PART THREE: FOURTEEN LOST MONTHS
4. FIRST STEPSNovember 24, 1942, marked a turning point in Holocaust history. From then on, the news of Hitler's plan to annihilate the Jews was available to everyone in the democratic world who cared to know. But those not especially concerned were hardly confronted with the problem, because the news media gave it little prominence.
American metropolitan newspapers did a mediocre job of informing their readers of Rabbi Wise's disclosures. His November 24 press conference in Washington was widely reported, but it was not a major story anywhere. [i] The news conference he held in New York the next day received even less exposure. [ii]
This early pattern of minor press coverage became the rule. During the next month, there were several additional developments concerning the Holocaust. They included a nationwide Day of Mourning and Prayer, a meeting between President Roosevelt and Jewish leaders, a United Nations declaration condemning the extermination program, and an extensive UN report on the mass killing. Most newspapers published something about these events, but none consistently featured that news. [2]
The New York Times printed considerable extermination-related information during late November and December 1942. But, except for a front-page report on the UN declaration, it relegated that news to inside pages. Moreover, during the five Sundays of late November and December the paper's weekly ten-page "News of the Week in Review" section included only one brief notice about the European Jewish tragedy. Yet the Times provided by far the most complete American press coverage of Holocaust events. [3]
Lack of solid press coverage in the weeks immediately following the November 24 announcement muffled the historic news at the outset. The press's failure to arouse public interest and indignation thus handicapped efforts to build pressure for government action to aid the Jews. Proponents of rescue were soon driven to seek alternative ways to bring the information before the public.
Two or three clear statements from Franklin Roosevelt would have moved this news into public view and kept it there for some time. But the President was not so inclined, nor did Washington reporters press him. In retrospect, it seems almost unbelievable that in Roosevelt's press conferences (normally held twice a week) not one word was spoken about the mass killing of European Jews until almost a year later. The President had nothing to say to reporters on the matter, and no correspondent asked him about it. [4]
Understandably, the American Jewish press focused strongly on the news of the Nazi annihilation program. One analyst has observed that the coverage in the Yiddish dailies was "enormous" compared with that of regular American newspapers. In New York, the Day, the Forward, and the Jewish Morning Journal published accounts, often under main front-page headlines, throughout late November and all of December. [5]
The English-language Jewish press likewise informed its readers of the terrible news. The Anglo-Jewish weeklies, newspapers of general Jewish interest published in many cities across the United States, spread the basic information, mainly through syndicated news columns and Jewish Telegraphic Agency dispatches. [6]
Fuller coverage and a great amount of editorial comment reached American Jews through dozens of English-language periodicals issued by the many political, religious, fraternal, and other Jewish organizations. For instance, a leader among these publications, Congress Weekly, brought out its December 4, 1942, issue in a funereal black cover, while the magazine itself was given over largely to documentary evidence of the mass killing.
Throughout December and on into 1943, Jewish publications reported the continuing Jewish tragedy. They called on Americans of other faiths to join them in protest and appealed to the United States and its allies to act to stop the mass murder. [7]
The plea for non-Jewish support went largely unanswered. Exceptions were the liberal periodicals Nation and New Republic, which publicized and decried the "Murder of a People," as the Nation termed it. Throughout the war, both journals continued to speak out on the issue and to demand government rescue-action. [8]
The American Mercury also confronted readers with the agony of the European Jews through a powerful article by Ben Hecht, a prominent playwright and Hollywood scriptwriter. Hecht's essay reached a much wider audience when the Reader's Digest published a condensed version in early 1943. But the American Mercury and the Reader's Digest were alone among mass-circulation magazines in bringing the extermination issue to public attention in the weeks following the revelations of late November 1942. Except for. a few inconspicuous words on the UN declaration, such news magazines as Time, Life, and Newsweek overlooked the systematic murder of millions of helpless Jews. [9]
Leaders of the American labor movement protested Germany's extermination program. In late November, AFL vice-president Matt Woll, addressing a Jewish labor group, declared, "I speak to you as a Christian and a trade unionist. There ace no words in the lexicon of the human race to express the horror." AFL president William Green and CIO president Philip Murray both denounced the slaughter of the Jews in Christmas messages. [10]
A few other prominent non-Jews reacted to the Nazi horror. In the forefront was the noted news columnist Dorothy Thompson. In December, she planned a series of moves designed to stir resistance in Germany itself to the mass murders and concomitantly to bring the annihilation issue to the American public. She proposed two appeals to the German people, one from Americans of German descent and another from American Protestant churches. She also conceived of a special Christmas prayer by the Protestant churches for the stricken Jews of Europe, and a visit to President Roosevelt by a delegation of German Americans to request that he and Winston Churchill broadcast a direct appeal to the German people. [11]
Dorothy Thompson was able to find support only for the first of her proposals. A full-page advertisement, published in ten metropolitan newspapers, was the sole fruit of her efforts. Yet this minor step marked the high point for months to come of American non-Jewish action to help Europe's Jews. [12]
