July 11, 2024 • 41 mins
Despite the rise of Nazi Germany in the 1930s and the threat of renewed war in Europe, most Americans remained resolutely opposed to higher levels of Jewish immigration. Even as Jews faced persecution and genocide, antisemitic beliefs delayed American efforts to assist Jewish refugees and resettle concentration camp survivors, with tragic results.
Featuring: Bradley Hart, Rebecca Eberling, and Joseph Bendersky
Narrated by Mark Oppenheimer
Written by John Turner and Lincoln Mullen
This series is made possible with support from the Henry Luce Foundation and the David Bruce Smith Foundation.
Antisemitism, U.S.A. is a production of R2 Studios at the Roy Rosenzweig Center for History and New Media at George Mason University.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Mark Oppenheimer (00:00):
Support for Antisemitism, U.S.A. comes from
the Henry Luce Foundation andthe David Bruce Smith
Foundation.
In 1927, Charles Lindbergh madehistory with the first
transatlantic solo flight. Hepiloted his plane the Spirit of
St. Louis from New York toParis, and he returned home to a
(00:23):
hero's welcome. 4 millionpeople, or pretty much everyone
in New York City, lined thestreets for a ticker tape parade
in his honor. Five years later,Lindbergh dominated the news
headlines again. But this timefor tragic reasons. His infant
son had been kidnapped. And twomonths and many ransom notes
(00:48):
later, the baby's remains werefound. To escape the press,
Lindbergh took refuge in Europe.He made several trips to
Germany, assessing and admiringthe Nazi buildup of the German
air force. In 1938, German AirForce Commander Herman Goering
presented Lindbergh with a metalon behalf of the Fuhrer. This
(01:12):
was just a few weeks beforeKristallnacht, the night of the
broken glass, when Nazi thugsransacked Jewish stores and
synagogues, and carried off tensof thousands of Jews to
concentration camps. First LadyEleanor Roosevelt saw fit to
speak out criticizing Lindberghpublicly for his cozy
relationship with the Nazis.Lindbergh dedicated himself to
(01:36):
making sure that the UnitedStates did not get involved in a
European war. Lindbergh did notwant us to fight the Nazis. In
September 1941, he gave a speechon behalf of the America First
Committee, which opposed entryinto the war.
Charles Lindbergh (01:53):
In selecting the three groups as the major
agitators for war, I haveincluded only those whose
support is essential to the warparty. If any of these groups,
the British, the Jewish or theadministration, stop agitating
for war, I believe there will belittle danger of our
Mark Oppenheimer (02:21):
Lindbergh blamed American Jews for this
drift toward war. He said thathe admired the, quote, "Jewish
race," and he understood whyJews would want to overthrow
Nazi Germany. But Lindberghobjected to the fact that
American Jews were urging theirgovernment to help European
Jews. In that speech, Lindberghwent on to say, quote, "their
(02:43):
greatest danger to this countrylies in their large ownership
and influence in our motionpictures, our press, our radio,
and our government." AndLindbergh warned, quote,
"instead of agitating for war,the Jewish groups in this
country should be opposing it inevery way possible, for they
will be among the first to feelits consequences." "Tolerance,"
(03:08):
Lindbergh cautioned, quote,"cannot survive war and
devastations." In his diary, hecomplained about the number of
Jews coming into the country asrefugees. He wrote, "it is too
bad because a few Jews of theright type are, I believe, an
asset to any country, adding torather than detracting from its
(03:28):
strength. If an antisemiticmovement starts in the United
States, it may go far, it willcertainly affect the good Jews
along with the others. When sucha movement starts, moderation
ends, and we are not a moderatepeople once we get started, and
involvement.
an anti Jewish movement might beconsiderably worse here than in
(03:49):
Germany." Not surprisingly, evenbefore his 1941 speech,
Lindbergh was accused of bothNazi sympathies and antisemitism.
Charles Lindbergh (03:57):
A smear campaign was instituted against
individuals who opposedintervention. The terms of fifth
columnist, traitor, Nazi,antisemitic, were thrown
ceaselessly at anyone who daredto suggest that it was not to
(04:17):
the best interests of the UnitedStates to enter war. Men lost
their jobs if they were,frankly, anti war. Many others
dared no longer speak.
Mark Oppenheimer (04:33):
After Pearl Harbor, Americans overwhelmingly
supported the war against NaziGermany and Imperial Japan. But
until Pearl Harbor, manyAmericans were sympathetic to
the Nazis and not so sympatheticto the Jews. And it wasn't just
a matter of a few bad apples.Antisemitism in the 1930s was
(04:53):
very public and very widespread.You found it among politicians,
among clergy. It was in the USgovernment and in the US Army.
And when troops went around theworld to fight fascism, they
took those anti semitic viewswith them.
(05:26):
I'm Mark Oppenheimer, and thisis Antisemitism, U.S.A., a
podcast about the history ofantisemitism in the United
States. Episode Six, Lower thanAnimals. William Dudley Pelley
was the leader of the SilverLegion, also known as the silver
shirts. The silver shirts weresomewhere between a strange far
(05:48):
right social club and a privatemilitia. According to them, they
were preparing to defend thecountry from Jews and other
threats. At their peak, they hadaround 15,000 members with tens
of thousands of other hangers on.
Pelley's story could be thebasis of a great novel. He began
(06:10):
his career as an author andjournalist. In 1918, he worked
for the YMCA and the AssociatedPress, and ended up in Siberia
alongside an AmericanExpeditionary Force to oppose
the region's Bolshevik takeover.Pelley later said that it was in
Russia that he discovered howdangerous Jews were because of
their role in the RussianRevolution. Pelley's next stop
(06:34):
was Hollywood, where he divorcedhis wife made a small fortune as
a screenwriter and enjoyed thesins of the flesh. But then his
Hollywood career fell apart. Andhe blamed Jewish Hollywood
moguls for his problems. So thenPelley went in a totally
different direction. In 1928, hehad a vision through a quote,
(06:55):
"blueish mist." In his vision,he found himself on a slab of
marble, next to two men who toldhim the secrets of the universe.
Pelley moved to New York andwrote about his experiences. He
became a spiritualist guru, andthousands of people subscribed
to his newsletter. Some gave hima lot of money. Then Pelley's
(07:17):
life took another crazy turn.Here's historian Bradley Hart,
author of Hitler's AmericanFriends.
Bradley Hart (07:27):
In 1933, when Hitler takes power, Pelley again
transitions his career to becomea fascist leader, bizarrely
enough. So he claims that in1932, before Hitler takes power,
he has received a revelationfrom Jesus Himself, telling him
that when a house painter inGermany creates a new political
movement, he should do somethingsimilar in the US. Now, of
(07:49):
course, Pelley only reveals thissupposed prophecy after Hitler
has taken power in 1933. But heclaims that this is the
inspiration for the foundationof Silver Legion or sometimes
called the Silver Shirt Legion.
Mark Oppenheimer (07:59):
And you might have guessed what he and his
followers wore (08:01):
silver shirts with a large red L above the
heart. They stood out. Pelleywanted to establish a "Christian
Commonwealth." This Commonwealthwasn't meant for everyone.
Pelley wanted to enslave blackpeople again. And of course,
there would be no place for Jewsin this commonwealth.
Bradley Hart (08:20):
If you look at his plans, supposedly for what he
wants to do, to or withAmerica's Jewish population. A
lot of it is about segregatingthem from wider society. And so
he proposes actually confiningJews to a number of American
cities and confining them toessentially ghettos and having
an entire division of thegovernment essentially watch
over Jewish affairs effectively.I mean, not dissimilar really to
(08:42):
what Hitler was doing inGermany. But actually in some
ways, more overt.
Mark Oppenheimer (08:46):
Pelley promised he would establish a
"secretary of Jewry." Pelleybelieved in a very creative
version of the Jewish communistconspiracy.
Bradley Hart (08:55):
But the other interesting and telling thing
about Pelley is that his view ofwho Jews are and who qualifies
as a Jew is really unusual. SoPelley adopts this view that
anyone who is supposedly underthe control of a rabbi, this is
the term he actually uses is tobe classed as a Jew. And he
estimated this number is in thetens of millions. There's tens
(09:16):
of millions of Americans, hesays, are under the control of a
rabbi in some way. Now, this isa an estimate of Jewish
Americans that far exceeds whatwe know the Jewish population
has ever been of the UnitedStates.
