unit 8: the bystanders and the rescuers

Unit 8: the Bystanders and the Rescuers

USA: win the war first

Realistic arguments:Defeat 2 major enemies on 2 frontsWar didn’t turn in favor of Allies until 1942 with El Alamein and Stalingrad“Beyond belief”: accounts out of Europe must have been exaggerated!FDR didn’t want to fight a “Jewish war”

Much American antisemitism in 1920’sIntensified with the DepressionNeed for scapegoats


1939: 41% of Americans believed Jews had too much power

Of those, 10% favored Jewish deportation50% would never vote for a Jewish presidential candidate33% questioned Jewish patriotism33% endorsed antisemitism

120+ antisemitic groups in USA in 1930’s


April, 1939: public opinion poll at time of Wagner-Rogers bill (proposed to admit 20,000 Jewish children above quota)

42.3% believed antisemitism was result of negative Jewish traits

Similar poll later that year said that of all immigrants, Jews and Italians made the worst citizens Quakers and some other groups were in favor of the billBill died in committee (FDR stamped it – file: no action)

Later, British refugee children were admitted


Breckinridge Long (1881 -1958), assistant Secretary in the State Dept.’s Visa Division

Franklin Delano Roosevelt (1882-1945), 32nd President of the United States


Bombing Auschwitz in 1944 was dangerous

Anti-aircraft activity around OsweicimRailroads could have been rebuilt easilyThousands of inmates would have been killedPlanes were needed elsewhere


FDR wanted to win the war

Jewish question was a very minor part of the big picture

FDR had fought against isolationismHad also fought domestic antisemitism

Had Jews in his cabinet, Jewish friends


Major questions to above policies:

US refugee policy was terribleBreckinridge Long, asst. Sec. of State, did all he could to stymie immigration, particularly Jews

Antisemitic tendencies, right-wing leanings

War Refugee Board: formed early 1944Saved thousands of lives1943 Bermuda Conference

US and UK met to discuss Jewish problem


The Holocaust was “beyond belief”Deliberately misunderstood and swept underfoot

FDR could have taken a risk in “the Jewish War”Took risks in other places

American Jewry could have done moreLack of unity

Petty squabbles and disputesLack of understanding/knowledge of magnitude


July/August – November, 1944: 150,000 gassed at Auschwitz

Bombing would have slowed or disrupted Final Solution

Eleanor Roosevelt pushed humanitarianism beyond policy, bureaucracy

Why didn’t FDR?

First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt (1882-1962)


The Vatican

Policy of silence: Pope Pius XII said nothing

No declaration on behalf of JewsAs cardinal, he was Vatican envoy to Berlin and had negotiated a Concordant with Hitler in 1933 – major diplomatic victory for Nazis


Nov. 1942: joint US/British condemnation of Nazis

Pius XII made no statement

In 1937, Pius XI issued an encyclical condemning Nazi racism; some evidence he was going to issue another condemning Nazi treatment of the Jews

Eugenio Cardinal Pacelli (later Pius XII) signs the Concordat with Berlin in 1933


Oct. 1943: Jews of Rome (8000) rounded up and deported

Pope made no statement

Interests of church took precedence over anything

After the war, Catholics helped Nazis escape to S. America, etc.

Leading Catholic Nazis, including Hitler, were never condemned or excommunicated


Defense of papal actions

German and Austrian Catholics: would have undermined unity and morale if Pius had chosen sides in the issue

USSR was atheistic; Catholics fighting atheists

Pius XII tried to soften some decrees against Jews in non-German lands


Many individual Catholics (nuns, priests, citizens) aided Jews, sometimes even in convents and monasteries

Aid to Italian Jews

How much power did the Church have?Could Pius truly have influenced the world??

Vatican archives on these times won’t be opened until well into the 21st Century.


The Rescuers

Minimum estimate: 100,000 rescuers saved 250,000 Jewish lives

As of 1996, 11,000 rescuers had been recognized by Yad Vashem

A rescuer is someone who endangered himself to save a Jewish life during WWII without expectation of reward (monetary or that the Jew would convert)


Factors associated with rescue:

1. Rescuers came from all socioeconomic classes

2. Friends of Jews didn’t always rescue3. Political or religious persuasion didn’t

seem to matter4. Gender didn’t seem to matter5. Age didn’t seem to matter; there were

child rescuers6. Rescuers were not marginalists –many

were fully- involved in society7. Rescuers were: artisans, peasants,

doctors, shopkeepers, factory workers, maids, teachers, grocers, businessmen, Germans, Poles, church leaders, etc.


Motivations of rescuers:Helped because of pre-War Jewish relationshipsPart of resistance networksPatriotism; anti-Nazi feelings

Sometimes overrode feelings of antisemitism

Deeply-held religious beliefsMother Maria of Paris made her convent a headquarters for the rescue of Jewish children

Caught and transferred to Ravensbruck on 4-23-43

Continued to minister to 2500 women in her cell block

3-31-45: last day seen alive; on her last day she gave a Jewish woman her Aryan card


Deeply-held moral valuesAlex Rozlan: resident of Warsaw who saw children in the ghetto

Took in 3 Jewish brothers at great riskNever considered themselves heroes; duty-bound


Explanations of rescue:

Mordecai Paldiel: former head of Yad Vashem’s rescue project

Altruism is a human archetype, the origin of which we do not knowAnyone is capable

unit 8: the bystanders and the rescuers

Documents

jewish children

jewish patriotism33

jewish friendsunit

jewish problemunit

jewish deportation50

war jewish question

jewish wartook risks

fdr didnt