The advertisement was a "Christmas Declaration" signed by fifty prominent Americans of German descent. They included theologian Reinhold Niebuhr, news correspondent William L. Shirer, George Herman ("Babe") Ruth, and orchestra conductor Walter Damrosch. The statement denounced the "cold-blooded extermination of the Jews" as well as the atrocities against other conquered peoples. It called on Germans to overthrow the Nazi regime. The declaration actually placed little emphasis on the Jewish catastrophe; there is evidence that it had to be toned down in order to obtain the fifty names. Miss Thompson, in fact, had to turn to the American Jewish Congress to cover the costs of the advertisements. Whatever its shortcomings, the declaration was widely disseminated. Newspapers reported it as a news story, and it was broadcast over all major American radio networks. The Office of War Information beamed it to the U.S. armed forces and to Axis Europe as well. [13]
The Jewish appeal to non-Jews for help was frequently addressed to the Christian church leadership. Since Christianity is a religion committed to succoring the helpless, the Christian churches might have been expected to rise to the challenge. In England they did respond positively. But in the United States both the Protestant and the Catholic churches remained nearly silent and seemingly indifferent in the face of this crisis in Western and Christian civilization.
Commonweal, a liberal Catholic weekly, was among the few American Christian voices to speak. Before Pearl Harbor, its editors had stood in the sparse ranks of those who called for widening the nation's gates for Jewish refugees. Now, in December 1942, Commonweal pointed with horror at the "policy of complete extermination." It recognized the unfolding tragedy as a "crisis ... not only for the Jewish people, but for all peoples everywhere." [14]
Another outpost of Christian care for Jewish victims was the Church Peace Union, whose general secretary, Dr. Henry A. Atkinson, urged that the churches of America "in the name of our Lord, our religion and suffering humanity ... denounce these crimes against the Jews as major crimes against our common humanity." Atkinson called on the churches to insist that the United States, England, and other countries open their doors at once to those Jews who could get out of Hitler's grasp. [15]
The Federal Council of the Churches of Christ in America, an organization through which twenty-five Protestant denominations cooperated on programs of common concern, began late in 1942 to consider practical aid to the Jews. Out of its biennial meeting in December came an official declaration that the reports on Jewish extermination had stirred Christian Americans to "deepest sympathy and indignation." The Federal Council resolved to do its "full part in establishing conditions in which such treatment of the Jews shall end." In discussions with Jewish leaders soon afterward, the council promised to launch a movement to involve its tens of thousands of local congregations in a Sunday of services focused on the tragedy of Europe's Jews. This "Day of Compassion" did not take place, however, until May 1943. [16]
While most American Christian institutions took little or no notice of the extermination disclosures of late 1942, the nondenominational Protestant weekly Christian Century reacted immediately. The very day that word of Stephen Wise's Washington press conference appeared in the newspapers, the Christian Century telegraphed the State Department asking whether it actually had, as Wise claimed, confirmed the information he had given out. [17]
The State Department evasively replied that it had no statement for publication regarding Wise's disclosures, since its role had been only "to facilitate the efforts of his Committee in getting at the truth." Thus all questions about the material should be put to. Wise. Although the State Department's response neither affirmed nor denied Wise's statements, the Christian Century chose to view it as a denial. [iii] [18]
The editors decided to challenge Wise's disclosures, a move that, whether intended or not, spread' skepticism and dampened pressures for rescue action. The Christian Century's editorial, entitled "Horror Stories from Poland," conceded that "beyond doubt, horrible things are happening to the Jews in Poland" and "it is even probable" that the Nazis are moving all the European Jews to Poland "with the deliberate intention of exterminating them there." But the writer questioned whether "any good purpose is served by the publication of such charges as Dr. Stephen S. Wise gave to the press last week." The editorial went on to discredit Wise's disclosures and to argue that he had greatly exaggerated the numbers of Jews killed. [20]
Three weeks later, reacting to the United Nations statement condemning the annihilation of the Jews, the Christian Century granted that "extermination of a race has seldom, if ever, been so systemically [sic] practiced on a grand scale as in the present mass murder of Polish Jews by the Nazi power." But the editorial pointedly noted that the UN declaration had ventured no definite statistical estimate of the dead. The Christian Century commended the UN statement, especially its "rhetorical restraint" and "calm tone." These signified, it said,
a cold determination not to expend in vain outcry one unit of emotional energy which can be better employed in bringing the war to such a conclusion that this gigantic crime can be stopped and the criminals punished. The right response to the Polish horror is a few straight words to say that it has been entered in the books, and then redoubled action on the Tunisian, Russian, Italian and German fronts and on the production lines. [21]
The Christian Century had spelled out an argument that people both inside and outside of government would raise throughout the war: the only effective way to save European Jews was to win the war as soon as possible. This assertion also implied that pressure for direct rescue action was in effect unpatriotic, since it would entail some diversion of the War effort. Both positions were false. Many possibilities existed while the war was in progress to save Jews who were still alive in Nazi Europe, and most could have been acted upon without hampering the war effort. Proof of this came in 1944 when the Roosevelt administration finally made a commitment to rescue Jews through a specially created War Refugee Board.
