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Author: Richard Bretman Publisher: Indiana University Press ISBN: 9780253304155 Category : History Languages : en Pages : 328
Book Description
How does one explain America's failure to take bold action to resist the Nazi persecution and murder of European Jews? In contrast to recent writers who place the blame on anti-Semitism in American society at large and within the Roosevelt administration in particular, Richard Breitman and Alan M. Kraut seek the answer in a detailed analysis of American political realities and bureaucratic processes. Drawing on exhaustive archival research, the authors describe and analyze American immigration policy as well as rescue and relief efforts directed toward European Jewry between 1933 and 1945. They contend that U.S. policy was the product of preexisting restrictive immigration laws; an entrenched State Department bureaucracy committed to a narrow defense of American interests; public opposition to any increase in immigration; and the reluctance of Franklin D. Roosevelt to accept the political risks of humanitarian measures to benefit the European Jews. The authors find that the bureaucrats who made and implemented refugee policy were motivated by institutional priorities and reluctance to take risks, rather than by moral or humanitarian concerns.
Author: Richard Bretman Publisher: Indiana University Press ISBN: 9780253304155 Category : History Languages : en Pages : 328
Book Description
How does one explain America's failure to take bold action to resist the Nazi persecution and murder of European Jews? In contrast to recent writers who place the blame on anti-Semitism in American society at large and within the Roosevelt administration in particular, Richard Breitman and Alan M. Kraut seek the answer in a detailed analysis of American political realities and bureaucratic processes. Drawing on exhaustive archival research, the authors describe and analyze American immigration policy as well as rescue and relief efforts directed toward European Jewry between 1933 and 1945. They contend that U.S. policy was the product of preexisting restrictive immigration laws; an entrenched State Department bureaucracy committed to a narrow defense of American interests; public opposition to any increase in immigration; and the reluctance of Franklin D. Roosevelt to accept the political risks of humanitarian measures to benefit the European Jews. The authors find that the bureaucrats who made and implemented refugee policy were motivated by institutional priorities and reluctance to take risks, rather than by moral or humanitarian concerns.
Author: David S. Wyman Publisher: Plunkett Lake Press ISBN: Category : Political Science Languages : en Pages : 270
Book Description
“Paper Walls was the first scholarly book to deal with the question of America’s response to the Nazi assault on the European Jews. A revised version of my Ph.D. dissertation at Harvard University, it was originally published in 1968... Those times were very different from these. There was little public receptivity to Holocaust studies then, and only limited academic interest... The scholarly reviews, of which there were several, were favorable. But the general press paid little attention to the book... A pioneer in its field, Paper Walls first established the thesis that three features of American society in the 1930’s and 1940’s were key to understanding the nation’s inadequate response to the refugee crisis. They were anti-Semitism, nativistic nationalism, and the unemployment problem of the Great Depression. This basic concept has been followed in all the succeeding scholarly literature on the topic. This concept is also the main legacy from Paper Walls to my more recent book, The Abandonment of the Jews: America and the Holocaust, 1941-1945 (1984). AlthoughAbandonment stands as a complete study in its own right, it is in fact the sequel toPaper Walls. It is a continuation of the history of America’s reaction to the plight of the European Jews in the Nazi era.” — David S. Wyman, Preface to the 1985 paperback edition of Paper Walls “[A] thorough study of American refugee policy from 1938 to 1941... On the basis of Wyman’s book, the United States stands indicted for a tragic failure to live up to its nineteenth-century ideal of asylum... Though Wyman makes no effort to disguise his strong sympathy for the refugees, his book... gives a careful and well-documented history of American refugee policy... The state department — above all Assistant Secretary of State Breckinridge Long — emerges from his pages as the primary culprit... The attitude displayed by... the foreign service... led to the creation of the paper walls that Wyman so honestly and tragically describes