Mark Oppenheimer (09:31):
Pelley had other solutions for what he
called the Jewish problem. Alongwith the confinement of Jews to
one place in each state, hewould deny Jews the vote. And
that wasn't Pelley's mostdrastic idea. He proposed
sterilizing Jewish men. InPelley's words, quote, "present
Jewish families need not bedisrupted. Present young Jews
(09:53):
and young Jewesses says need notbe kept from marrying. But no
more Jewish babies will comefrom such unions. Jewish
families will be childless." In1936, Pelley ran for president.
He proclaimed that "the time hascome for an American Hitler and
a pogrom." He promised to turnthe silver shirts into an
(10:15):
American Gestapo. Fortunately,Pelley was far less successful
with American voters than Hitlerwas in Germany. Pelley formed
what he called the ChristianParty, but only got on the
ballot in Washington state wherehe got about 1500 votes. Pelle
became the focus of bothCongressional investigations and
prosecutions. The latter becausehe had funneled donations meant
(10:38):
for his spiritualist journalsinto silver shirt activities. He
went on the lam but he wascaught. And in 1942, he was
convicted. He spent eight yearsin jail. When he got out he
reinvented himself yet again. Asa UFO enthusiast who talked in
seances with figures such asBenjamin Franklin and George
Washington. You might bethinking that William Dudley
(11:03):
Pelley was a totally fringefigure. And that's mostly true.
There was no chance he was goingto become an American Hitler.
But look, there's another way ofseeing things. While there were
not a lot of self describedNazis in the United States in
the 1930s, there were a lot ofNazi sympathizers. And there
were famous Nazi sympathizerslike Henry Ford, and Charles
(11:27):
Lindbergh. As Bradley Hartexplains, the one thing that
held these movements and figurestogether was a shared hatred of
Jews.
Bradley Hart (11:35):
And when I say that antisemitism was the glue
that held these people together,I say that because when you look
at what these groups have incommon, in some senses, they
Unknown (11:42):
In the mid 1930s. Father Charles Coughlin was a
have almost nothing in commonexcept antisemitism. So to give
you one example, we have FatherCharles Coughlin, perhaps the
most important and influentialmedia personality in this
period. Father Charles Coughlinis a Catholic. The Catholics
themselves face a great deal ofprejudice from groups like the
Ku Klux Klan. Ku Klux Klan isalso antisemitic. When you look
at groups like William DudleyPelley's Silver Legion, the
(12:04):
Silver Legion is a Christianextremist movement that is also
anti semitic. And so when FatherCoughlin, the German American
Bund, Silver Legion, even groupslike the Klan are uniting in
alliances of convenience in thisperiod, it really is
antisemitism is bringing themtogether. And these are groups
again that don't like each othereven or have very different
antisemitic traditionsmotivating them, but anti
(12:25):
semitism is the banner underwhich they can unite.
Detroit priest and one of theleading radio personalities in
the country. About a quarter ofAmericans listened to him at
least once a month. In the wakeof a night of antisemitic
violence, known as Kristallnachtin November 1938. Coughlin
decided to give his radioaudience a history lesson.
(12:48):
According to Coughlin, where didNazism come from?
Father Charles Coughlin (12:51):
Nazism was conceived as a political
defense mechanism againstcommunism, and was ushered into
existence as a result ofcommunism. And communism itself
was regarded by the risinggeneration of Germans as a
product not of Russia, but of agroup of Jews who dominated the
(13:13):
destinies of Russia. But be itemphasized, that these Jews were
not religious Jews, they werethe haters of God, the haters of
religions. Thus throughoutGermany antipathy towards all
Jews grew rapidly. It is myopinion that Nazism, the effect
(13:34):
of communism, cannot beliquidated in its persecution
complex until the religious Jewsin high place in synagogue and
finance or radio and pressattack the cause. Attack it
forthright and the errors thenthe spread of communism together
(13:55):
with all our co-nationals whosupport
Mark Oppenheimer (14:00):
In Coughlin's logic, communism was the world's
number one problem. And Jewswere responsible for it in two
ways. Number one, the usuriousbehavior of Jewish bankers had
created fertile soil forcommunism to take root. And
Jewish communists themselves hadbrought about the Bolshevik
Revolution in Russia and werebusy exporting that evil to
(14:20):
other countries. In Coughlin'smind, Nazism wasn't good, but it
was understandable as a reactionto the problem of communism. So
Jews had brought persecutionupon themselves. They were the
root cause of communism, and byextension, Nazism. For all of
Coughlin's popularity, Nazismwas never very popular in the
(14:44):
United States. When the GermanAmerican Bund held a packed
house rally at Madison SquareGarden in 1939, far more New
Yorkers protested outside thanwere at the rally inside. And
Coughlin did lose some of hisradio outlets and some of his
audience after his defense ofKristallnacht. At the same time,
(15:05):
many Americans who hated Nazisnevertheless bought into
Coughlin's logic. Communism wasthe biggest threat to democracy
and Christianity and Jews wereresponsible for communism. Many
conservative critics ofPresident Roosevelt's New Deal,
which they sometimes called theJew deal, added one more
argument (15:22):
that Jews had a stranglehold not just on media
,and entertainment, and banking,but also on President Franklin
Roosevelt administrations. Theyhad lots of secretive influence.
Just to be clear, there wereanti communists and anti New
Dealers who are not antiSemites, or, at the very least,
would go nowhere near the Jewhatred of Pelley or Coughlin. At
(15:46):
the same time in the 1930santisemitism was pervasive on
the American right.
Bradley Hart (15:52):
What's important to remember about this period is
that antisemitism was much morewidespread than we perceive it
as being in the United Statestoday. This was a period in
which there were literallymillions of Americans who not
only harbored casuallyantisemitic views, but deeply
anti semitic views that we wouldsee as almost exterminationist
today. Public opinion dataindicated as many as a third of
(16:13):
Americans at various pointsthink that Jews should be
encouraged or in some way forcedto leave the United States.
Mark Oppenheimer (16:19):
Large percentages of Americans bought
into conspiracy theories aboutJewish bankers, Jewish
entertainment executives, Jewishpoliticians. Plus, a lot of
Christians saw Jews as areligious threat. And still
other Americans understood thethreat in racial terms. Put it
all together, and at a minimum,about a third of Americans
(16:40):
harbored deep suspicions ofJewish power. The culture of
antisemitism led to countlessinstances of exclusion and
discrimination, fromuniversities, to offices, to
hotels. Even though WilliamDudley Pelley's predicted race
war never materialized, Americananti semitism was dangerous.
(17:02):
Members of the Christian front,a mostly Catholic group,
inspired by Father Coughlin,smashed synagogue windows and
assaulted Jews. In Baltimore, agang of high school students who
wanted to rid their school ofJews branded one of their
classmates. Historian RebeccaErbelding is the author of
Rescue Board (17:18):
The Untold Story of America's Efforts to Save the
Jews of Europe. And she notesthat when Americans first got
wind of Nazi oppression inEurope, they came out in droves
to protest.
Rebecca Erbelding (17:31):
There's a wave of marches and rallies
throughout the United States,including the largest protest
march in New York City historyto date, which is timed to book
burning on May 10 1933, an eventthat Americans knew about in
advance. There was so muchnewspaper reporting about this,
and so many newspapercorrespondents in Germany, who
(17:53):
were really influentialAmericans reporting back what
they were seeing on the streets.And so there is a lot of
interest in the spring of 1933in the United States about
what's happening. This does nottranslate to a robust government
response.
Mark Oppenheimer (18:09):
Why was there not a robust government
response? Here's the most basicreason why: immigration laws. As
of 1933, the United States had acap on overall immigration of
about 150,000. And quotasprivileged immigrants from
places like Great Britain,Ireland, and Germany. Congress
hadn't passed those laws simplyout of a desire to keep Jews out
(18:32):
of the country. But that hadbeen one motivation. And back
then, the US didn't have anysort of legal process for
admitting refugees. So as thecrisis in Europe unfolded, there
was a contradictory response.There was widespread sympathy
for Jews. At the same time,there was opposition to letting
in more immigrants.
Rebecca Erbelding (18:52):
So by the summer of 1939, over 300,000
people are on the waiting listunder the German quota to
immigrate to the United States.And Roosevelt after the
annexation of Austria combinedthe German and the Austrian
quota, which bumped that numberup from 25,957 to 27,370. So
(19:16):
it's a small bump, but it alsoopens up all of those slots to
Austrian Jews. And you seephotos of tens of thousands of
people applying for immigration,applying to get on the waiting
list at the consulate andreports that day after day,
another thousand people arelined up, another thousand,
(19:37):
another thousand.
Mark Oppenheimer (19:39):
Many German and Austrian Jews did manage to
emigrate. But Jews in otherparts of Europe could not even
apply for visas.
