Authors: Robert H. Abzug, Abzug
ISBN-13: 9780312133931, ISBN-10: 0312133936
Format: Paperback
Publisher: Bedford/St. Martin's
Date Published: January 1999
Edition: 1st Edition
Robert H. Abzug is professor of history and American studies and director of the liberal arts honors programs at the University of Texas at Austin, where he has received several teaching awards. He has also taught at the University of California, Los Angeles, and held the Eric Voegelin Visiting Professorship at the University of Munich. He has published widely in a number of fields, including the Holocaust, antebellum America, and the history of religion in America. Among his major publications are Passionate Liberator: Theodore Dwight Weld and the Dilemma of Reform (1980), Inside the Vicious Heart: America and the Liberation of Nazi Concentration Camps (1985), and Cosmos Crumbling: American Reform and the Religious Imagination (1994). He is currently writing a biography of American psychologist Rollo May.
Were Americans the heroic liberators of Nazi concentration camp victims in 1945, or were they knowing and apathetic bystanders to unspeakable brutality and annihilation for a dozen years? Historians have long debated what the United States knew about Hitler’s gruesome Final Solution, when they knew it, and whether they should have intervened sooner. Wrapping historical narrative around 60 primary sources — including news clippings, speeches, letters, magazine articles, and government reports — Abzug chronicles the unfolding events in Nazi Germany while tracing the resurgence of anti-Semitism and tightening immigration policies in the United States. He relies on the American journalistic sources through which U.S. citizens read about events in Europe to provide students a real context to understand Americans’ horror when they realized that the reports of the Holocaust were not exaggerations or fabrications. An epilogue examines the complexity of historical interpretations and moral judgments that have evolved since 1945. Useful apparatus includes photographs, a chronology, questions for consideration, a bibliography, and an index.
Presents a selection of original documents, including letters from Germany, journalistic accounts, diary entries, and other documents that illustrate the varied reactions of Americans as they witnessed the Holocaust. Documents are divided into three sections: the first years of the Nazi regime (1933-1935); exclusion, emigration, and war (1935-1941); and the development of popular American awareness (1942-1945). Annotation c. by Book News, Inc., Portland, Or.
Foreword | ||
Preface | ||
Introduction: Facing the Horrors | 1 | |
Pt. 1 | The First Years of the Nazi Regime, 1933-1935 | 5 |
American Jewish Committee, from The Jews in Nazi Germany, 1933 | 8 | |
The Official Decrees and Measures against the Jews | 9 | |
Execution of Decrees | 11 | |
The Effect of the Anti-Jewish Measures | 14 | |
Acts of Violence against Jews Since Hitler Became Chancellor | 16 | |
Letters of the American Friends Service Committee | 24 | |
Clarence E. Pickett, Letter to J.S. Conning, May 5, 1932 | 25 | |
Richard L. Cary, Letter to Clarence E. Pickett, June 28, 1932 | 26 | |
Clarence E. Pickett, Letter to Gilbert L. MacMaster, March 30 (typed April 3), 1933 | 27 | |
Richard L. Cary, Letter to Clarence E. Pickett, July 23, 1933 | 29 | |
The Anti-Nazi Boycott | 33 | |
G.E. Harriman, Anti-Nazi Boycott Circular Letter, 1933 | 34 | |
Jewish Labor Committee, Anti-Nazi Poster, 1934 | 35 | |
Mainstream Views | 36 | |
Robert E. Asher, "A Jew Protests against Protesters," Christian Century, April 12, 1933 | 36 | |
"Mass Meeting Protests Hitler's Anti-Jewish Program," Christian Century, April 26, 1933 | 41 | |
Walter Lippmann, "Hitler's Speech," Los Angeles Times, May 19, 1933 | 42 | |
Personal American Press Reports from Hitler's Germany | 45 | |
"Editor Holds Riots Inspired by Nazis," New York Times,July 26, 1935 | 45 | |
Reverend L. M. Birkhead, "Nazis Ask World to Combat Jews," New York Times, July 28, 1935 | 47 | |