in this important book.” — Robert A. Divine, Journal of American History “The first scholarly examination of American refugee policy between 1938 and 1941... What Wyman sets out to do he does extremely well. Paper Walls is a worthwhile addition to our growing knowledge of the policy of those who bore witness to the Holocaust.” — Henry L. Feingold, American Jewish Historical Quarterly “No one who reads this book will be able to ignore the fact that blatant antisemitism in the United States — from the public, from Congress, and from within the State Department — prevented our government from giving more than minimal assistance to the Jewish refugees... Professor Wyman has done an immense amount of research in primary and secondary sources and Paper Walls is extraordinarily sound and superbly documented. It is tightly written, well-organized, and logically presented.” — Leonard Dinnerstein, Jewish Social Studies “The conclusions of the book are stark and simple: ‘The half-filled quotas of mid-1940 to mid-1941, when refugee rescue remained entirely feasible, symbolize 20,000 to 25,000 lives lost...’ In the eight years from 1933 to 1941, about 250,000 refugees found safety here. The total is not small, but neither is the country which received them.” — Raul Hilberg, Political Science Quarterly “Generally [President Roosevelt] left refugee policy to the disposition of a hostile Congress and the State Department. Yet, as the author points out, neither Roosevelt, the State Department, nor Congress can be blamed entirely for what happened. ‘Viewed within the context of its times, United States refugee policy from 1938 to the end of 1941 was essentially what the American people wanted.’ In December 1938 only 8.7 per cent of the respondents to a Roper poll favored entry of a larger number of European refugees than the quota law allowed; fully 83 per cent were flatly opposed. This book tells a dismal story. While it is dear where the author’s sympathies lie, he tells the story with restraint; if anything, his approach and writing style underplay the pathos involved... Wyman has given us a scholarly description and analysis of the first act of the tragedy, which he promises to carry on through the war and postwar years.” — J. Joseph Huthmacher, The American Historical Review “This thoroughly documented study of the United States policies in regard to the refugee crisis of 1938-1941 is the best available source in this field and on that period. Drawing on material from some well known as well as several previously untapped sources, Wyman discusses both the ambiguous role of particular figures and organizations and the underlying forces at work in American society which influenced governmental policy and practices; anti-semitism, nativism, fear of unemployment and of Nazi subversives are shown as the major pressure to which America’s people and leaders succumbed.” — Joseph S. Roucek, The International Migration Review “This is a depressing topic impressively researched. Professor Wyman has investigated almost all the relevant primary and secondary materials in order to recount the tragic story of America’s indifference to the hundreds of thousands of refugees fleeing Hitler’s Europe... Over two-thirds of Americans desired to keep the Jewish refugees out of the United Stales. Wyman argues that this sentiment was due to three sources: ‘nativism, anti-Semitism, and economic insecurity’... There is enough evidence in Wyman’s book to cause the Statue of Liberty to collapse for lack of moral foundation.” — John P. Diggins, The Historian “Professor Wyman skillfully investigates and thoughtfully analyzes the complexities of the crisis and the reasons why more was not done to aid the refugees in the crucial period between 1938 and 1941... The author examines the problem thoroughly from a number of standpoints... The State Department, the Congress, and the President really were reflecting the attitudes of the American people, who, Wyman asserts, were indifferent and even antagonistic to the refugees [because of] the economic insecurity engendered by the depression, nativistic nationalism, and anti-Semitism. A well-researched and lucidly, if not dispassionately, written book, Paper Walls is a sound, workmanlike study of a significant episode in our nation’s recent past.” — E. Berkeley Tompkins, The Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science
Author: Daniela Gleizer Publisher: BRILL ISBN: 9004262105 Category : Religion Languages : en Pages : 354
Book Description
In Unwelcome Exiles. Mexico and the Jewish Refugees from Nazism 1933–1945, Daniela Gleizer challenges Mexico’s traditional image as an open-door country, by examining the Mexican government’s inhospitable response to Jewish exiles seeking refuge from Nazism.