In line with its own advice that "the right response" to extermination was "a few straight words to say that it has been entered in the books" and then harder work for victory, the Christian Century spoke out for rescue action only four or five times in the two and one-half years that passed before Hitler's defeat. It thereby defaulted on an opportunity to serve the Christian conscience as well as the needs of the desperate Jews. This was all the more tragic since the journal was highly influential among liberal, social-action-oriented Protestant clergymen and lay leaders. Because of its social sensitivity, that constituency might have become a leading edge of Protestant-backed pressure for rescue action. It did not. [22]
The reasons for the Christian Century's attack on Wise's credibility are not clear. Probably the most important factor was Wise's position as the foremost leader of the American Zionist movement. The Christian Century had a strong record of anti-Zionism. [23]
***
Once freed to release the confirmed news of extermination, Jewish leaders were anxious to spread the information as effectively as they could. They sought to build the public support that would be necessary to move the American and other Allied governments to rescue efforts. [24]
The group that charted a basic course of joint action during late 1942 (and again in spring 1943) was. a rather loose council of representatives of the major American Jewish organizations. Essentially, it was a continuation of the committee of Jewish leaders that had formed around Stephen Wise and Jacob Rosenheim in early September and had met sporadically thereafter to discuss information coming from Europe as well as possible ways to respond to it. Before March 1943, when the council was reorganized as the Joint Emergency Committee on European Jewish Affairs, it was usually referred to as the Temporary Committee. This was the body that Wise called together on November 25, the day after his meeting with Welles, to decide on an initial plan of action. [25]
To lessen confusion about the numerous Jewish organizations involved in the American response to the Holocaust, it may be helpful to describe the seven groups represented on the Temporary Committee. The first four were the major defense organizations then active in American Jewish life; they worked to protect the religious and civil rights of Jews in the United States and throughout the world.
American Jewish Committee. Formed in 1906, the committee was still dominated in the early 19408 by wealthy, older-stock (German-back ground) Jews. Although its membership was small, it possessed substantial prestige and influence, had entry to some high levels of government and American society, and controlled considerable funds. Because it shunned overt political action and mass demonstrations and was non-Zionist, it was usually reluctant to participate in joint projects, especially with activist Zionist organizations. [26]
American Jewish Congress. Established in 1922, the congress was a mass-membership body built largely on a middle- and lower-middle-class constituency that was mainly of East European origin. Activist in approach and Zionist in outlook, it was the most politically involved of the major Jewish organizations.
Jewish Labor Committee. This committee was created in 1934 to rep resent the organized-labor side of American Jewish life in the struggle against Nazism and fascism. Membership consisted of national and local units of its affiliated bodies, including the Workmen's Circle, the International Ladies Garment Workers Union, the Amalgamated Clothing Workers of America, and other labor unions and Jewish socialist groups. The Labor Committee indirectly represented a constituency of half a million; in addition, it could call on some support from the American Federation of Labor because of its close ties with that organization. Oriented toward democratic" socialism, the Jewish Labor Committee was for the most part anti-Zionist.
B'nai B'rith. Founded as a Jewish fraternal and service organization in 1843, B'nai B'rith had come to combine those functions with educational work and defense of Jewish rights. Formation of its Anti-Defamation League in 1913 added to its capability in the latter area. A mass-membership organization, it had over 150,000 men, women, and youth on its rolls in 1942. B'nai B'rith aimed for neutrality in political affairs, but a trend toward Zionism was gathering strength in its ranks during World War II.