Rebecca Erbelding (19:46):
When we talk about Jewish immigration, when
we talk about Jewish refugeesfleeing, we are talking about
people who lived in Central andWestern Europe. People who lived
in Eastern Europe largely didnot have the opportunity to
leave. One because the quotaswere so small. And two because
by the time the Nazis threatenedthose areas, it was already too
(20:08):
late. So when Germany invadesPoland, which already had a very
small quota, the US governmentin Poland flees alongside the
Polish government in exile. Theygo into exile in London, US
diplomats flee with them. And byMarch 1940, there are no US
diplomats left in Poland. So noplace for you to go to show your
(20:32):
paperwork, no place for you togo for an interview. So the
Polish Jews who do manage toescape are the ones who get to
Moscow. And so it is incrediblydifficult to leave from Southern
and Eastern Europe.
Mark Oppenheimer (20:45):
Again, why doesn't the United States do
more? Part of the answer isantisemitism on the part of
State Department employees, someof whom were deliberately
thwarting attempts to help Jews.
Rebecca Erbelding (20:56):
In mid December 1943, one Treasury
Department employee breaks intothe State Department file room
on a Saturday morning, anddiscovers that not only have the
delays been deliberate, theState Department is deliberately
trying to stop this humanitarianaid. But that the Assistant
Secretary of State, a man namedBreckinridge Long, had
(21:18):
personally instructed USdiplomats in Switzerland to stop
sending information about theHolocaust to the United States,
that that information wastrickling out to activists.
Those activists were thenputting pressure on the
government to do something.
Mark Oppenheimer (21:31):
Individual antisemites like Breckinridge
Long of the State Departmentcreated additional stumbling
blocks. But the main reason thatthe US didn't do more to help
Jewish victims of the Holocaust,is because most Americans didn't
want more immigration ingeneral. And they certainly
didn't want more Jewishimmigration in particular.
(21:51):
For example, in 1939, the St.Louis, a ship carrying nearly a
thousand, mostly Jewishchildren, was turned away from
the United States. Nearly allthe passengers were also blocked
from entering Cuba or Canada.After sailing back to Europe,
some passengers were grantedentry to Great Britain. The
(22:12):
others ended up in France,Belgium and the Netherlands. 250
of the passengers died in theHolocaust. It was a tragedy
created not simply by Jewhatred, but by an inflexible
immigration system mostAmericans didn't want to change.
There was a bill before Congressthat year that would have
admitted 10,000 or 20,000children from Germany outside
(22:34):
the quota system. But the billnever even came up for a vote. A
public opinion poll revealed anoverwhelming majority of
Americans opposed the idea, andthat was to help children. By
the end of 1942, the USgovernment knew about Germany's
final solution. It was inAmerican newspapers, President
Roosevelt knew, American Jewishleaders knew. This didn't lead
(22:58):
to a change in US immigrationlaws. But it did eventually
prompt the creation of a WarRefugee Board in the Treasury
Department. In the last 16months of the war, its staff
members engaged in frantic andcreative efforts to save Jews
from extermination.
Rebecca Erbelding (23:14):
And they do a whole host of things. They make
it easier for humanitarian aidorganizations to send aid into
Europe. They debate whether ornot the United States should
bomb Auschwitz. They opened arefugee camp in upstate New
York, bringing the first groupof refugees outside of the
immigration system to the UnitedStates, almost all of them
Jewish. They put pressure onneutral nations to do more to
(23:38):
protest what the Nazis are doingand to share information about
what their diplomats are seeinginside Nazi territory. Pretty
much everything that the UnitedStates does in relation to the
Holocaust in 1944 and 45, isfiltered through this
organization of 30 year oldTreasury Department lawyers. And
(23:59):
they are remarkably successful.They save tens of thosuands of
lives and help hundreds ofthousands of people in the final
year of war
Mark Oppenheimer (24:07):
Despite high levels of antisemitism in the
United States, and despiteimplacable opposition to
immigration, American actionssaved hundreds of thousands of
Jewish lives. Could the UnitedStates have done more? Of
course. In retrospect, anythingshort of everything wasn't
enough. We'll have more afterthe break.
(24:41):
It took General George S.Patton, only a few months to go
from being disgusted with Nazisto being disgusted with Jewish
survivors. Patton was thecommander of the 3rd United
States Army on its push fromNormandy into Germany. He was
brash and brave. He pushed hismen relentlessly, telling them
that war is a bloody business,and that the best way to save
(25:04):
their lives was to kill Nazis asefficiently as possible. A
journalist gave Patton the aptnickname, "blood and guts." In
1945, Patton's troops enteredthe Ohrdorf concentration camp,
the first camp liberated byAmericans. A few days later,
Patton accompanied SupremeAllied Commander Dwight D.
(25:24):
Eisenhower on an inspection ofthe camp. Eisenhower arranged
for camera crews to accompanythis and other camp inspections,
which enabled millions ofAmericans to watch on newsreels.
Newsreel (25:36):
The murder mill at Ohrdorf brings out the full
horror and bestiality of theNazi scum and General
Eisenhower, a man hardened bythe blood and shock of war seems
appalled at these unbelievablesites. Accompanied by General
Bradley on his revoltingmission, and also by General
(25:58):
Patton, hardboiled, yet visiblymoved, the Supreme Commander
sees demonstrations of thetorture racks. Most camp
officers fled before theadvancing Allies, but some fell
into our hands and withtownsfolk are forced to witness
the devil's work of the men theyshould be ashamed to call
(26:20):
countrymen.
Mark Oppenheimer (26:21):
It was too much even for Old Blood and
Guts, Patton vomited during thecamp tour. He could not steel
himself to go into one shed thatcontains stacks of corpses.
Eisenhower ordered Americantroops and German townspeople to
tour a camp, and he commentedthat the American soldier now
will know what he is fightingagainst. Patton gives similar
(26:44):
orders to soldiers and civiliansunder his command. Fast forward
a few months, Patton was nowmilitary governor of Bavaria,
and many Holocaust survivors hadremained in the concentration
camps. In some cases, they wereeven prevented from leaving.
Conditions in the camps weresqualid, and displaced persons
(27:05):
from other occupation zones weretrickling into the region.
President Harry Truman appointeda committee to investigate. The
committee was led by EarlHarrison and his August 1945
report was shocking.
Earl Harrison (27:20):
Many Jewish displaced persons are living
under guard behind barbed wirefence in camps built by the
Germans for slave laborers andJews, including some of the most
notorious of the concentrationcamps amidst crowded, frequently
unsanitary, and generally grimconditions in complete idleness.
(27:40):
We appear to be treating theJews as the Nazis treated them,
except that we do notexterminate them. They are in
concentration camps in largenumbers under our military guard
instead of SS troops.
Mark Oppenheimer (27:56):
Harrison also noted that the US Army preferred
to employ Germans including inmany cases former Nazis rather
than displaced persons. Theinvestigator put his finger on
another issue. As the chieftargets of Nazi persecution,
Jewish survivors had particularneeds. Harrison argued that the
US Army should treat Jews asJews and give them special
(28:19):
consideration, including housingand help emigrating to Palestine
or elsewhere. At first,Eisenhower bristled at the
criticism. But then he compliedwith orders from the White House
to more actively help displacedpersons, especially Jews. Patton
hated Harrison's report anddisagreed with his new orders.
(28:41):
But orders were orders and heobeyed them. In his private
writings, however, Pattonrevealed his very negative
opinions about Jews. Here'sJoseph Bendersky, author of The
Jewish Threat (28:53):
Antisemitic Politics of the US Army.
Joseph Bendersky (28:56):
From his papers, we know that he was
definitely a social Darwinistracial thinker who saw Jews as
inherently inferior. In hismind, the Jewish survivors that
he encountered at the DP campsand concentration camps after
World War Two proved the pointthat they were inherently
(29:17):
inferior. He went so far as tostate that no people could drop
to the level of this despicablecondition in a mere four years.
It had to be a reflection oftheir innate character. And he
favored the Germans over theJews
Mark Oppenheimer (29:38):
Patton wrote in his diary that quote,
"Harrison and his ilk believedthat the displaced person is a
human being, which he is not,and this applies particularly to
the Jews, who are lower thananimals." As the months passed,
Patton thought less and less ofthe Jews who'd survived Nazi
persecution. They were living insqualor, their hygiene was
(30:01):
lacking. He heard that Jewishmen and women sometimes used
adjacent toilets or even justrelieved themselves on the
floor. When Eisenhower draggedPatton to a Yom Kippur service
that fall, Patton complainedabout the stench. In his diary,
Patton frequently recorded hiscomplaints about Jews, quote,
"either the displaced personsnever had any sense of decency,
(30:24):
or else they lost it all duringtheir period of internment by
the Germans. My personal opinionis that no people could have
sunk to the level of degradationthese have reached in the short
space of four years." In otherwords, Patton believed that
liberated Jews were wretched notbecause they'd been starved, or
worked nearly to death, orbecause they'd witnessed
(30:45):
unimaginable horrors, or becausetheir families had been
murdered, or because they'd beentreated like animals. They were
wretched because they were aninferior race. And Patton
couldn't stomach displacingGermans from their homes in
order to provide accommodationsto Jews. After all, Germans were
a superior race.
