How Would It Be Possible to at Least Reduce The Number of Victims of The Holocaust?

Rabbi Wise claiming it was just a war rumor.” It took three extra months to prove his information was true in order for the public to be informed. Three months that could have affected how many more Jews were able to live.

After the American Public was informed then things changed but not completely for the better. The United States, Great Britain, the Soviet Union, and nine Allied governments released a Declaration of Atrocities. The declaration claimed that the people who were hurting and murdering the Jews would be punished after the fighting stopped; however, there was nothing in the declaration that initiated rescue efforts. The United States still wanted to remain as uninvolved as possible even if there were knowledge immigrants were being murdered. However, the public kept pressuring for action. The State Department and British Foreign Office officials tried to address the public pressure for an Allied rescue effort by holding the Bermuda Conference in April 1943. According to Yad Vaschem, when the conference ended nothing had been accomplished- no Jew would be saved.

That’s when many people on their own then tried to get Roosevelt to do something. According to Sarah E. Peck, Activist Peter Bergson and his Emergency Committee tried to launch a propaganda campaign to raise awareness about the situation of Jews. There were also members that Roosevelt sent to check on the situation in Germany, and the things they reported was a hope of encouragement he would do something. However, although many people tried to get Roosevelt to do something, he never mentioned Jews. He said the US would win the war, but he never said anything about helping the Jews. This made me realize how the United States’ fear of instability only made the US forget about humanitarian motives.

It seemed citizens on their own were doing more to assist Jews than the United States was. According to the Holocaust Museum, “A German industrialist, Oskar Schindler, moved his Jewish workforce from the Plaszow concentration camp to a factory in Bruennlitz.” His factory became a hiding place for Jews. He helped saved over thousands of lives by pretending Jews were needed to create weapons for World War II. He lied about their health and their age, so they could escape the regime. If they didn’t meet the requirements of the report, then they would not be fit to work anymore and that’s why he lied to protect them.

Inspirational stories like these; however, weren’t enough to move the United States. The United States was still constantly worried about economic security, national security, and the fear of immigrants stealing jobs. According to the Holocaust Museum, after much public pressure, in January 1944, President Franklin Roosevelt finally created the War Refugee Board to carry out a new US policy of proactive rescue and relief for Nazi victims. The War Refugee Board saved tens of thousands of Jews and other victims of Nazi persecution and assisted hundreds of thousands more in the last year and a half of World War II. The WRB found ways to help more refugees cross the border. It was a great help for Jews, and it was the first action the United States took after so many years to protect Jews.

American, Soviet, British, and French troops occupying German territory then set up a displaced persons (DP) camps to house Holocaust survivors and other DPs. In the first few months after the war ended, the camps were actually in pretty bad conditions as well. It was almost as if it were another concentration camp. Earl Harrison was actually requested by President Truman to tour the DP camps in order to report what he saw back to him. Harrison informed Truman: “We appear to be treating the Jews as the Nazis had treated them, except that we do not exterminate them.” This allowed for Truman to truly grasp the situation. By 1948, Congress passed the Displaced Persons Act, authorizing 200,000 displaced persons to enter the United States without being counted against the immigration quotas.

Although the US appeared to help Jews escape Nazi Germany, they didn’t. The United States stayed out of the war for economic interest. The United States didn’t care about the humanity aspect of the war until they.

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