World Jewish Congress. This worldwide organization was established in 1936 to deal with attacks on Jewish political and economic rights. Zionist oriented, it was based on mass-membership affiliates, including the American Jewish Congress, the British section of the World Jewish Congress, and Jewish organizations in several other countries. During World War II, its world executive moved from Geneva to New York, where it added special committees of Jewish leaders from the occupied European nations.
The following two religious groups were also part of the Temporary Committee:
Synagogue Council of America. Organized in 1925, the council was made up of delegates from rabbinical and lay organizations of the Orthodox, Conservative, and Reform branches of American Jewry. It provided a means for united action to forward the common religious interests of its constituent bodies. Many government agencies as well as Catholic and Protestant organizations recognized the Synagogue Council as their main religious liaison with American Jewry.
Agudath Israel of America. This organization of nearly 30,000 members had been established in 1921 to assist and maintain the spiritual life of Orthodox Jews throughout the world. Closely aligned with the Union of Orthodox Rabbis of the United States and Canada, it represented the ultra-Orthodox wing of American Jewry, a segment not connected with the Synagogue Council of America. Agudath Israel was anti-Zionist on religious grounds.
Before tracing the actions undertaken by the Temporary Committee, it might be well to take a closer look at Dr. Stephen S. Wise, the foremost American Jewish leader of the 1930s and 1940s. Reform rabbi and longtime Zionist, Wise had been in the front ranks of the American social-justice movement since the turn of the century. Working closely with Christian reform leaders, he had battled for such causes as free speech, workers' rights and labor unions, black rights, and honest city government. During the Great Depression of the 1930s, he had spoken out early for adequate relief and for unemployment insurance. This was the background out of which he developed a relationship with Franklin Roosevelt, whom he supported for governor of New York in 1928 even though the Republican candidate was Jewish. ("I never voted as a Jew," Wise declared in his autobiography, "but always as an American.") Despite the GOP avalanche of 1928, Roosevelt won the governorship by a very thin margin. He was no doubt helped by Jewish voters influenced by Wise. [27]
In 1932, however, Wise refused to back Roosevelt for President because of his evasive stance on the Tammany regime in New York City. But in 1933 Wise moved back into the Roosevelt camp. ("He re-won my unstinted admiration, and I spoke of him everywhere I went with boundless enthusiasm.") From then on, Wise was strong and vocal in his support of the President, coming out wholeheartedly for him in the 1936 election, remaining loyal through the Supreme Court debacle of 1937, and never wavering afterward. [28]
Wise's autobiography, completed shortly before he died, shows that Roosevelt remained his hero until the end. It also leaves the clear impression that after about 1935 Wise was unable to be critical of, or even objective about, the President. He was convinced that FDR was personally anxious to help the persecuted European Jews in the 1930s, that he wanted to do everything possible to rescue Jews during the Holocaust years, and that he fully, though quietly, supported the Zionist movement. These assessments were wide of the mark and should have been recognized as such at the time. In retrospect, in view of Wise's position as the foremost Jewish leader, his total trust in Roosevelt was not an asset to American or European Jews. [29]
Wise's myriad responsibilities, which attested to his importance in American Jewish life, may also have hampered his effectiveness. During the Holocaust years, he was simultaneously director of, or a high officer in, over a dozen Jewish organizations. [iv] Sixty-eight years old in 1942, Wise was not in good physical condition. He wrote to an associate that year, "I am far from being well and have a chronic ailment [he had polycythemia, an enlarged spleen, and an inoperable double hernial which necessitates X-ray treatment rather frequently." Yet Wise pushed himself hard and undertook an immense amount of travel, moody by train (his condition ruled out flying). Despite Wise's willingness to drive himself, one has to question whether his health permitted him to deal effectively with his host of responsibilities. Reason indicates, and some observers at the time suggested, that he should have passed some of them on to others. [30]
Wise was imposing in appearance, his strong, craggy profile set off against swept-back hair. His oratory was superb. His letters, which carry touches of humor, reflect a person warm and close to family and friends.
As to the seven organizations represented on the Temporary Committee, disputes and even sharp conflict normally marked their interrelationships. Despite this volatility, they briefly achieved a fair degree of cooperation in the wake of Wise's important conference with Welles. At the meeting that Wise convened on November 25, agreement was reached on five actions. [32]
The first, to announce to the press. the newly confirmed facts of genocide, was carried out that afternoon when Wise held a news conference to supplement the one he had called the preceding evening in Washington. Press coverage, however, was disappointing. [33]
A second step was to dispatch telegrams to over 500 newspapers requesting them to publish editorials on the issue. Comparatively few did so. [v] [34]
The third move was to telegraph a few hundred important non-Jews to invite them to make statements regarding the Jewish situation in Europe. Several responses were printed in the Congress Weekly, but nothing more appears to have come of the project. [36]
Each of the other two actions taken by the Temporary Committee precipitated a brief flurry of national publicity about the European Jewish catastrophe. These were the sponsorship of a Day of Mourning and Prayer and a meeting of Jewish leaders with President Roosevelt.
