Trudy Gold
America and the Holocaust, Part 2
Trudy Gold - America and the Holocaust, Part 2
- As I said to you on Tuesday, we’ve made the decision not to commemorate the show with any kind of ceremony for January 27th. We have decided we are going to do that for Yom HaShoah. We felt that this year it would be more appropriate. But nevertheless, out of respect and because I think it’s such an important, although a very dark area, it is something that I will be looking at. And next week I’m going to be looking at Ben Hecht and the Bergson Group. And then I’ll be looking in a separate session with Nahum Goldmann and Stephen Wise. And then we’re going to move on to something lighter. And I want to start with a passage from Solzhenitsyn. He said this, “The line dividing good and evil "cuts through the heart of every human being "and who is willing to destroy a piece of his own heart.” And the other great quote, “Evil comes from a failure to think.” And against the backdrop of what I’m talking about, and of course, what I find fascinating, at a time when anti-Semitism is absolutely through the roof in Britain, and I presume the same thing is happening in America, in terms of the television, there isn’t a night where there aren’t Holocaust films and it’s not making an indent. And I feel I can say this because I have worked in this field for 40 years, and I’m going to say we all failed, including myself. And now I think we have to just rethink what we need to do if we can use education to combat it all. But the questions I want to put in your mind, and I’m sure many of you have already discussed amongst yourselves and thought deeply and read about this, was it possible to rescue the Jews of Europe?
Remember, between 1933 and 1939 there was wide publicity of the social, economic and political exclusion of the Jews of Germany and then Austria and then Czecho. And we’ve already discussed, have we not, the Evian conference, where basically the majority of countries of the world decided to do nothing. And in fact, the British delegate, Lord Winterton, who was known as Wellies Winterton because he was too wet for jackboots, that’s what they said of him. He actually sent a letter to the German ambassador, apologising from an unmoral interference. And then of course you had Kristallnacht, where as a response to that, good people put pressure on the British, they put pressure on the Dutch, the Belgians, and children were omitted and admitted to Britain, the 10,000 kinder. But they had to be sponsored. And here was a motion passed, we talked about that, by Richard Wagner, Wagner, I should say, to bring in 20,000 children over two years. But it failed. So basically, Hitler makes a speech in 1939 where he says, “If the Jews push the world "into a world war, then they will suffer for it.” They would die for it. But in fact, even after the invasion of Poland, even though Jews are ghettoised, humiliated, murdered, nevertheless, it’s not the final solution, that actually begins with the invasion of Russia. So basically the questions you have to ask yourself, what were the opportunities to rescue Jews? And I think we’ve already established the Evian Conference.
And don’t forget Palestine, Palestine from the Zionist point of view, if you think about it, one of the reasons behind Zionism was that the world will never fully, the diaspora will never really be accepted. Consequently, the real answer for the Jews was to reconstitute their nation. But of course it was the British mandate. And even though the British had issued the Balfour Declaration, more and more Britain was realising they were out of their depth, they didn’t want to alienate the Arabs, and by May 1939 they issued the white paper on Palestine that cuts the Jewish quota to 15,000 a year for five years, whoever had the majority had the state. And that slams the door when Jewry is at its most threatened. And the other question you have to ask yourselves, were the Nazis prepared to forgo the murders? So if you could keep that in mind as we gradually go through the various characters that we’re going to talk about. And what I’m going to do is to chronologically talk about when the final solution begins. And don’t forget, there’s already information coming from the Warsaw Ghetto. The Polish Underground has contacts in London with the Polish government in exile. There are nine governments in exile and information is coming through to the Polish government through the Poles about the mistreatment of Jews, the mistreatment of Poles, and also the mistreatment of Catholics in Poland. So basically there’s a trickling through of information. And remember, after the invasion, when Hitler turns west and invades the Benelux countries in France, America still has journalists, so more and more information is coming through. But the final solution begins with the invasion of Russia. So can we have a look at that.
