Did America hesitate to rescue the Jews?

Answer 1

America did help the Jews in the second world war. In WWII in Europe 406,000 were killed 600,000 Wounded; 5,600 American civilians where killed.

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You question assumes hindsight. The purpose of the concentration camps was not even understood until the final months of the second world war, let alone the conditions or their function there.

You could argue that Europe wasn't even America's fight, they could have limited their action to the Pacific Ocean and not been involved in Europe at all. It was only the alliance with the Allied countries of Europe which they (The American forces) honoured that gave them a duty to assist in the liberation of Europe. [Steady on. Nazi Germany declared war on the US ...]

Amongst other things, the American forces were amongst the first to liberate the concentration camps. After the liberation the local Germans from surrounding towns near the camps were paraded through the camps because not even they know what was going on in them. If people a few miles away didn't realise the extent of the NAZI's so called final solution, how do you expect a photograph at 20,000 ft to tell military intelligence what was going on?

Finally it's worth noting that they stayed in those camps and provided aid and medicine to the prisoners, and after the war many Jews were permitted to emigrate to America. This formed a relationship with Israel which exists to this day.

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Actually, the Holocaust was known and reported on in both the U.S. and Britain from 1942 onwards. Most of it the information came from the Polish Home Army (Underground). There was press coverage - even an article in the Readers' Digest in February 1943. The first major camp liberated was Majdanek, which was taken by the Soviet Army on 22 July 1944. Journalists from other Allied countries visited the camp and Life Magazine had a full-page article on it on 18 September 1944.

Despite coverage, it seems that the Holocaust didn't 'register' with the public in the Allied countries. In a war, battlefield news is usually more interesting than ongoing processes.

It seems to me that there was not that much that the Allies could have done.

Please see the related question.

Answer 2

No, the Americans did not hesitate to rescue the Jews of Europe during World War 2. America was, at the time (according to historical accounts), unaware of the atrocities being committed by the Nazis against the Jews. Although there were rumors of the horrors from survivors and relatives of European Jews living abroad, it was only after landing on the beaches of France on June 6, 1944 and the subsequent march toward Berlin did the Allied forces discover the concentration camps.

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The Holocaust was reported in the US media during the war from late 1942 onwards. There was even an article in February 1943 in Reader's Digest by Ben Hecht on what was happening to the Jews in Nazi-occupied territory ... There was a book on the subject by Jan Karski that sold 400,000 copies in the US before the end of World War 2. Perhaps this somehow didn't 'register' or perhaps the American public found it all very boring by comparison with reports about battles. The big problem was that in practical terms there was very little that the US government could do. (In Britain a committee was set up to try to find ways of rescuing Jews but was in practice not able to do anything).

Answer 3

There are many reasons. At the time this kind of question was not asked, again for many reasons. The questions that you should ask is who was in the best position to help, this may or may not lead you back to the same point, but you will have started to answer you question.