The Day of Mourning and Prayer, held on December 2, was observed in twenty-nine foreign lands and throughout the United States. Because of its large Jewish population, New Yolk City, summoned to prayer by Mayor Fiorello La Guardia, was the center of the day's solemn activities. Yiddish newspapers came out with black borders. Several radio stations were silent for two minutes. During the morning, half a million Jewish union laborers, joined by non-Jewish fellow walkers, halted production for ten minutes. [vi] At noon, a one-hour radio program was broadcast. And special services were held at live o'clock in synagogues throughout the city. [37]
In many other American cities, the Day of Mourning was marked by religious services and local radio programs. Late in the afternoon, NBC broadcast a special quarter-hour memorial service across the nation. [39]
In addition to the religious values and the feelings of solidarity that were generated, the commemorations on the Day of Mourning offered emotional release. The Dallas Morning News, for instance, commented on the impressive ceremony held in that city but seemed most deeply affected by the sobbing heard at the service. Another important outcome of the special day was that it focused some public attention on the disastrous situation of the European Jews. A little radio time was devoted to the issue. And many newspapers reported the day's events and their significance, though for the most part inconspicuously. [40]
Soon afterward, a delegation from the Temporary Committee succeeded in meeting with President Roosevelt despite a definite reluctance on his part. A letter that Wise addressed to "Dear Boss" may have overcome the President's disinclination to confer with the Jewish leaders. The rabbi wrote that "the most overwhelming disaster of Jewish history," Hitler's extermination program, had been confirmed through the State Department, and that a few people from his committee would like to talk with the President about it. Wise assured Roosevelt, "I do not wish to add an atom to the awful burden which you are bearing with magic and, as I believe, heaven-inspired strength at this time." But, he added, "it would be gravely misunderstood if, despite your overwhelming preoccupation, you did not make it possible to receive our delegation and to utter what I am sure will be your heartening and consoling reply." He concluded with the plea: "As your old friend, I beg you will somehow arrange to do this." [41]
The half-hour conference with Roosevelt took place at noon on December 8; it included Wise, Henry Monsky (B'nai B'rith), Rabbi Israel Rosenberg (Union of Orthodox Rabbis), Maurice Wertheim (American Jewish Committee), and Adolph Held (Jewish Labor Committee). Held's notes provide a thorough description of this interview, the only one concerning the Holocaust that FOR ever granted to a group of Jewish leaders. [42]
The President received the delegation very cordially and immediately launched into a semi-humorous story about his plans for postwar Germany. Wise then read aloud a two-page letter from the Temporary Committee which stressed that "unless action is taken immediately, the Jews of Hider Europe are doomed." [43]
The only action proposed in the letter, however, was the issuance of warnings about war crimes. The message asked Roosevelt "to warn the Nazis that they will be held to strict accountability for their crimes." It also urged formation of a commission to collect the evidence of Nazi barbarism against civilians and to report it to the world. [44]
As he finished reading the message, Wise handed Roosevelt a twenty-page condensation of the extermination data and appealed to him "to do all in your power to bring this to the attention of the world and to do all in your power to make an effort to stop it." [45]
Roosevelt's reply was significant because it showed beyond doubt that by December 1942 he was fully aware of the extermination program. Thus his subsequent reluctance to act for rescue cannot be attributed to lack of knowledge or disbelief that the destruction of the European Jews was in progress. Held's notes quote the President:
The government of the United States is very well acquainted with most of the facts you are now bringing to our attention. Unfortunately we have received confirmation from many sources. Representatives of the United States government in Switzerland and other neutral countries have given us proof that confirms the horrors discussed by you. [46]
Roosevelt readily agreed to issue the war-crimes warning. He then asked for other recommendations. The Jewish leaders had lime to add; this part of the conversation lasted only one or two minutes. The President then opened a monologue on topics unrelated to the Jewish disaster in Europe. He continued until an aide entered, signaling the end of the conference. [47]
As the group left, Roosevelt, referring to the war-crimes warning, said, "Gentlemen, you can prepare the statement. I am sure that you will put the words into it that express my thoughts." As he shook hands with the Jewish leaders, he remarked, "we shall do all in our power to be of service to your people in this tragic moment." According to Held's estimate, Roosevelt had talked 80 percent of the time. [48]
After clearing the group's press release with the White House, Wise informed reporters that Roosevelt had authorized him to say "that he was profoundly shocked to learn that two million Jews had perished as a result of Nazi rule and crimes" and that "the American people will hold the perpetrators of these crimes to strict accountability in a day of reckoning which will surely come." Wise also furnished the press with copies of the delegation's letter to Roosevelt and the twenty-page sum mary of extermination data. [49]