There you see the Nazis invade the Soviet Union after the Ribbentrop-Molotov Pact. It’s a total shock to the Soviets. They had wanted this alliance, though they were ideologically completely opposed to each other, it had bought Stalin much of Eastern Europe, which was his dream. Now following the Germans army into battle, let’s see the next slide. These are the Einsatzgruppen. Now the Einsatzgruppen, it is something that I’m more and more as I get older, I still find it extraordinary because I’ve always believed in education and reason. And the Einsatzgruppen was composed of 3000 men, the majority had PhDs from top German universities. The leader of one group was a pastor, and we know that they worked with the German police, the German army, for years the Wehrmacht managed to get away with it. But when the Russian archives were opened after the collapse of communism, there is so much more information. And also they were very easily abetted by many of the countries that they had occupied, like for example, the Lithuanians, the Latvians and Ukrainians. So the Einsatzgruppen actions, and this is when we begin to see knowledge coming through, mainly from the Russians. Okay, this is very important. So let’s see the next slide. Unbeknownst to the allies, this wasn’t yet known, on the 17th, beg your pardon, on the 22nd January, 1942, Heydrich convened a conference at Wannsee. Now some of you will have visited Wannsee, it’s a beautiful villa on the shores of Lake Wannsee. And that is a list of the numbers of Jews, country by country, and basically they are set out for extermination, the 11 million Jews of Europe. Some of them are in countries at war, some of them are neutral countries. And there is a particularly chilling entry which says Estonia free of Jews. Why? Because they had already been murdered.
Now, the conference was meant to be held earlier because as I’ve already said, the Einsatzgruppen begins but some of those great parodies of Aryan manhood were getting drunk. There were even cases of them going mad, you know, shooting men, women and children, besides bullets were expendable. To give you a glimpse of the evil of Nazism, they were already murdering their mentally and physically impaired. Mainly they’d started by lethal injection, but now they were using gas. So the notion was, can we do it more quickly? And Wannsee, people around the table, two thirds of them were lawyers with very high qualifications. Forget the notion that it’s gutter up, I’ve said this to you before. The educated, education isn’t what we need to think about now, we need to think about empathy, we need to think about what creates the moral conscience. That’s why I do quite a lot of biography, because somehow we’ve got to be able to conquer this kind of horror. So the Wannsee Conference writes it all down. Now let’s see the next slide. This is of course is Pearl Harbour. By this time of course, Roosevelt was helping the allies with Lend-Lease, et cetera. But then finally, the Japanese destroyed Pearl Harbour, which signals the outbreak of war, and five days later, let’s go on please, there you see U.S. declares war against Japan. And then the next slide, Germany declares war on the United States. So Britain is no longer alone. Russia’s in the war since the invasion in the summer of ‘41, and now America stands with them. But of course, and as I mentioned last time, Russia begins to send Jewish intellectuals to America to begin to campaign for fundraising. And this was very much, and the Joint was allowed to help.
So this is very, very important. Now, can we have the next slide please? This is the World Jewish Congress, and it’s going to play an important part. The World Jewish Congress had been established in Geneva in August '36 as a permanent democratic organisation. Its aim at the time was to promote Jewish unity and to strengthen Jewish political influence. And the aim is to secure the survival of the Jewish people. If you think about it, the rise of antisemitism, et cetera, and it was also Zionist. One of its aims was to help with the creation of the Jewish state. In fact, the German Jewish establishment was very wary because they were terrified that they were alienating the Nazis even more, and it would make it worse for them. This was Stephen Wise at a press conference. And I’m going to, as I said, I’m going to give a separate session on him. I must make it clear that the Congress is not a parliament. It is nothing more than an assembly of representatives of those Jewries who choose to associate themselves in defence of Jewish right. The Congress will not be wholly representative until all Jews choose to be represented by it. So it’s a voluntary body. Stephen Wise becomes chairman of the executive. Nahum Goldmann, who also I’m going to talk about later, is chair of the administrative committee. And it immediately drew up a declaration to ask Britain to not halt Jewish immigration to Palestine. This is at the period 1936-37 when the British are having commissions, the Peel Commission, deciding what to do about Palestine. And it was presented to the British diplomat in Bern. Okay, at first they chose Paris as the headquarters and opened a liaison office with the League of Nations in Geneva. It was first headed by Paul Guggenheim and then by a man called Gerhart Riegner. So there’s a two-prong attack against Nazism, the League of Nations, an attempt to organise boycotts.
