America’s Reaction to the
Holocaust
NAZI Persecution of the Jewish
People
Jan. 1942: Wannsee
Conference-”Final
Solution” on the Jewish
Question
1941: Germany bans all
Jewish emigration
Nov 8th/9th 1938
Kristallnacht
“night of the broken
glass”
Nov. 1935:
May 13, 1939
Nuremberg Laws
U.S.S St. Louis
attempts to sail
900 Jewish
Refugees to the
August 1938:
U.S by way of Cuba
Evian Conference
National Origins Act
1924 Strict Quota on number of
Immigrants based on country of
origin
U.S Policy Towards Jewish
Immigration
Quota Laws and Evian Conference
• 1924 National Origins Act- immigration law that
severally limited the number of immigrants from
Southern and Eastern Europe
– Excluded almost all Asians and Nonwhites
• 1938 Evian Conference- 32 countries meet to
discuss sympathy for the persecution of Jewish
refugees but DID NOT lift immigration restrictions
(Except the Dominican Republic)
– U.S fails to pass the Wagners Rogers Bill –permitting
20,000 Jewish German children immigration
United States delegate Myron Taylor
delivers a speech at the Evian Conference
on Jewish refugees from Nazi Germany.
Evian-les-Bains, France, July 15, 1938.
The Hotel Royal, site of the Evian Conference
on Jewish refugees from Nazi Germany. Evianles-Bains, France, July 1938.
— National Archives and Records
Administration, College Park, Md.
1930s US VISA RESTRICATIONS
REQUIREMENTS FOR GERMAN-JEWISH REFUGEES during WWII
1. Visa Application (five copies)
2. Birth Certificate (two copies; quotas were assigned by country of birth)
3. A Certificate of Good Conduct from German police authorities, including two copies
respectively of the following:
Police dossier
Prison record
Military record
4. Affidavits of Good Conduct (required after September 1940)
5. Physical Examination at the U.S. Consulate
6. Permission To Leave Germany (imposed September 30, 1939)
7. Proof of Booked Passage to the Western Hemisphere (required after September 1939)
8. Two Sponsors ("affiants"); close relatives of prospective immigrants were preferred.
The sponsors must have been American citizens or have had permanent resident status,
and they must have filled out an
9. Affidavit of Support and Sponsorship (six copies notarized), as well as provided:
Certified copy of their most recent Federal tax return
Affidavit from a bank regarding their accounts
Affidavit from any other responsible person regarding other assets (an affidavit from
the sponsor’s employer or a statement of commercial rating)
Responses to the Jewish Persecution
Antisemitic poster equating
Jews with communism.
United States, 1939.
— Jewish War Veterans
Museum
Antisemitic cartoon from the 1896 presidential
election that depicts the United States
(represented by Uncle Sam) being crucified by
greedy Jewish businessmen.
HITLER VIOLATES VERSAILLES
• MARCH 1935: Hitler orders Germany to “rearm” –begins conscription (draft)
• MARCH 1936: Hitler marches troops into the
occupied Rhineland
• MARCH 1938: Germany annexes Austria
making it “Greater Germany”
• Sept. 1938: Germany occupies the German
Speaking area of Czechoslovakia (known as
the Sudetenland
Appeasement in Harry Potter
CORNELIUS FUDGE, MINISTRY OF
MAGIC
NEVILE CHAMBERLINE, PRIME
MINISTER OF BRITAIN
Munich Agreement of September 30, 1938, the major European powers allowed German
troops to occupy the Sudetenland in Czechoslovakia , for the sake of "peace in our time".
The “Jewish Question”?
• What to do with European Jews?
– Resettlement *(Early 1930s)
– Segregation (Nazi Germany 1933-1938)
– Ghetto’s Established in Poland and Eastern Europe
(1939-1943)
– Massive Killing Operations (June 1941)
– Final Solution –Liquidation of Jews through Death
Camps (1942-1945)
– Death Marches –1945
Members of an Einsatzkommando (mobile killing squad) before
shooting a Jewish youth. The boy's murdered family lies in front of
him; the men to the left are ethnic Germans aiding the squad. Slarow,
Soviet Union, July 4, 1941.
Mobile Killing Unit in the Soviet Union
Wannsee Conference
• January 1942
• Determined that the Jews could not be
eliminated through emigration
• Developed the “Final Solution”
– Systematic extermination of the European Jews
• U.S found out about Wannsee in Summer of
1942 BUT filed away and DID NOTHING
Exit Ticket:
-
1. List two ways the U.S responded or didn’t
respond to the Holocaust?
2. Based on what you know about the 1930s
and 1940s why do you think the U.S
responded this way?