News reports of this press conference emphasized that two million Jews had been killed and five million more faced extermination. And some data from the twenty-page summary were published. But the coverage of this event was spotty, and most newspapers that did report it gave it little prominence. The New York Times, for instance, provided a very thorough account, but it appeared on page 20, unusually deep in the paper for any news directly concerning the President. The Washington Post printed only a small report and placed it far inside the paper. [50]
The meeting with the President completed the five-pan plan undertaken by the Temporary Committee. On the initiative of Wise and the American Jewish Congress, the committee was dissolved, ending this two-week venture in united Jewish action. [51]
Soon after the White House visit, the Jewish leaders' hope for a stern war-crimes warning materialized. The statement did not arise from the meeting with Roosevelt, however. The British government was already pressing it on the United States and the Soviet Union when Wise and his colleagues talked with the President. British public feeling and hard work by the British section of the World Jewish Congress had pushed the British government into action. The American State Department cooperated with great reluctance. [52]
The limited publicity about extermination that American Jewish efforts had achieved had already gone too far for some functionaries in the State Department. Soon after the Day of Mourning, R. Borden Reams, who was the specialist on Jewish issues for the Division of European Affairs, suggested that higher officials seek to persuade Wise
to call off, or at least to tone down, the present world-wide publicity campaign concerning "mass murders" and particularly to ask Dr. Wise to avoid any implications that the State Department furnished him with official documentary proof of these stories. [53]
Reams was somewhat more cautious, though, when Congressman Hamilton Fish (Rep., N.Y.) phoned to ask whether the State Department had official verification of the reports of the mass murders. Reams replied that the whole matter was "under consideration," hut the reports were to the best of his knowledge "as yet unconfirmed." He suggested an inquiry to Cordell Hull or another top-level departmental official. Only two days before, one of those high officials, Assistant Secretary of State Adolf A. Berle, Jr., had shown, in another context, that he had no doubt whatever about the situation. Speaking to the representative of the Finnish government, Berle strongly advised against handing over to the Germans any Jewish refugees then in Finnish territory. That, warned Berle, "was the equivalent in most cases of condemnation to a horrible death." [54]
When the British government sent its proposed war-crimes declaration to Washington, it went to Reams for evaluation. He informed the heads of his division:
I have grave doubts in regard to the desirability or advisability of issuing a statement of this nature. In the first place, these reports are unconfirmed and emanate to a great extent from the Riegner letter to Rabbi Wise. ... The statement . .. will be taken as additional confirmation of these stories and will support Rabbi Wise's contention of official confirmation from State Department sources. The way will then be open for further pressure from interested groups for action which might affect the war effort. [55]
The next day, W. G. Hayter, first secretary of the British embassy, conferred with Reams. Hayter stated the British belief that the declaration would do neither good nor harm. However, the British government was anxious to release it soon because of extreme pressure coming from several quarters, including the House of Commons. [56]
Reams warned Hayter that the British statement
was extremely strong and definite. Its issuance would be accepted by the Jewish communities of the world as complete proof of the stories which are now being spread about.... In addition the various Governments of the United Nations would expose themselves to increased pressure from all sides to do something more specific in order to aid these people. [57]
Reams informed his division chiefs that the best course would be simply to have the United Nations issue another general statement that war criminals would be punished. If the declaration proposed by the British were accepted, however, the phrase "reports from Europe which leave no room for doubt" (that extermination of the Jews is in progress) should be replaced with "numerous and trustworthy reports from Europe." Officials higher in the State Department decided to endorse the British proposal, but weakened the wording even more than Reams had suggested. In the final version, the line read "numerous reports from Europe." [58]
The UN declaration, signed by the three main Allies and the governments of eight occupied countries, was issued on December 17. It pointed specifically at the German government's "intention to exterminate the Jewish people in Europe," and it condemned "in the strongest possible terms this bestial policy of cold-blooded extermination." It affirmed that "the necessary practical measures" would be taken to insure that those responsible for the crimes would be brought to retribution. Despite the State Department's weakening modification, it remained a forceful statement, the strongest concerning atrocities against Jews to be issued by the Allied powers during World War n. Furthermore, it committed the United States, Britain, and the Soviet Union for the first time to postwar prosecution of those responsible for crimes against the European Jews. [59]
