20th Century
Shen
Name: ___________________________
America and the Holocaust: Deceit and Indifference
Historical Context: Adolf Hitler’s hatred of the Jews helped the Nazis come to power in the 1930s and became one of the
organizing principles of their government. As Hitler’s power grew, and the Nazi’s anti-Semitism intensified, the United States
faced a moral choice: Should the Jews of Germany be given refugee in America? How America responded to this challenge
reveals a great deal about how free Jews were in the United States during the 1930s and 1940s.
Directions: Please read the following timeline and answer the prompts where given.
Part I:
America and the Holocaust: A Timeline
Events in the United States
1933
The New Deal creates government agencies that hire by the
“merit system” resulting in more opportunities for Jews.
March. Mass anti-Nazi rally held in Madison Square Garden in
New York City.
Events in Europe
1933
January. Adolf Hitler becomes Chancellor of Germany
March. The Nazis establish their first concentration camp
at Dachau
March. Germany passes the Enabling Act, giving Hitler
dictatorial powers
April. Nazi’s first anti-Semitic law removes all Jews from
the civil service.
1935
September. Nazis pass Nuremberg Laws. Among other
things, these laws deprive German Jews of the right
to vote and hold public office and they outlaw
marriages between Jews and non-Jews.
1938
July. Convened by FDR, 32 countries meet at the Evian
conference in France to discuss the Jews refugee
problem. Little is accomplished; most Western
Countries are unwilling to accept Jewish refugees.
1939
February-June. Wagner-Rogers Bill proposes admitting
20,000 German refugee children to the United States.
The bill dies in committee. A bill to admit British
children passes overwhelmingly.
May-June. The S.S. St. Louis, carrying 930 Jewish refugees is
turned away by Cuba. The U.S. refuses to admit the
refugees who are forced to return to Europe.
• Jews from various countries received permission to
emigrate to Cuba, but they were not allowed into the
country when they arrived on the St. Louis.
• The ship remained in Havana Harbor for several days.
• Jews on board ultimately received permission to
emigrate to Britain, France and other Western
European countries, as the U.S. denied permission for
the refugees to enter America.
• Most of the passengers died in the Holocaust.
1938
April. German Jews required to register their property.
November. Kristallnacht, The Night of the Broken Glass.
Throughout Germany and Austria, the Nazis destroy
Jewish property and deport 30,000 Jews to
concentration camps.
November. All Jewish retail establishments in Germany
ordered to cease business by the end of the year.
1939
September. Germany invades Poland, starting World War
II in Europe.
November. Germans kill more than 16,000 Polish civilians
in the first six weeks of the war. Jews account for
5,000 of the dead.
Events in the United States
Events in Europe
1940
June. Germany establishes the Auschwitz concentration
camp.
November. Warsaw ghetto created.
1941
June. New rules in the U.S. cut refugee immigration to about
25% of the relevant quotas.
Assistant Secretary of State Breckinridge Long “secretly and
illegally” limit immigration into the U.S. by:
• He ordered U.S. diplomats overseas not to process Visa
applications quickly—in fact, they were to process
immigration applications as slowly as possible.
• Later, all immigration decisions were made in
Washington, not by U.S. diplomats overseas.
• The effect was to effectively cut off all immigration to
the U.S. for several years despite the existing (low)
immigration quotas.
1941
June. More than 13,000 Jews die of starvation in the
Warsaw ghetto since January.
July. Reich Marshall Hermann Goring instructs Reinhardt
Heydrich to organize “a complete solution of the
Jewish question.”
September. First gassing experiments at Auschwitz.
November. Nazis establish Theresiendstadt, a “model
ghetto” in Czechoslovakia.
December. First gassings at Chelmno death camp.
July. New York Yiddish daily newspapers reveal that
thousands of Jewish civilians were massacred by Nazi
soldiers in Minsk, Brest-Litovsk, Lvov and elsewhere.
October. New York Times reports on massacre of thousands of
Jews in Galicia.
December. Pearl Harbor. U.S. enters war.
1942
August. News of the Nazi plan to annihilate the Jews of
Europe reaches Gerhardt Riegner, the World Jewish
Congress representative in Switzerland.
August. Riegner informs U.S. consulate in Geneva about the
Nazi plan to murder Europe’s Jews.
August. U.S. diplomats pass Riegner’s information to the State
Department.
August. President Roosevelt warns the Axis that the
perpetrators of war crimes would be tried after their
defeat and face “fearful retribution.”
August. After receiving details of Reigner’s report, a U.K.
politician cables the information to American rabbi
Stephen Wise. Wise is a friend of FDR.
September. State Department grants permission for 5,000
Jewish children in France to enter the U.S. The
initiative fails because of stalling by the Vichy
government.
September. Representative Emanuel Celler introduces a bill
calling for the opening of U.S. doors to French
refugees who can prove they face persecution. The bill
dies in committee.
September. Rabbi Wise contacts the State Department with
details of the Nazi plan. He agrees to remain silent
until the information is confirmed.
1942
January. Nazis hold the Wannsee Conference among their
leadership, where they outline the “Final Solution”—
the plan to kill 11 million of Europe’s Jews.
July. Nazis begin deporting Jews from the Warsaw ghetto.
November. For the first time, reports of Jews being
methodically murdered at Auschwitz reach the
outside world.
December. The Allies issue a statement condemning “in
the strongest possible terms this bestial policy of
cold-blooded extermination.”
December. The United Nations Information Office in
New York releases a report that authenticates the
accounts of the Holocaust.
November. State Department confirms report of Nazi plan to
kill Europe’s Jews. Wise holds a press conference on
November 24.
December. Jewish leaders meet with President Roosevelt and
hand him a 20-page summary of the Holocaust.