(31:06):
Patton had brought hisconspiratorial ideas about Jews
with him to Germany, and what hesaw in the camps did not change
his mind. Patton worried aboutJewish power pushing American
policy in dangerous directions.He complained about former
Secretary of the Treasury HenryMorgenthau, whose advocacy had
led to efforts to rescue Jews inthe final years of the war.
(31:26):
Patton suspected there were proJewish elements in the US
military government of Germany.He accused a quote "Semitic
influence in the press" oftrying to "implement communism."
Ultimately, Patton's oppositionto the new policies cost him his
job. He told the press thatstrict denazification was
impossible, it would be likerooting out Democrats or
(31:47):
Republicans in America. SoEisenhower removed Patton from
his post. Patton was unusual inhis outspokenness, but not
unusual in his views. Given thepervasiveness of anti Jewish
racism and conspiracy theoriesin the US population, it isn't
surprising many army officersshared these views. And these
(32:09):
views persisted both during andafter the war.
Joseph Bendersky (32:13):
There was definitely this great
condemnation of the persecutionof Jews and what the Germans did
to Jews in the concentrationcamps. But as soon as the
military it only within a matterof months, this changes, this
attitude changes. As soon asthey are dealing with the actual
Jewish refugees, the Jewishsurvivors who are traumatized,
(32:33):
there is very little sympathyfor them. Whereas the Germans
appear to be cooperative,orderly, clean. And you can see
this, there's immediateidentification within a matter
of months with the Germans. So alot of suffering that went on
there. At the same time, theydidn't want them to come to
(32:54):
United States, they do not wantJews to go into Palestine. And
you have this displaced personproblem and all these people
suffering for years.
Mark Oppenheimer (33:07):
Exact numbers are impossible. But between 1933
and 1945, the US admittedbetween 200,000 and 250,000
Jews, the Nazis systematicallymurdered 6 million Jews and
inflicted imprisonment, tortureand other forms of persecution
on many millions more. In theend, the US admitted more Jews
(33:28):
fleeing Nazi persecution thanany other country did. But many
more were denied entry. Afterthe war, debates about America's
immigration quotas, and when weshould make exceptions, resumed.
It was clear many Jews had nohomes to go back to. And it was
also clear that Jews in parts ofEurope that were coming under
(33:49):
Soviet rule wanted to goelsewhere. They flooded into the
Allied zones of occupation inWestern Germany. Some wanted to
go to Palestine, others hope tocome to the US. But would the
United States finally open itsdoors? The simple answer was no.
Public opinion had not changed.Remarkably, a survey in late
(34:09):
1945 showed that only 5%, 5% ofAmericans wanted to increase
rates of immigration. At thesame time, President Truman
wanted to find a way to helpease the crisis of displaced
persons. Here again is RebeccaErbelding.
Rebecca Erbelding (34:27):
Truman doesn't quite know what to do.
And finally, with the absence ofany sort of congressional action
at the end of 1945, he announcesthat displaced persons will get
preference under the quota. Sothe quota system remains and
remains in place until 1965. Butthat people who are displaced
can skip the line. Basically,this results in thosuands of
(34:51):
people, but not a lot, coming tothe United States who were
displaced in 1945, 1946, and1947. Now they still needed a
financial sponsor, they stillneeded all of the paperwork. A
lot of that was really tricky toget when you're in a displaced
persons camp. But the people whomade it tended to have family
(35:13):
who had emigrated before thewar, and so people who could
sponsor them, who are nowAmerican citizens that they were
joining,
Mark Oppenheimer (35:20):
Congress debated a Displaced Persons Act,
proposing to admit refugees asimmigrants outside the quota
system. John Trevor, anarchitect of the old restrictive
laws from the 1920s, testifiedin 1947, before a House
committee, he was against theDisplaced Persons Act of course.
He complained that the UnitedStates had already taken in more
(35:40):
than its fair share of refugees,and of Jewish refugees in
particular. He said that Jewishdisplaced persons, this being a
rather euphemistic phrase forHolocaust survivors could go to
places like Canada, Australia,or South Africa, places with
lots of land where they couldbecome farmers. Trevor wanted to
keep Jews out of American citieswhere he believed that slums
(36:01):
would breed revolution.
In episode four, we talked aboutTrevor's views on maintaining
the country's racial stock. 25years later, his views hadn't
changed much. But the moment wasdifferent. This time around,
Trevor generally avoided his oldblatantly antisemitic rhetoric,
and members of Congress pushedback vigorously against his talk
(36:23):
about maintaining the country'sracial balance. The next year
1948, Congress passed theDisplaced Persons Act, which
gave slots outside the quotasystem to displaced persons, but
only certain displaced persons.
Rebecca Erbelding (36:39):
One of the restrictions that they put
inside the Displaced Persons Actis that you had to be in the
American Zone of Occupation,prior to December 1945, in order
to qualify. For many Jewishsurvivors, who had recovered and
then attempted to go home, theyhad not made it back to the
(36:59):
American Zone of Occupationbefore that date. And so
automatically, the lawdisqualified many Jewish
Holocaust survivors, andprioritized people who never
tried to go home, people whowere from Eastern Europe,
displaced as forced laborers oras other forms of displacement
into Germany or into CentralEurope during the war, and then
(37:22):
decided that they were justgoing to stay and get to the
United States. And so themajority of people who qualify
who've come to the United Statesunder the Displaced Persons Act,
are not Jewish Holocaustsurvivors. Forced laborers who
are not Jewish, also wentthrough horrible things, but are
often in better physical shapethan many Jewish survivors.
(37:45):
Jewish survivors, many of themhad been in hiding or in camps
for years. They are emaciated,they are sick, they need
assistance after the war. And sowhen Americans are looking at
photos, they are seeinghealthier looking non Jewish
Polish displaced persons andsaying, Well, those people will
(38:09):
be okay, if they're allowed tocome. But Jewish immigrants,
they look sick, they might bebringing disease, they're going
to need economic support.
Mark Oppenheimer (38:19):
It's the same logic that led General Patton to
regard Jewish refugees asanimals. In 1950, Congress
finally amended the DisplacedPersons Act to remove the
preferences.
Rebecca Erbelding (38:32):
And so it takes a really long time for the
idea that those are the peoplewe should really be helping to
take hold, and it never reallytakes hold in time. And so while
the United States does admittens of thousands of Jewish
Holocaust survivors, more end upin Palestine, which then becomes
(38:53):
the State of Israel, becauseit's closer, that's where you
should go, and that is whereyoung people see a future for
themselves.
Mark Oppenheimer (39:08):
American antisemitism did not vanish with
the country's war againstNazism, or because of
revelations about the Holocaust.Many Americans still associated
Jews with foreign radicalism,they still bought into
conspiracy theories about Jewisheconomic and political power.
Some still saw Jews as asubhuman race that threatened
(39:31):
the country's racial stock. Yet,even so, something was changing.
Antisemitism gradually becameless respectable. Immigration
restrictionists didn't talkabout Jews the way they had
after World War One. GeorgePatton insulted Jews privately,
but not publicly. John Trevorfelt compelled to tone down his
(39:52):
rhetoric. Perhaps that's allpretty thin progress. But after
decades of pervasive and oftensystemic anti semitism, the
stage was set for Jews and theirallies to demand that they be
seen as full Americans.
Thank you for listening toAntisemitism, U.S.A. it's a
(40:15):
production of R2 Studios, partof the Roy Rosenzweig Center for
History and New Media at GeorgeMason University. Visit
R2studios.org for a completetranscript of today's episode
and for suggestions for furtherreading. I'm your host Mark
Oppenheimer. Antisemitism,U.S.A. is written by John Turner
and Lincoln Mullen. Britt Tevisis our lead scholar Jim Ambuske,
is our producer, JeanettePatrick is our executive
(40:36):
producer. We'd like to thank ZevEleff for being our lead advisor
and we'd like to thank ouradvisory board members, Laura
Shaw Frank, Riv-Ellen Prell, andJonathan Sarna. Our graduate
assistants are Rachel Birch,Alexandra Miller, and Amber
Pelham. Our thanks to BradleyHart, Rebecca Erbelding, and
Joseph Bendersky for sharingtheir expertise with us in this
episode. We're able to bring youthis show through the generosity
(40:58):
of the Henry Luce Foundation,the David Bruce Smith
Foundation, and many individualdonors like you. Thank you for
listening, and we hope you'lljoin us for the next episode.