When the declaration was read in the House of Commons, everyone there rose simultaneously and stood in silence for two minutes, a demonstration of sympathy reported as unprecedented in Parliament's history. The Vatican's silence was also impressive. Asked by the American representative to the Holy See whether the Pope could make a similar declaration on the extermination of the Jews, the papal secretary of state replied that the Vatican could not condemn particular atrocities publicly but that it had frequently denounced atrocities in general. [60]
The UN declaration was better publicized in the American press than most developments connected with the Holocaust. Most newspapers reported on it, and several ran the story on the front page. The joint warning thus helped spread the facts of genocide. So, to a lesser degree, did a development that occurred shortly afterward. [61]
On December 19, the United Nations Information Office in New York released a report that once again authenticated the accounts of genocide. It was a comprehensive summary of the most telling data then available, including evidence concerning the killing centers at Chelmno and Belzec and a country-by-country analysis of the fate of the Jews, which proved the "continent-wide consistency" of the Nazi campaign of annihilation. Poland, the bulletin declared, had become "one vast center for murdering Jews." Released on a Saturday, the new report received wide coverage and fairly prominent exposure in the Sunday press. [62]
The UN declaration of December 17 brought a small measure of hope to American Jews; at last the powers had taken public notice of the European Jewish agony and seemed concerned about it. Stephen Wise considered it an additional gain that "the declaration places the official stamp of authenticity on the reports which have shocked the world." An editorial in the New York Times bore him out: the joint statement, it noted, is "based on officially established facts; it is an official indictment." Reams's fear that the declaration would be seen as confirmation of the extermination reports was realized. But his other concern, that the governments "would expose themselves to increased pressure ... to do something ... to aid these people," was only slowly becoming a reality. [63]
The same Times editorial expressed a view frequently heard during the Holocaust years: "The most tragic aspect of the situation is the world's helplessness to stop the horror while the war is going on. The most it can do is to denounce the perpetrators and promise them individual and separate retribution." A complete halt to the mass murder was indeed virtually impossible short of victory over the Nazis. Proponents of rescue recognized that. But they rejected the view that nothing could be done except to denounce the perpetrators. Inability to halt the entire genocide machine was no valid argument against attempting to rescue those who might be saved. Wise, reacting to the UN declaration, asserted that, important as it was, other steps "to save those still alive" were essential and possible. That viewpoint gained strength steadily during December among those concerned for the stricken European Jews. Before the month ended, several rescue proposals had emerged. [64]
One frequent suggestion called for providing havens of refuge for Jews who might succeed in getting out of Axis territory. England, the United States, and the other Allies should open their doors and the British should remove restrictions on immigration to Palestine. In addition, the United Nations should encourage neutrals such as Turkey, Switzerland, and Sweden to accept Jewish refugees by agreeing to share maintenance costs and to move them elsewhere after the war. Another plan called for sending food and medical supplies, under proper safeguards against Nazi confiscation, to the starving Jews in Axis Europe. Yet another suggested an appeal from the United Nations to the people in the occupied countries to aid and shelter Jews and to help them with escape efforts. [65]
One other recommendation, first voiced by the Committee for a Jewish Army of Stateless and Palestinian Jews, called for the establishment of an "American Commission of military and governmental experts" charged vaguely with finding "a way to stop this wholesale murder." With time, it became increasingly clear that a special government rescue agency offered the best hope for saving significant numbers of Jews. [66]
Throughout December 1942, the organization most active in developing rescue proposals and seeking support for them was the Zionist-oriented American Jewish Congress, aided by its affiliate, the World Jewish Congress. A special Planning Committee was formed that designed an ambitious campaign to arouse public opinion. Effective pressure could then be brought on the government to induce it to act. [67]
Plans called for marches of hundred of thousands of Jews through the streets of New York and other large cities. Jewish children were to leave school to join the processions. Appeals were to go out to Americans of Polish, Czech, Yugoslav, and other national backgrounds to join the processions or hold parallel demonstrations. On the day of the marches, Jewish stores were to close, and a work stoppage was to be arranged through the cooperation of the AFL and the CIO. And, as an offshoot of the processions, Jewish mass delegations were to travel to Washington and appeal to Congress. [68]
Another project looked to the Christian churches to hold Days of Mourning and to explain the facts of the extermination at church services. Additional plans called for enlisting the support of newspaper editors, radio broadcasters. educators' and women's organizations, liberal groups, congressmen, and other political leaders. [69]
