
“US Generals Inspect Ohrdruf Concentration Camp,” Document 25-5.
Student are encouraged to visit the following on-line resources:
https://encyclopedia.ushmm.org/content/en/article/the-united-states-and-the-holocaust (Links to an external site.)
https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/americanexperience/films/holocaust/ (Links to an external site.)
https://www.facinghistory.org/defying-nazis/america-and-holocaust (Links to an external site.)
https://www.jstor.org/stable/1396281?seq=1#metadata_info_tab_contents (Links to an external site.)
https://time.com/5327279/ushmm-americans-and-the-holocaust/ (Links to an external site.)
https://www.jstor.org/stable/27500238?seq=1#metadata_info_tab_contents (Links to an external site.)

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