Support for Antisemitism, U.S.A. comes from
the Henry Luce Foundation andthe David Bruce Smith
Foundation.
In 1927, Charles Lindbergh madehistory with the first
transatlantic solo flight. Hepiloted his plane the Spirit of
St. Louis from New York toParis, and he returned home to a
(00:23):
hero's welcome. 4 millionpeople, or pretty much everyone
in New York City, lined thestreets for a ticker tape parade
in his honor. Five years later,Lindbergh dominated the news
headlines again. But this timefor tragic reasons. His infant
son had been kidnapped. And twomonths and many ransom notes
(00:48):
later, the baby's remains werefound. To escape the press,
Lindbergh took refuge in Europe.He made several trips to
Germany, assessing and admiringthe Nazi buildup of the German
air force. In 1938, German AirForce Commander Herman Goering
presented Lindbergh with a metalon behalf of the Fuhrer. This
(01:12):
was just a few weeks beforeKristallnacht, the night of the
broken glass, when Nazi thugsransacked Jewish stores and
synagogues, and carried off tensof thousands of Jews to
concentration camps. First LadyEleanor Roosevelt saw fit to
speak out criticizing Lindberghpublicly for his cozy
relationship with the Nazis.Lindbergh dedicated himself to
(01:36):
making sure that the UnitedStates did not get involved in a
European war. Lindbergh did notwant us to fight the Nazis. In
September 1941, he gave a speechon behalf of the America First
Committee, which opposed entryinto the war.
Charles Lindbergh (01:53):
In selecting the three groups as the major
agitators for war, I haveincluded only those whose
support is essential to the warparty. If any of these groups,
the British, the Jewish or theadministration, stop agitating
for war, I believe there will belittle danger of our
Mark Oppenheimer (02:21):
Lindbergh blamed American Jews for this
drift toward war. He said thathe admired the, quote, "Jewish
race," and he understood whyJews would want to overthrow
Nazi Germany. But Lindberghobjected to the fact that
American Jews were urging theirgovernment to help European
Jews. In that speech, Lindberghwent on to say, quote, "their
(02:43):
greatest danger to this countrylies in their large ownership
and influence in our motionpictures, our press, our radio,
and our government." AndLindbergh warned, quote,
"instead of agitating for war,the Jewish groups in this
country should be opposing it inevery way possible, for they
will be among the first to feelits consequences." "Tolerance,"
(03:08):
Lindbergh cautioned, quote,"cannot survive war and
devastations." In his diary, hecomplained about the number of
Jews coming into the country asrefugees. He wrote, "it is too
bad because a few Jews of theright type are, I believe, an
asset to any country, adding torather than detracting from its
(03:28):
strength. If an antisemiticmovement starts in the United
States, it may go far, it willcertainly affect the good Jews
along with the others. When sucha movement starts, moderation
ends, and we are not a moderatepeople once we get started, and
involvement.
an anti Jewish movement might beconsiderably worse here than in
(03:49):
Germany." Not surprisingly, evenbefore his 1941 speech,
Lindbergh was accused of bothNazi sympathies and antisemitism.
Charles Lindbergh (03:57):
A smear campaign was instituted against
individuals who opposedintervention. The terms of fifth
columnist, traitor, Nazi,antisemitic, were thrown
ceaselessly at anyone who daredto suggest that it was not to
(04:17):
the best interests of the UnitedStates to enter war. Men lost
their jobs if they were,frankly, anti war. Many others
dared no longer speak.
Mark Oppenheimer (04:33):
After Pearl Harbor, Americans overwhelmingly
supported the war against NaziGermany and Imperial Japan. But
until Pearl Harbor, manyAmericans were sympathetic to
the Nazis and not so sympatheticto the Jews. And it wasn't just
a matter of a few bad apples.Antisemitism in the 1930s was
(04:53):
very public and very widespread.You found it among politicians,
among clergy. It was in the USgovernment and in the US Army.
And when troops went around theworld to fight fascism, they
took those anti semitic viewswith them.
(05:26):
I'm Mark Oppenheimer, and thisis Antisemitism, U.S.A., a
podcast about the history ofantisemitism in the United
States. Episode Six, Lower thanAnimals. William Dudley Pelley
was the leader of the SilverLegion, also known as the silver
shirts. The silver shirts weresomewhere between a strange far
(05:48):
right social club and a privatemilitia. According to them, they
were preparing to defend thecountry from Jews and other
threats. At their peak, they hadaround 15,000 members with tens
of thousands of other hangers on.
Pelley's story could be thebasis of a great novel. He began
(06:10):
his career as an author andjournalist. In 1918, he worked
for the YMCA and the AssociatedPress, and ended up in Siberia
alongside an AmericanExpeditionary Force to oppose
the region's Bolshevik takeover.Pelley later said that it was in
Russia that he discovered howdangerous Jews were because of
their role in the RussianRevolution. Pelley's next stop
(06:34):
was Hollywood, where he divorcedhis wife made a small fortune as
a screenwriter and enjoyed thesins of the flesh. But then his
Hollywood career fell apart. Andhe blamed Jewish Hollywood
moguls for his problems. So thenPelley went in a totally
different direction. In 1928, hehad a vision through a quote,
(06:55):
"blueish mist." In his vision,he found himself on a slab of
marble, next to two men who toldhim the secrets of the universe.
Pelley moved to New York andwrote about his experiences. He
became a spiritualist guru, andthousands of people subscribed
to his newsletter. Some gave hima lot of money. Then Pelley's
(07:17):
life took another crazy turn.Here's historian Bradley Hart,
author of Hitler's AmericanFriends.
Bradley Hart (07:27):
In 1933, when Hitler takes power, Pelley again
transitions his career to becomea fascist leader, bizarrely
enough. So he claims that in1932, before Hitler takes power,
he has received a revelationfrom Jesus Himself, telling him
that when a house painter inGermany creates a new political
movement, he should do somethingsimilar in the US. Now, of
(07:49):
course, Pelley only reveals thissupposed prophecy after Hitler
has taken power in 1933. But heclaims that this is the
inspiration for the foundationof Silver Legion or sometimes
called the Silver Shirt Legion.
Mark Oppenheimer (07:59):
And you might have guessed what he and his
followers wore (08:01):
silver shirts with a large red L above the
heart. They stood out. Pelleywanted to establish a "Christian
Commonwealth." This Commonwealthwasn't meant for everyone.
Pelley wanted to enslave blackpeople again. And of course,
there would be no place for Jewsin this commonwealth.
Bradley Hart (08:20):
If you look at his plans, supposedly for what he
wants to do, to or withAmerica's Jewish population. A
lot of it is about segregatingthem from wider society. And so
he proposes actually confiningJews to a number of American
cities and confining them toessentially ghettos and having
an entire division of thegovernment essentially watch
over Jewish affairs effectively.I mean, not dissimilar really to
(08:42):
what Hitler was doing inGermany. But actually in some
ways, more overt.
Mark Oppenheimer (08:46):
Pelley promised he would establish a
"secretary of Jewry." Pelleybelieved in a very creative
version of the Jewish communistconspiracy.
Bradley Hart (08:55):
But the other interesting and telling thing
about Pelley is that his view ofwho Jews are and who qualifies
as a Jew is really unusual. SoPelley adopts this view that
anyone who is supposedly underthe control of a rabbi, this is
the term he actually uses is tobe classed as a Jew. And he
estimated this number is in thetens of millions. There's tens
(09:16):
of millions of Americans, hesays, are under the control of a
rabbi in some way. Now, this isa an estimate of Jewish
Americans that far exceeds whatwe know the Jewish population
has ever been of the UnitedStates.
Mark Oppenheimer (09:31):
Pelley had other solutions for what he
called the Jewish problem. Alongwith the confinement of Jews to
one place in each state, hewould deny Jews the vote. And
that wasn't Pelley's mostdrastic idea. He proposed
sterilizing Jewish men. InPelley's words, quote, "present
Jewish families need not bedisrupted. Present young Jews
(09:53):
and young Jewesses says need notbe kept from marrying. But no
more Jewish babies will comefrom such unions. Jewish
families will be childless." In1936, Pelley ran for president.