Pt. 2 | Exclusion, Emigration, and War, 1935-1941 | 51 |
"Germany: Hitler Decrees Swastika Reich Flag: Bars Intermarriage; Relegates Jews to Dark Ages," Newsweek, September 21, 1935 | 55 | |
"Germany: Jews Begin to Feel a Soft Spot in the Iron Heel," Newsweek, September 28, 1935 | 59 | |
Participation in the 1936 Berlin Olympics: Jews, African Americans, and Others | 60 | |
"Statement of Non-Jewish Advocates of Boycott," New York Times, October 25, 1935 | 61 | |
Ernest Lee Jahncke, Letter to Count Henri Baillet-Latour, November 25, 1935 | 63 | |
"NAACP Asks AAU to Abandon Olympics," Pittsburgh Courier, December 14, 1935 | 67 | |
"The Black Eagles," Pittsburgh Courier, July 11, 1936 | 69 | |
Refugees, Kristallnacht, and Coughlin | 70 | |
"Refugees," Time, July 18, 1938 | 71 | |
Louis Lochner, Letter to Betty and Bobby, November 28, 1938 | 72 | |
Henry Morgenthau, Diary Entry, November 16, 1938 | 74 | |
Exchange between Raymond Geist and George Messersmith, December 5 and 20, 1938 | 75 | |
Father Coughlin, from Am I an Anti-Semite? December 11, 1938 | 77 | |
"Topics of the Times: Refugee Ship," New York Times, June 8, 1939 | 83 | |
An Atlantic Monthly Symposium on Jews | 85 | |
Albert Jay Nock, from "The Jewish Problem in America," Atlantic Monthly, June and July 1941 | 86 | |
James Marshall, from "The Anti-Semitic Problem in America," Atlantic Monthly, August 1941 | 92 | |
Frances Strauss, "The Intermarriage," Atlantic Monthly, September 1941 | 95 | |
The Lindbergh Controversy | 99 | |
"F.D.R. Creating War Incidents, Lindbergh Says," Chicago Daily Tribune, September 11, 1941 | 99 | |
"Lindbergh's Nazi Pattern," New Republic, September 22, 1941 | 103 | |
"The Forbidden Theme," Christian Century, September 24, 1941 | 105 | |
Pt. 3 | Imagining the Unimaginable, 1942-1945 | 109 |
The Nazi War against the Jews | 109 | |
American Knowledge and Comprehension | 111 | |
"Wandering Jews," Time, December 15, 1941 | 112 | |
Michael Williams, "Views and Reviews," Commonweal, December 26, 1941 | 114 | |
Reinhold Niebuhr, "Jews after the War," Nation, February 21 and 28, 1942 | 116 | |
Varian Fry, "The Massacre of the Jews," New Republic, December 21, 1942 | 126 | |
Henry Morgenthau, Diary Entry, December 3, 1942 | 134 | |
Charles Clayton Morrison, "Horror Stories from Poland," Christian Century, December 9, 1942 | 136 | |
Charles Clayton Morrison, "Polish Atrocities Are Entered in the Books," Christian Century, December 30, 1942 | 137 | |
Tosha Bialer, "Behind the Wall (Life - and Death - in Warsaw's Ghetto)," Collier's, February 20 and 27, 1943 | 138 | |
Ben Hecht, "Remember Us," Reader's Digest, February 1943 | 146 | |
Examples of Anti-Semitic Doggerel | 149 | |
Freda Kirchwey, "While the Jews Die," Nation, March 13, 1943 | 152 | |
From Minutes of the American Delegation at the Bermuda Conference, April 20, 1943 | 156 | |
Freda Kirchwey, "A Program of Inaction," Nation, June 5, 1943 | 160 | |
Bill Downs, "Blood at Babii Yar - Kiev's Atrocity Story," Newsweek, December 6, 1943 | 162 | |
Alfred Kazin, "In Every Voice, in Every Ban," New Republic, January 10, 1944 | 164 | |
Fred Eastman, "A Reply to Screamers," Christian Century, February 16, 1944 | 170 | |
From Final Summary Report of the Executive Director, War Refugee Board, September 15, 1945 | 174 | |
Extermination Camps Revealed | 179 | |
Richard Lauterbach, "Murder, Inc.," Time, September 11, 1944 | 179 | |
"Biggest Atrocity Story Breaks in Poland," Christian Century, September 13, 1944 | 182 | |
Jan Karski, "Polish Death Camp," Collier's, October 14, 1944 | 183 | |
Views of the Liberations | 191 | |
J.D. Pletcher, The Americans Have Come - At Last! 1945 | 194 | |
Edward R. Murrow, Broadcast Transcript from Buchenwald, April 15, 1945 | 198 | |
James Agee, from Agee on Film, May 19, 1945 | 202 | |
"Gazing into the Pit," Christian Century, May 9, 1945 | 204 | |
Epilogue: The Changing Historical Perspective | 207 | |
App | Chronology of Events Related to the Holocaust (1933-1945) | 214 |
App: Questions for Consideration | 218 | |
App: Selected Bibliography | 219 | |
Index | 225 |