The Planning Committee also tried to persuade the Office of War Information (OWI) to publicize the extermination news. But the OWI director, Elmer Davis, insisted that his agency's function was to transmit statements that represented government policy. If the State Department had issued the extermination statements, Davis pointed out, it would have been comparatively easy for the OWI to publicize them. He advised Wise and his colleagues to persuade the State Department to release the information officially. Such an effort, of course, was doomed to fail. [70]
The OWI's reluctance to act without State Department authorization eliminated another promising project. The Advertising Council was an association set up to mobilize advertising in support of the war effort. Its director believed the chances were excellent for getting national advertisers to finance a publicity campaign focusing on the Nazi massacres of civilians, including Jews, and calling for rescue measures. If the OWI had supported the plan, the Advertising Council and the nation's leading advertisers unquestionably would have cooperated. But the OWI would not, without State Department endorsement, and that ended the proposal. [71]
In the end, the American Jewish Congress carried out very few of its plans. Why? For one thing, cooperation from non-Jews was meager. In addition, some Planning Committee members had reservations about marches and other mass-action projects, fearing they "might make the wrong kind of impression on the non-Jewish community." Probably most important, the American Jewish Congress was trying to do too many things with too few capable people and with resources that were too limited. The Planning Committee did not work steadily at its task, and its leaders were heavily occupied with numerous other matters. [72]
There is no way to assess the potential of the unfulfilled projects. But mass processions in several cities and a mass delegation in Washington would at least have brought the issue to the public's attention. And they might conceivably have forwarded the cause of rescue considerably more than that. The mere threat of a march on Washington by 50,000 to 100,000 blacks in 1941 had extracted an executive order from President Roosevelt that helped increase employment opportunities for black Americans. In January 1944, when pressures finally became great enough, FDR agreed to an executive order establishing an agency to rescue European Jews. A massive demonstration of concern in late 1942 or early 1943 might have influenced him to take action many months sooner than he did. [73]
During the last weeks of 1942, several Zionists, among them Wise and other members of the Planning Committee, applied part of their energies to the rescue problem. Most Zionist resources, however, continued to be concentrated on the postwar goal of a Jewish state in Palestine. In 1943, the pattern persisted, as rescue remained a secondary priority. Even so, the Zionists of the American Jewish Congress and the World Jewish Congress were more active and effective in pressing the rescue issue in the United States than any of the other major Jewish organizations. None of them, the American Jewish Congress included, managed the dramatic change in course that would have been necessary to wage an all-out rescue campaign. [74]
Nevertheless, by the end of 1942, concrete rescue proposals had begun to appear and the first steps had been taken to arouse public opinion. Along with continued advances in those areas, 1943 would bring a marked increase in pressures on the United States government to act.
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Notes:[i] Analysis of nineteen important newspapers throughout the United States shows that only five placed the story on page 1, none of them prominently. Two of the nineteen did not carry the report at all.
That same day, virtually all the newspapers found room on the front page for essentially frivolous "human interest" stories. This was also the case on the many other occasions when important news of the Holocaust appeared on inner pages or was omitted altogether. [1]
[ii] Of the nineteen newspapers, only ten reported Wise's November 25 press conference at all, and then mostly inconspicuously on inside pages.
[iii] When questioned on this point, the editors explained in print that they had asked the State Department whether it had authorized Wise's statements. The State Department had responded, the Christian Century wrote, but would not permit its answer to be published. "We have that reply in our files; it does not support Dr. Wise's contention." It did not deny Wise's contention either, but the Christian Century left that fact unmentioned. [19]
[iv] To name only his most important posts, he was president of the American Jewish Congress, the World Jewish Congress, and the Jewish Institute of Religion (a theological college), chairman of the American Emergency Committee for Zionist Affairs, vice-president of the Zionist Organization of America, and co-chairman of the American Jewish Conference. He edited Opinion magazine and was a force in the journal Congress Weekly. He was also rabbi of the large Free Synagogue of New York City, though for part of the war he relinquished much of his work there. [31]
[v] The Washington Post, which did nor print such an editorial, carried five editorials during late November and December on the terrible Coconut Grove nightclub fire in Boston, which claimed more than 400 lives. Horror closer at hand had an impact. [35]
[vi] A one-hour shutdown had been considered, but the leadership decided against it out of concern that Jews would be accused of hampering the war effort. The ten-minute stoppage was the result of worker pressure; the time was made up the following day. [38]