The United States and the Holocaust
Selected Timeline
July, 1938: A conference is held in Evian, France, to address the Jewish refugee problem:
· The US did not offer to take in Jews, and of 32 countries in attendance, only the Dominican Republic (!) offered asylum. They were willing to take 10,000.
November, 1938: Kristallnacht alerts the world about the depth of anti-Jewish violence in Germany:
· FDR spoke out against the actions.
November, 1938: A plan to allow Jewish refugees to immigrate to Alaska (at the time a territory) is proposed:
· FDR essentially kills the idea with a quota limiting Jewish immigrants to 1,000/year for 5 years.
February, 1939: The Wagner-Rogers Bill would have allowed 20,000 Jewish Children entry into the US:
· FDR helps kill the bill by refusing to take action.
June, 1940: Assistant Secretary of State Breckinridge Long seeks to limit the number of Jewish refugees receiving visas to enter America, writing "We can delay and effectively stop for a temporary period of indefinite length the number of immigrants into the United States. We could do this by simply advising our consuls, to put every obstacle in the way and to require additional evidence and to resort to various administrative devices which would postpone and postpone and postpone the granting of the visas."
· Result: the legal quotas for immigrants, small as they are, go unfilled.
November, 1942: After a State Department cover-up is revealed, Rabbi Wise is cleared to hold a press conference in Washington and tells reporters that the State Department has confirmed that two million European Jews have already fallen victim to Hitler's plan of total extermination.
· Of the country's 19 most important newspapers, only 5 run the story on the front page.
February, 1943: The State Department orders personnel to suppress information about the Holocaust.
April, 1943: An international conference is held in Bermuda regarding the Jewish refugee issue.
· The US and others decide the war must first be won.
· The US State Department writes “There was always the danger that the German government might agree to turn over to the United States and to Great Britain a large number of Jewish refugees.”
January, 1944: Treasury official Josiah DuBois writes "Report to the Secretary (of the Treasury) on the Acquiescence (acceptance) of this Government (The US) in the Murder of the Jews."
· The War Refugee Board is formed by FDR, who fears not so much the annihilation of Jews, but a political scandal resulting from the cover-up. The War Refugee Board eventually saves 200,000 Jews.
July, 1944: the decision not to bomb Auschwitz's crematoria is made, claiming bombers could not effectively reach the target.
· An oil plant owned by I.G. Farben a few miles away from Auschwitz is bombed. A few bombs miss their targets and killed several people at Auschwitz.
November, 1945: 24 Nazis are put on trial in Nuremberg for war crimes. The US participates, along with other allies.
· Around 20 are convicted and 12 receive death sentences.
Post-WW II: The US helps some, possibly thousands, Nazi military personal and scientists escape justice.
· Many end up in South America. Israel and other groups continue (and continue) to hunt down the last survivors.
· John Demjanjuk, an autoworker who lived in the U.S. for years after the war, is convicted in 2011 of 28,060 counts of being an accessory to murder and sentenced to five years in prison.