Events in the United States
Events in Europe
1943
February. State Department asks diplomats in Switzerland to
stop sending reports about the mass murder of Jews to
people in the U.S.
March. Ben Hecht’s pageant “We Will Never Die” is staged in
New York in memory of the murdered Jews of Europe.
Earlier that month, 75,000 attend a Stop Hitler Now
rally.
April. U.S. and British officials open a 12-day conference in
Bermuda to discuss possibility of rescuing European
Jewish refugees. Little is accomplished.
April. State Department receives second message from
Gerhardt Riegner outlining plan to rescue Rumanian
and French Jews.
May. Ad in the New York Times taken out by Jewish activists
mocks the Bermuda conference as a “mockery and
cruel jest.”
July. Treasury Department is prepared to issue licenses
allowing for the transfer of funds from Jewish
organizations in the U.S. to Switzerland. The money
would be used to help rescue Jews from Romania and
France. (“70,000 Jews for Sale.”)
July. Jan Karski, a member of the Polish resistance, meets with
FDR, giving him an eyewitness account of the
Holocaust.
October. 400 rabbis gather outside the White House to
present a petition to FDR calling for a rescue agency.
FDR refuses to meet them.
November. House and Senate consider resolutions calling on
the President to create a government rescue agency.
November. FDR suggests creating refugee camps in North
Africa and Southern Europe, a plan demolished by the
State Department.
November. Assistant Secretary of State Long testifies in the
House against the Rescue Agency resolution.
1943
February. Germans surrender at Stalingrad.
April. First day of Warsaw Ghetto uprising.
May. Nazis liquidate Warsaw ghetto.
July. Mussolini overthrown in Italy.
September. Italy signs an armistice with the Allies.
1944
January. Treasury Secretary Morgenthau receives the “Report
to the Secretary on the Acquiescence of this
Government in the Murder of the Jews.”
January. After meeting with Secretary Morgenthau, whose aids
summarize the report, FDR creates War Refugee Board
(E.O. 9417).
March. War Refugee Board helps organize the evacuation of
1,200 Jewish refugees from Rumania.
March. War Refugee Board convinces Rumania to move
48,000 Jews away from retreating Nazi troops.
April. Gallup poll shows that 70% of Americans support
setting up temporary refugee camps in the U.S.
1944
April. Nazis begin concentrating Jews in Central locations
in Hungary.
May. Nazis begin deporting Hungarian Jews to Auschwitz.
June. Allies land in Normandy in the D-Day invasion of
France.
October. Jews at Auschwitz destroy one of the crematoria
buildings and damage another.
November. SS chief Heinrich Himmler orders a halt to the
gassing of the Jews, followed by the destruction of
the gas chambers and crematoria.
1944
January. Treasury Secretary Morgenthau receives the “Report
to the Secretary on the Acquiescence of this
Government in the Murder of the Jews.”
January. After meeting with Secretary Morgenthau, whose aids
summarize the report, FDR creates War Refugee Board
(E.O. 9417).
March. War Refugee Board helps organize the evacuation of
1,200 Jewish refugees from Rumania.
March. War Refugee Board convinces Rumania to move
48,000 Jews away from retreating Nazi troops.
April. Gallup poll shows that 70% of Americans support
setting up temporary refugee camps in the U.S.
June. FDR allows 1,000 refugees from Italy to come to a camp
in the U.S.
June. War Department rejects appeals to bomb Auschwitz.
July. War Refugee Board wins Rumanian commitment to
accept Jews fleeing the Nazis in Hungary.
July. American Jewish Conference sponsors rally in New York
to draw attention to the plight of Hungary’s Jews.
1944
April. Nazis begin concentrating Jews in Central locations
in Hungary.
May. Nazis begin deporting Hungarian Jews to Auschwitz.
June. Allies land in Normandy in the D-Day invasion of
France.
October. Jews at Auschwitz destroy one of the crematoria
buildings and damage another.
November. SS chief Heinrich Himmler orders a halt to the
gassing of the Jews, followed by the destruction of
the gas chambers and crematoria.
August. Because of the efforts of the War Refugee Board,
Turkey abolishes its anti-Jewish laws.
August. War Department writes that bombing Auschwitz
would divert air power from “decisive operations
elsewhere.”
August. 127 U.S. bombers drop high explosives on the factory
areas of Auschwitz, less than five miles east of the gas
chambers.
September. U.S. bombers attack factory areas of Auschwitz,
but not on crematoria
a fewtype
miles
away.
Reflection
Questions:just
Please
your
response on a separate sheet of paper to hand in. Do your best to support your
response with specific details from the timeline.
1945
1945
February.
State
Department
announces
that
perpetrators
of
war
January.
Death
marches
into
interior
 Consider the opportunities the U.S. had to help Europe’s Jews. Why do you think the U.S.Germany’s
failed to act
whenstart,
it could
crimes Do
against
other
minorities
will be
taking 250,000 Jewish lives.
have?
you Jews
thinkand
these
reasons
are legitimate?
punished.
January. Soviet forces capture Auschwitz.
July. 
U.S.In
Visa
system
reverts
pre-war as
procedures,
ending
February. for
Soviet
capture
Budapest,
saving
120,000
your
opinion,
doestoAmerica
a nation have
a moral responsibility
the forces
Holocaust?
Does
the U.S.’s
refusal
to
complex
security-screening
admit
Jewish
refugees makesmachinery.
the U.S. a “bystander” to genocide?Jews.
Explain your response.
April 30. U.S. forces occupy Munich. Hitler commits
suicide.
May 7. Germany surrenders to the Allies.
November 20. Nuremberg War Crimes Tribunal begins.