He proclaimed that "the time hascome for an American Hitler and
a pogrom." He promised to turnthe silver shirts into an
(10:15):
American Gestapo. Fortunately,Pelley was far less successful
with American voters than Hitlerwas in Germany. Pelley formed
what he called the ChristianParty, but only got on the
ballot in Washington state wherehe got about 1500 votes. Pelle
became the focus of bothCongressional investigations and
prosecutions. The latter becausehe had funneled donations meant
(10:38):
for his spiritualist journalsinto silver shirt activities. He
went on the lam but he wascaught. And in 1942, he was
convicted. He spent eight yearsin jail. When he got out he
reinvented himself yet again. Asa UFO enthusiast who talked in
seances with figures such asBenjamin Franklin and George
Washington. You might bethinking that William Dudley
(11:03):
Pelley was a totally fringefigure. And that's mostly true.
There was no chance he was goingto become an American Hitler.
But look, there's another way ofseeing things. While there were
not a lot of self describedNazis in the United States in
the 1930s, there were a lot ofNazi sympathizers. And there
were famous Nazi sympathizerslike Henry Ford, and Charles
(11:27):
Lindbergh. As Bradley Hartexplains, the one thing that
held these movements and figurestogether was a shared hatred of
Jews.
Bradley Hart (11:35):
And when I say that antisemitism was the glue
that held these people together,I say that because when you look
at what these groups have incommon, in some senses, they
Unknown (11:42):
In the mid 1930s. Father Charles Coughlin was a
have almost nothing in commonexcept antisemitism. So to give
you one example, we have FatherCharles Coughlin, perhaps the
most important and influentialmedia personality in this
period. Father Charles Coughlinis a Catholic. The Catholics
themselves face a great deal ofprejudice from groups like the
Ku Klux Klan. Ku Klux Klan isalso antisemitic. When you look
at groups like William DudleyPelley's Silver Legion, the
(12:04):
Silver Legion is a Christianextremist movement that is also
anti semitic. And so when FatherCoughlin, the German American
Bund, Silver Legion, even groupslike the Klan are uniting in
alliances of convenience in thisperiod, it really is
antisemitism is bringing themtogether. And these are groups
again that don't like each othereven or have very different
antisemitic traditionsmotivating them, but anti
(12:25):
semitism is the banner underwhich they can unite.
Detroit priest and one of theleading radio personalities in
the country. About a quarter ofAmericans listened to him at
least once a month. In the wakeof a night of antisemitic
violence, known as Kristallnachtin November 1938. Coughlin
decided to give his radioaudience a history lesson.
(12:48):
According to Coughlin, where didNazism come from?
Father Charles Coughlin (12:51):
Nazism was conceived as a political
defense mechanism againstcommunism, and was ushered into
existence as a result ofcommunism. And communism itself
was regarded by the risinggeneration of Germans as a
product not of Russia, but of agroup of Jews who dominated the
(13:13):
destinies of Russia. But be itemphasized, that these Jews were
not religious Jews, they werethe haters of God, the haters of
religions. Thus throughoutGermany antipathy towards all
Jews grew rapidly. It is myopinion that Nazism, the effect
(13:34):
of communism, cannot beliquidated in its persecution
complex until the religious Jewsin high place in synagogue and
finance or radio and pressattack the cause. Attack it
forthright and the errors thenthe spread of communism together
(13:55):
with all our co-nationals whosupport
Mark Oppenheimer (14:00):
In Coughlin's logic, communism was the world's
number one problem. And Jewswere responsible for it in two
ways. Number one, the usuriousbehavior of Jewish bankers had
created fertile soil forcommunism to take root. And
Jewish communists themselves hadbrought about the Bolshevik
Revolution in Russia and werebusy exporting that evil to
(14:20):
other countries. In Coughlin'smind, Nazism wasn't good, but it
was understandable as a reactionto the problem of communism. So
Jews had brought persecutionupon themselves. They were the
root cause of communism, and byextension, Nazism. For all of
Coughlin's popularity, Nazismwas never very popular in the
(14:44):
United States. When the GermanAmerican Bund held a packed
house rally at Madison SquareGarden in 1939, far more New
Yorkers protested outside thanwere at the rally inside. And
Coughlin did lose some of hisradio outlets and some of his
audience after his defense ofKristallnacht. At the same time,
(15:05):
many Americans who hated Nazisnevertheless bought into
Coughlin's logic. Communism wasthe biggest threat to democracy
and Christianity and Jews wereresponsible for communism. Many
conservative critics ofPresident Roosevelt's New Deal,
which they sometimes called theJew deal, added one more
argument (15:22):
that Jews had a stranglehold not just on media
,and entertainment, and banking,but also on President Franklin
Roosevelt administrations. Theyhad lots of secretive influence.
Just to be clear, there wereanti communists and anti New
Dealers who are not antiSemites, or, at the very least,
would go nowhere near the Jewhatred of Pelley or Coughlin. At
(15:46):
the same time in the 1930santisemitism was pervasive on
the American right.
Bradley Hart (15:52):
What's important to remember about this period is
that antisemitism was much morewidespread than we perceive it
as being in the United Statestoday. This was a period in
which there were literallymillions of Americans who not
only harbored casuallyantisemitic views, but deeply
anti semitic views that we wouldsee as almost exterminationist
today. Public opinion dataindicated as many as a third of
(16:13):
Americans at various pointsthink that Jews should be
encouraged or in some way forcedto leave the United States.
Mark Oppenheimer (16:19):
Large percentages of Americans bought
into conspiracy theories aboutJewish bankers, Jewish
entertainment executives, Jewishpoliticians. Plus, a lot of
Christians saw Jews as areligious threat. And still
other Americans understood thethreat in racial terms. Put it
all together, and at a minimum,about a third of Americans
(16:40):
harbored deep suspicions ofJewish power. The culture of
antisemitism led to countlessinstances of exclusion and
discrimination, fromuniversities, to offices, to
hotels. Even though WilliamDudley Pelley's predicted race
war never materialized, Americananti semitism was dangerous.
(17:02):
Members of the Christian front,a mostly Catholic group,
inspired by Father Coughlin,smashed synagogue windows and
assaulted Jews. In Baltimore, agang of high school students who
wanted to rid their school ofJews branded one of their
classmates. Historian RebeccaErbelding is the author of
Rescue Board (17:18):
The Untold Story of America's Efforts to Save the
Jews of Europe. And she notesthat when Americans first got
wind of Nazi oppression inEurope, they came out in droves
to protest.
Rebecca Erbelding (17:31):
There's a wave of marches and rallies
throughout the United States,including the largest protest
march in New York City historyto date, which is timed to book
burning on May 10 1933, an eventthat Americans knew about in
advance. There was so muchnewspaper reporting about this,
and so many newspapercorrespondents in Germany, who
(17:53):
were really influentialAmericans reporting back what
they were seeing on the streets.And so there is a lot of
interest in the spring of 1933in the United States about
what's happening. This does nottranslate to a robust government
response.
Mark Oppenheimer (18:09):
Why was there not a robust government
response? Here's the most basicreason why: immigration laws. As
of 1933, the United States had acap on overall immigration of
about 150,000. And quotasprivileged immigrants from
places like Great Britain,Ireland, and Germany. Congress
hadn't passed those laws simplyout of a desire to keep Jews out
(18:32):
of the country. But that hadbeen one motivation. And back
then, the US didn't have anysort of legal process for
admitting refugees. So as thecrisis in Europe unfolded, there
was a contradictory response.There was widespread sympathy
for Jews. At the same time,there was opposition to letting
in more immigrants.
Rebecca Erbelding (18:52):
So by the summer of 1939, over 300,000
people are on the waiting listunder the German quota to
immigrate to the United States.And Roosevelt after the
annexation of Austria combinedthe German and the Austrian
quota, which bumped that numberup from 25,957 to 27,370. So
(19:16):
it's a small bump, but it alsoopens up all of those slots to
Austrian Jews. And you seephotos of tens of thousands of
people applying for immigration,applying to get on the waiting
list at the consulate andreports that day after day,
another thousand people arelined up, another thousand,
(19:37):
another thousand.
Mark Oppenheimer (19:39):
Many German and Austrian Jews did manage to
emigrate. But Jews in otherparts of Europe could not even
apply for visas.
Rebecca Erbelding (19:46):
When we talk about Jewish immigration, when
we talk about Jewish refugeesfleeing, we are talking about
people who lived in Central andWestern Europe. People who lived
in Eastern Europe largely didnot have the opportunity to
leave. One because the quotaswere so small. And two because
by the time the Nazis threatenedthose areas, it was already too
(20:08):
late. So when Germany invadesPoland, which already had a very
small quota, the US governmentin Poland flees alongside the
Polish government in exile. Theygo into exile in London, US
diplomats flee with them. And byMarch 1940, there are no US
diplomats left in Poland. So noplace for you to go to show your
(20:32):
paperwork, no place for you togo for an interview. So the
Polish Jews who do manage toescape are the ones who get to
Moscow. And so it is incrediblydifficult to leave from Southern
and Eastern Europe.
