Question for the WW2 history buffs....Follow

So we knew about the concentration camps, and the ovens and did not actively get involved?

And now for someone that actually knows something about WW2



Roosevelt delayed US entry into the war for as long as possible in order to better prepare for it. What exactly we knew about the extermination of the Jews and when we knew it is still a matter under debate. While it was common knowledge that the Jews were being terribly oppressed, it certainly was not common knowledge in the US that they were being exterminated. Keep in mind that anti-semitism was very common in the US as it was elsewhere, and that reports of the concentration camps were often dismissed by anti-semites as being hysteria and an obvious attempt by Zionists to get the US involved in the war.

We were very involved in the war even prior to Pearl Harbor. US Navy ships were escorting Britian-bound convoys halfway across the Atlantic long before Pearl Harbor, and it was common practice for US ships and aircraft to radio the position of any German submarines they spotted to any British units in the area, even when not engaging them. We actually lost a few ships that were attacked by German subs while escorting convoys, but since we were supposedly neutral - and therefore not supposed to be escorting them - we didn't react with a declaration of war.

Would we have gotten involved even without Pearl Harbor? Most assuredly. Keep in mind, we were already supplying Britain and Russia with huge amounts of war materials (another violation of our supposed neutrality), while at the same time shifting our economy onto a war footing. Hitler was appalled that the Japanese attacked our naval base at Pearl Harbor. The last thing he wanted was to have the US become an active participant in the war. It was all the Germans could do to fight the British and the Russians, having the US come in on the side of Germany's enemies spelled certain doom for them.

In an attempt to get some relief on his eastern front, Hitler declared war on the US immediately after Pearl Harbor, in the hope that the Japanese would in turn declare war on Russia, and threaten Russia from the east, which in turn would have drawn off Russian troops from the German/Russian front. But the Japanese didn't declare war on Russia, so that plan sort of backfired on Hitler. Had he not declared war on the US, we would not really have had any excuse to attack Germany as they had nothing to do with the attack on Pearl Harbor.

I hope that helps.

There's some fairly damning (on the face, anyway) evidence that we knew about the camps, etc before we entered the war and certainly before we made reaching them any priority. News was leaked by Austrian and Czech Jews and related to the world by the World Jewish Congress and the Polish Government-In-Exile informed the Allies about it as well. Reconnissance photos of Auschwitz/Birkenau exist pre-dating any attempt at liberation or even disruption of the camp activities. But it's easy to use hindsight and say what should have been and harder to prove that people knew of the scope of what had happened and was happening. Likewise, liberating camps in Poland was easier said than done in 1942-1944 and, although Jewish authorities pleaded with Allied officals to bomb the railways leading to the camps in '44, what the actual result would have been is anyone's guess.

I have a hard time condemning the Allied forces entirely for not stopping the Holocaust sooner but I do take issue with people who would have you believe that we entered WW II for any reason concerning the plight of the Jews. As Deathwysh points out, anti-Semitism was hardly unknown to the United States or western Europe/Britian. In 1938, spurred on by the continuing reports of hostility against the Jews in Germany, several of the world's nations came to the Evian Conference to discuss allowing Jews immigrate into their borders. The results were Canada chosing to allow only farmers, Britian allowing very limited immigration and closing off the Palastinian colony. Belgium, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Ireland, and Switzerland all claimed unemployeement numbers prevented them from allowing even more refugees into their borders. The Central and South American nations almost all said their governments were unwilling to allow any more Jews into the country. And Australia said bluntly "it will no doubt be appreciated that as we have no real racial problem, we are not desirous of importing one by encouraging any scheme of large scale foreign migration". The rather tiny Dominican Republic, to its credit, decided to allow 100,000 Jews to immigrate. While the US adopted to let some Jews enter, we were mainly after the scientists, etc and turned away many, many others on the basis of already filled immigration quotas. Had Hitler stopped at invading Poland and eliminating the Jewish population in Germany/Poland, I doubt we'd have ever done anything to try and stop it.

As for Hitler's "plan", it was common knowledge to anyone who was looking. Hell, in January '39, Hitler said that in the event of war, the end result would "not be [...] the victory of the Jewry, but the annihilation of the Jewish race in Europe". Later quotes were obviously no more promising. As the Evian Conference showed, the world was well aware of the open hostility to the Jews in Germany. Again though, I don't think that from Hitler's hate rhetoric most people understood the scope of what was happening or would happen. At least I'd like to think that was the case.

I started re-reading for the -nth time Maus (and Maus II) by Art Spiegelman the other night. If you've never read them, I highly recommend it. Not so full of any historic details that you're asking about but a couple of very powerful books (I assume they're available as one book these days).

Edited, Sat Jan 29 22:34:21 2005 by Jophiel

The upper levels of our government certainly knew. Over time, the knowledge became more and more commn as the number of horror stories spread.

Would we have jumped in without Pearl Harbor? Probably, though not certainly.

The USA was in a very strong state of isolationism. We actually preferred to stick our heads in the sand. Considering the econmic state of the nation and the sacrifices required of the general citizenry to conduct this war, it was considered a bad risk, politically, to ask this of the nation.

Had the Axis spent but a little time and energy soothing our fears instead of Pearl Harboring us, they could have waited to take us on until after the European Allies were subdued, had that come to be. Japan was overly confident due to their huge successes prior to the US gearing up its war machine.

Speaking of WWII, am I mistaken in my recollection that the **** gold was on display here in the US (in NY, I think?) for many years after WWII? That is until some people started asking too many questions.

It allways irritates me that people allways forget it wasn't just the Jews that where in the consentration camps.

The Romani amongst others where nearly wiped out but no mention of them this weekend.

/mourn ALL that died. not just one group.

Well, the US has really improved its stance on stopping genocides since then... *cough* Africa *cough*

Although, we have taken an active role in other areas such as Eastern Europe and the Middle East (which is shaping up spectacularly, by the way).

With the US's history of wiping out Native Americans, we should be the first ones to act in these situations to atone for our past mistakes.

I could really go off on the whole Native American Casino thing, but that's another thread, another time.

It kinda makes me wonder, would there have ever been any concentration camps if we had accepted Hitler's diaspora, instead of forcing his "Final Solution"?

I mean it was basicly a last resort for him, and while not excusing the actions at all, might we have also had a part in the camps for not accepting the deported jews?

If the US was guilty of anything during WWII, it was allowing Stalin to spread communism through Germany and Eastern Europe after the war. Our complacence and eagerness to enter a time of peace caused years of conflict, possibly even the Vietnam War.

Many Polish people today actually consider the Russians at the time to be just as bad as the *****.

Yes they did.

Now go find an argument you're competent to engage.

Like: Spiderman or Batman?

F[i][/i]uck off