Author: Stefan Küpper Publisher: GRIN Verlag ISBN: 3640532953 Category : Literary Collections Languages : en Pages : 11
Book Description
Seminar paper from the year 2007 in the subject American Studies - Culture and Applied Geography, grade: 2,0, University of Potsdam (Amerikanistik/Anglistik), course: HS: Jewish American Life from World War I to the Present, language: English, abstract: Three quarters of the U.S. population believed at the end of the war that several hundred thousands of Jews had been exterminated in German concentration camps. As a matter of fact, nearly six million Jews perished in those camps. But why did hardly anyone care, or rather know, about the Jews’ fate in Europe? Many U.S. American people faced severe problems in their own country – the aftermath of the Great Depression was still noticeable. Even between 1938 and 1939 an estimated number of eight to ten million people were unemployed in the USA. Consequently, a latent anti-Semitism existed in the U.S. society and was stirred up by people like W. D. Pelley as well as by Father C. E. Coughlin. But Pelley and Coughlin were not the only ones in opposition to the immigration of Jews; especially the State Department (responsible for immigration quotas) blocked foreign immigration due to bureaucratic inefficiency; the U.S. immigration quotas permanently decreased from 1939 to 1945 and in a way locked up Jews in Europe. Even the different groups of American Jews (e.g. Zionists versus Non-Zionists) were not able to establish a concentrated conglomerate in order to support European Jews.
Author: Irving Abella Publisher: University of Toronto Press ISBN: 1487554419 Category : History Languages : en Pages : 483
Book Description
Today, we think of Canada as a compassionate, open country to which refugees from other countries have always been welcome. However, between the years 1933 and 1948, when the Jews of Europe were looking for a place of refuge from Nazi persecution, Canada refused to offer aid, let alone sanctuary, to those in fear for their lives. Rigorously documented and brilliantly researched, None Is Too Many tells the story of Canada’s response to the plight of European Jews during the Nazi era and its immediate aftermath, exploring why and how Canada turned its back and hardened its heart against the entry of Jewish refugees. Recounting a shameful period in Canadian history, Irving Abella and Harold Troper trace the origins and results of Canadian immigration policies towards Jews and conclusively demonstrate that the forces against admitting them were pervasive and rooted in antisemitism. First published in 1983, None Is Too Many has become one of the most significant books ever published in Canada. This fortieth anniversary edition celebrates the book’s ongoing impact on public discourse, generating debate on ethics and morality in government, the workings of Canadian immigration and refugee policy, the responsibility of bystanders, righting historical wrongs, and the historian as witness. Above all, the reader is asked: "What kind of Canada do we want to be?" This new anniversary edition features a foreword by Richard Menkis on the impact the book made when it was first published and an afterword by David Koffman explaining why the book remains critical today.
Author: Richard Breitman Publisher: Harvard University Press ISBN: 0674073673 Category : History Languages : en Pages : 459
Book Description
A contentious debate lingers over whether Franklin Delano Roosevelt turned his back on the Jews of Hitler’s Europe. FDR and the Jews reveals a concerned leader whose efforts on behalf of Jews were far greater than those of any other world figure but whose moral leadership was tempered by the political realities of depression and war.
Author: Michael N. Dobkowski Publisher: ISBN: Category : History Languages : en Pages : 502
Book Description
A collection of documents, divided thematically and provided with short introductory notes, showing the indifference and lack of action on the part of the U.S. government concerning the admission of refugees from Nazi Germany and Nazi-controlled territories of Central Europe between 1933-45, as well as anti-immigrant (including anti-Jewish) sentiments in the U.S. at the time. Examines the U.S.'s lack of proper cooperation with the League of Nations' High Commission for Refugees, the U.S. delegation at the Evian Conference, the Bermuda Conference, the U.S. State Department as a force that impeded the admission of refugees, and the activities of the War Refugee Board in 1944-45. Ch. 7 (p. 258-337), "Anti-Refugee Sentiment", contains results of a number of public opinion surveys held between 1936-45, showing that more than two-thirds of Americans did not want to admit refugees and that anti-Jewish sentiments were high. This chapter, along with ch. 8 (p. 338-390), "Send These to Me: Pro-Refugee Sentiment in America", present excerpts from the Congressional debates concerning the Wagner-Rogers Bill of February 1939 suggesting the admission of 10,000 refugee children under the age of 14 in 1939-40. The Bill was rejected.
Author: Richard Bretman
Author: Richard Bretman
Author: Louise London
Author: David S. Wyman
Author: Daniela Gleizer
Author: Stefan Küpper
Author: David S. Wyman
Author: Irving Abella
Author: Richard Breitman
Author: Leonard Dinnerstein
Author: Michael N. Dobkowski