Mark Oppenheimer (20:45):
Again, why doesn't the United States do
more? Part of the answer isantisemitism on the part of
State Department employees, someof whom were deliberately
thwarting attempts to help Jews.
Rebecca Erbelding (20:56):
In mid December 1943, one Treasury
Department employee breaks intothe State Department file room
on a Saturday morning, anddiscovers that not only have the
delays been deliberate, theState Department is deliberately
trying to stop this humanitarianaid. But that the Assistant
Secretary of State, a man namedBreckinridge Long, had
(21:18):
personally instructed USdiplomats in Switzerland to stop
sending information about theHolocaust to the United States,
that that information wastrickling out to activists.
Those activists were thenputting pressure on the
government to do something.
Mark Oppenheimer (21:31):
Individual antisemites like Breckinridge
Long of the State Departmentcreated additional stumbling
blocks. But the main reason thatthe US didn't do more to help
Jewish victims of the Holocaust,is because most Americans didn't
want more immigration ingeneral. And they certainly
didn't want more Jewishimmigration in particular.
(21:51):
For example, in 1939, the St.Louis, a ship carrying nearly a
thousand, mostly Jewishchildren, was turned away from
the United States. Nearly allthe passengers were also blocked
from entering Cuba or Canada.After sailing back to Europe,
some passengers were grantedentry to Great Britain. The
(22:12):
others ended up in France,Belgium and the Netherlands. 250
of the passengers died in theHolocaust. It was a tragedy
created not simply by Jewhatred, but by an inflexible
immigration system mostAmericans didn't want to change.
There was a bill before Congressthat year that would have
admitted 10,000 or 20,000children from Germany outside
(22:34):
the quota system. But the billnever even came up for a vote. A
public opinion poll revealed anoverwhelming majority of
Americans opposed the idea, andthat was to help children. By
the end of 1942, the USgovernment knew about Germany's
final solution. It was inAmerican newspapers, President
Roosevelt knew, American Jewishleaders knew. This didn't lead
(22:58):
to a change in US immigrationlaws. But it did eventually
prompt the creation of a WarRefugee Board in the Treasury
Department. In the last 16months of the war, its staff
members engaged in frantic andcreative efforts to save Jews
from extermination.
Rebecca Erbelding (23:14):
And they do a whole host of things. They make
it easier for humanitarian aidorganizations to send aid into
Europe. They debate whether ornot the United States should
bomb Auschwitz. They opened arefugee camp in upstate New
York, bringing the first groupof refugees outside of the
immigration system to the UnitedStates, almost all of them
Jewish. They put pressure onneutral nations to do more to
(23:38):
protest what the Nazis are doingand to share information about
what their diplomats are seeinginside Nazi territory. Pretty
much everything that the UnitedStates does in relation to the
Holocaust in 1944 and 45, isfiltered through this
organization of 30 year oldTreasury Department lawyers. And
(23:59):
they are remarkably successful.They save tens of thosuands of
lives and help hundreds ofthousands of people in the final
year of war
Mark Oppenheimer (24:07):
Despite high levels of antisemitism in the
United States, and despiteimplacable opposition to
immigration, American actionssaved hundreds of thousands of
Jewish lives. Could the UnitedStates have done more? Of
course. In retrospect, anythingshort of everything wasn't
enough. We'll have more afterthe break.
(24:41):
It took General George S.Patton, only a few months to go
from being disgusted with Nazisto being disgusted with Jewish
survivors. Patton was thecommander of the 3rd United
States Army on its push fromNormandy into Germany. He was
brash and brave. He pushed hismen relentlessly, telling them
that war is a bloody business,and that the best way to save
(25:04):
their lives was to kill Nazis asefficiently as possible. A
journalist gave Patton the aptnickname, "blood and guts." In
1945, Patton's troops enteredthe Ohrdorf concentration camp,
the first camp liberated byAmericans. A few days later,
Patton accompanied SupremeAllied Commander Dwight D.
(25:24):
Eisenhower on an inspection ofthe camp. Eisenhower arranged
for camera crews to accompanythis and other camp inspections,
which enabled millions ofAmericans to watch on newsreels.
Newsreel (25:36):
The murder mill at Ohrdorf brings out the full
horror and bestiality of theNazi scum and General
Eisenhower, a man hardened bythe blood and shock of war seems
appalled at these unbelievablesites. Accompanied by General
Bradley on his revoltingmission, and also by General
(25:58):
Patton, hardboiled, yet visiblymoved, the Supreme Commander
sees demonstrations of thetorture racks. Most camp
officers fled before theadvancing Allies, but some fell
into our hands and withtownsfolk are forced to witness
the devil's work of the men theyshould be ashamed to call
(26:20):
countrymen.
Mark Oppenheimer (26:21):
It was too much even for Old Blood and
Guts, Patton vomited during thecamp tour. He could not steel
himself to go into one shed thatcontains stacks of corpses.
Eisenhower ordered Americantroops and German townspeople to
tour a camp, and he commentedthat the American soldier now
will know what he is fightingagainst. Patton gives similar
(26:44):
orders to soldiers and civiliansunder his command. Fast forward
a few months, Patton was nowmilitary governor of Bavaria,
and many Holocaust survivors hadremained in the concentration
camps. In some cases, they wereeven prevented from leaving.
Conditions in the camps weresqualid, and displaced persons
(27:05):
from other occupation zones weretrickling into the region.
President Harry Truman appointeda committee to investigate. The
committee was led by EarlHarrison and his August 1945
report was shocking.
Earl Harrison (27:20):
Many Jewish displaced persons are living
under guard behind barbed wirefence in camps built by the
Germans for slave laborers andJews, including some of the most
notorious of the concentrationcamps amidst crowded, frequently
unsanitary, and generally grimconditions in complete idleness.
(27:40):
We appear to be treating theJews as the Nazis treated them,
except that we do notexterminate them. They are in
concentration camps in largenumbers under our military guard
instead of SS troops.
Mark Oppenheimer (27:56):
Harrison also noted that the US Army preferred
to employ Germans including inmany cases former Nazis rather
than displaced persons. Theinvestigator put his finger on
another issue. As the chieftargets of Nazi persecution,
Jewish survivors had particularneeds. Harrison argued that the
US Army should treat Jews asJews and give them special
(28:19):
consideration, including housingand help emigrating to Palestine
or elsewhere. At first,Eisenhower bristled at the
criticism. But then he compliedwith orders from the White House
to more actively help displacedpersons, especially Jews. Patton
hated Harrison's report anddisagreed with his new orders.
(28:41):
But orders were orders and heobeyed them. In his private
writings, however, Pattonrevealed his very negative
opinions about Jews. Here'sJoseph Bendersky, author of The
Jewish Threat (28:53):
Antisemitic Politics of the US Army.
Joseph Bendersky (28:56):
From his papers, we know that he was
definitely a social Darwinistracial thinker who saw Jews as
inherently inferior. In hismind, the Jewish survivors that
he encountered at the DP campsand concentration camps after
World War Two proved the pointthat they were inherently
(29:17):
inferior. He went so far as tostate that no people could drop
to the level of this despicablecondition in a mere four years.
It had to be a reflection oftheir innate character. And he
favored the Germans over theJews
Mark Oppenheimer (29:38):
Patton wrote in his diary that quote,
"Harrison and his ilk believedthat the displaced person is a
human being, which he is not,and this applies particularly to
the Jews, who are lower thananimals." As the months passed,
Patton thought less and less ofthe Jews who'd survived Nazi
persecution. They were living insqualor, their hygiene was
(30:01):
lacking. He heard that Jewishmen and women sometimes used
adjacent toilets or even justrelieved themselves on the
floor. When Eisenhower draggedPatton to a Yom Kippur service
that fall, Patton complainedabout the stench. In his diary,
Patton frequently recorded hiscomplaints about Jews, quote,
"either the displaced personsnever had any sense of decency,
(30:24):
or else they lost it all duringtheir period of internment by
the Germans. My personal opinionis that no people could have
sunk to the level of degradationthese have reached in the short
space of four years." In otherwords, Patton believed that
liberated Jews were wretched notbecause they'd been starved, or
worked nearly to death, orbecause they'd witnessed
(30:45):
unimaginable horrors, or becausetheir families had been
murdered, or because they'd beentreated like animals. They were
wretched because they were aninferior race. And Patton
couldn't stomach displacingGermans from their homes in
order to provide accommodationsto Jews. After all, Germans were
a superior race.
(31:06):
Patton had brought hisconspiratorial ideas about Jews
with him to Germany, and what hesaw in the camps did not change
his mind. Patton worried aboutJewish power pushing American
policy in dangerous directions.He complained about former
Secretary of the Treasury HenryMorgenthau, whose advocacy had
led to efforts to rescue Jews inthe final years of the war.
(31:26):
Patton suspected there were proJewish elements in the US
military government of Germany.He accused a quote "Semitic
influence in the press" oftrying to "implement communism."
Ultimately, Patton's oppositionto the new policies cost him his
job. He told the press thatstrict denazification was
impossible, it would be likerooting out Democrats or
(31:47):
Republicans in America. SoEisenhower removed Patton from
his post. Patton was unusual inhis outspokenness, but not
unusual in his views. Given thepervasiveness of anti Jewish
racism and conspiracy theoriesin the US population, it isn't
surprising many army officersshared these views. And these
(32:09):
views persisted both during andafter the war.
Joseph Bendersky (32:13):
There was definitely this great
condemnation of the persecutionof Jews and what the Germans did
to Jews in the concentrationcamps. But as soon as the
military it only within a matterof months, this changes, this
attitude changes. As soon asthey are dealing with the actual
Jewish refugees, the Jewishsurvivors who are traumatized,
(32:33):
there is very little sympathyfor them. Whereas the Germans
appear to be cooperative,orderly, clean. And you can see
this, there's immediateidentification within a matter
of months with the Germans. So alot of suffering that went on
there. At the same time, theydidn't want them to come to
(32:54):
United States, they do not wantJews to go into Palestine. And
you have this displaced personproblem and all these people
suffering for years.
Mark Oppenheimer (33:07):
Exact numbers are impossible. But between 1933
and 1945, the US admittedbetween 200,000 and 250,000
Jews, the Nazis systematicallymurdered 6 million Jews and
inflicted imprisonment, tortureand other forms of persecution
on many millions more. In theend, the US admitted more Jews
(33:28):
fleeing Nazi persecution thanany other country did. But many
more were denied entry. Afterthe war, debates about America's
immigration quotas, and when weshould make exceptions, resumed.
It was clear many Jews had nohomes to go back to. And it was
also clear that Jews in parts ofEurope that were coming under
(33:49):
Soviet rule wanted to goelsewhere. They flooded into the
Allied zones of occupation inWestern Germany. Some wanted to
go to Palestine, others hope tocome to the US. But would the
United States finally open itsdoors? The simple answer was no.
Public opinion had not changed.Remarkably, a survey in late
(34:09):
1945 showed that only 5%, 5% ofAmericans wanted to increase
rates of immigration. At thesame time, President Truman
wanted to find a way to helpease the crisis of displaced
persons. Here again is RebeccaErbelding.
Rebecca Erbelding (34:27):
Truman doesn't quite know what to do.
And finally, with the absence ofany sort of congressional action
at the end of 1945, he announcesthat displaced persons will get
preference under the quota. Sothe quota system remains and
remains in place until 1965. Butthat people who are displaced
can skip the line. Basically,this results in thosuands of
(34:51):
people, but not a lot, coming tothe United States who were
displaced in 1945, 1946, and1947. Now they still needed a
financial sponsor, they stillneeded all of the paperwork. A
lot of that was really tricky toget when you're in a displaced
persons camp. But the people whomade it tended to have family
(35:13):
who had emigrated before thewar, and so people who could
sponsor them, who are nowAmerican citizens that they were
joining,
Mark Oppenheimer (35:20):
Congress debated a Displaced Persons Act,
proposing to admit refugees asimmigrants outside the quota
system. John Trevor, anarchitect of the old restrictive
laws from the 1920s, testifiedin 1947, before a House
committee, he was against theDisplaced Persons Act of course.
He complained that the UnitedStates had already taken in more
(35:40):
than its fair share of refugees,and of Jewish refugees in
particular. He said that Jewishdisplaced persons, this being a
rather euphemistic phrase forHolocaust survivors could go to
places like Canada, Australia,or South Africa, places with
lots of land where they couldbecome farmers. Trevor wanted to
keep Jews out of American citieswhere he believed that slums
(36:01):
would breed revolution.
In episode four, we talked aboutTrevor's views on maintaining
the country's racial stock. 25years later, his views hadn't
changed much. But the moment wasdifferent. This time around,
Trevor generally avoided his oldblatantly antisemitic rhetoric,
and members of Congress pushedback vigorously against his talk
(36:23):
about maintaining the country'sracial balance. The next year
1948, Congress passed theDisplaced Persons Act, which
gave slots outside the quotasystem to displaced persons, but
only certain displaced persons.
Rebecca Erbelding (36:39):
One of the restrictions that they put
inside the Displaced Persons Actis that you had to be in the
American Zone of Occupation,prior to December 1945, in order
to qualify. For many Jewishsurvivors, who had recovered and
then attempted to go home, theyhad not made it back to the
(36:59):
American Zone of Occupationbefore that date. And so
automatically, the lawdisqualified many Jewish
Holocaust survivors, andprioritized people who never
tried to go home, people whowere from Eastern Europe,
displaced as forced laborers oras other forms of displacement
into Germany or into CentralEurope during the war, and then
(37:22):
decided that they were justgoing to stay and get to the
United States. And so themajority of people who qualify
who've come to the United Statesunder the Displaced Persons Act,
are not Jewish Holocaustsurvivors. Forced laborers who
are not Jewish, also wentthrough horrible things, but are
often in better physical shapethan many Jewish survivors.
(37:45):
Jewish survivors, many of themhad been in hiding or in camps
for years. They are emaciated,they are sick, they need
assistance after the war. And sowhen Americans are looking at
photos, they are seeinghealthier looking non Jewish
Polish displaced persons andsaying, Well, those people will
(38:09):
be okay, if they're allowed tocome. But Jewish immigrants,
they look sick, they might bebringing disease, they're going
to need economic support.
Mark Oppenheimer (38:19):
It's the same logic that led General Patton to
regard Jewish refugees asanimals. In 1950, Congress
finally amended the DisplacedPersons Act to remove the
preferences.
Rebecca Erbelding (38:32):
And so it takes a really long time for the
idea that those are the peoplewe should really be helping to
take hold, and it never reallytakes hold in time. And so while
the United States does admittens of thousands of Jewish
Holocaust survivors, more end upin Palestine, which then becomes
(38:53):
the State of Israel, becauseit's closer, that's where you
should go, and that is whereyoung people see a future for
themselves.
Mark Oppenheimer (39:08):
American antisemitism did not vanish with
the country's war againstNazism, or because of
revelations about the Holocaust.Many Americans still associated
Jews with foreign radicalism,they still bought into
conspiracy theories about Jewisheconomic and political power.
Some still saw Jews as asubhuman race that threatened
(39:31):
the country's racial stock. Yet,even so, something was changing.
Antisemitism gradually becameless respectable. Immigration
restrictionists didn't talkabout Jews the way they had
after World War One. GeorgePatton insulted Jews privately,
but not publicly. John Trevorfelt compelled to tone down his
(39:52):
rhetoric. Perhaps that's allpretty thin progress. But after
decades of pervasive and oftensystemic anti semitism, the
stage was set for Jews and theirallies to demand that they be
seen as full Americans.
Thank you for listening toAntisemitism, U.S.A. it's a
(40:15):
production of R2 Studios, partof the Roy Rosenzweig Center for
History and New Media at GeorgeMason University. Visit
R2studios.org for a completetranscript of today's episode
and for suggestions for furtherreading. I'm your host Mark
Oppenheimer. Antisemitism,U.S.A. is written by John Turner
and Lincoln Mullen. Britt Tevisis our lead scholar Jim Ambuske,
is our producer, JeanettePatrick is our executive
(40:36):
producer. We'd like to thank ZevEleff for being our lead advisor
and we'd like to thank ouradvisory board members, Laura
Shaw Frank, Riv-Ellen Prell, andJonathan Sarna. Our graduate
assistants are Rachel Birch,Alexandra Miller, and Amber
Pelham. Our thanks to BradleyHart, Rebecca Erbelding, and
Joseph Bendersky for sharingtheir expertise with us in this
episode. We're able to bring youthis show through the generosity
(40:58):
of the Henry Luce Foundation,the David Bruce Smith
Foundation, and many individualdonors like you. Thank you for
listening, and we hope you'lljoin us for the next episode.
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