Of course, neither were very successful. When World War II broke out, they moved to Geneva and the headquarters moved to New York, working closely with the American Jewish Congress and with the Joint. And a special office was established in London because you have the nine allied governments in exile. In late 1941, early 1942, Western diplomats and journalists, they’re beginning to get this scattered information about massacres in Poland and Russia. And in June 1942, Ignacy Schwarzbart, who was a representative of the Polish government in exile, Jewish, had meetings with the World Jewish Congress. Now let’s turn, can we see the next slide? Gerhart Riegner. Now Gerhart Riegner is to set off a chain of events. He was born in Berlin, he trained as a lawyer. He lived a long life, from what he saw in his life it’s almost too much to bear. He worked with the World Jewish Congress, first as a lawyer, and then as a director of the Geneva Office from 1939 to 1948. Later he was a director of the World Executive and he was at the centre of important Jewish issues from then on until he retired in 1983. He was the Secretary-General of the World Jewish Congress. World War II begins, Switzerland is surrounded largely by axis-controlled countries.
And consequently, on behalf of the World Jewish Congress, Riegner collected information through the Jewish networks and also distributed financial aid through these channels. Because before America is in the war the Joint can send money overseas. And consequently, Riegner in Switzerland is in a position to send aid. And of course, the Joint has also aided people like Varian Fry in Marseille. Now in mid-July, this is later known, Heinrich Himmler had toured Auschwitz, and afterwards he dined at a villa owned by a mining firm. And within weeks, the details of Himmler’s tour were revealed by a man called Edward Schultz, who was the journaling, married, managing director of this mining firm. Now this man, Schultz, he was secretly anti-Nazi. He was an informant to the Swiss and the Poles and later American intelligence. He travelled to Switzerland on July 29th, 1942, this is absolutely important, to pass on the news to a representative of the Jewish community through a Jewish Swiss instrument banker. He passes the information to Riegner who had close contacts with the World Jewish Congress. So the point is, it’s a German who gets the information through a Jewish Swiss friend to Gerhard Riegner of Wannsee. He knew about the tour, he knew about Himmler, what Hitler had been up to. And Riegner actually kept Schultz’s identity secret, and did so. It wasn’t until 1983 that historians actually were able to confirm his identity. He had been a prominent German industrialist, because he was a managing director of an important company, he travelled between Breslov and Zurich. He later had contacts with Allen Dulles, Allen Dulles who was the Swiss, he was the director of the OSS. And he passed information on what was going on.
So Riegner now has information. What happened to Schultz is that finally the Gestapo grew wary of him and he fled with his wife to Switzerland. Unfortunately, he and his wife were safe in Switzerland, his sons were in the army, and one of course was killed at the front. But a man, a German of conscience who did what he could to alert the world. And let’s have a look at the telegram that Riegner sent. Now he gets the information, he ponders it. Can you imagine? He’s being told about the Wannsee conference. And he visited on the 8th August, he visited the US consulate in Geneva, and who reported that he was in great agitation. Now let’s read it. And it also goes to Sydney Silverman MP, chairman of the British section of the World Jewish Congress from Gerhard Riegner. And it’s also going to be sent to America. “Received alarming report stating "it is in the Fuehrer’s Headquarters, a plan has been discussed. "It is under consideration, "according to which all Jews in countries occupied "or controlled by Germany numbering three and a half "to four million should, after deportation "and concentration in the East, "be at one blow exterminated, in order to resolve "once and for all the Jewish question in Europe. "Action is reported to be planned for the autumn. "Ways of execution are still being discussed, "including the use of prussic acid.
"We transmit this information "with all the necessary reservation "and exactitude cannot be confirmed. "Our informant is reported to have close connections "with the highest German authorities.” Now, this is sent from the British because Riegner has sent his telegram to the Americans and the British. And the British is forwarding on to Sydney Silverman. Okay, so the consul forwards the message to the consulate in Bern, and he says, “May well contain an element of truth. "Leland Harrison, who was the highest ranking "diplomat in Switzerland, didn’t believe it. "Writing that the mass murder plan "was likely a war rumour inspired by fear.” But he did forward it to the State Department in Washington. The State Department assumed it couldn’t possibly be true and didn’t forward it to Stephen Wise, president of the World Jewish Congress. Let’s have a look at Stephen Wise, but we will be coming back to him. We’ll be coming back to him later. Now, Riegner remember, has also gone to the British consul and who went and sent the message to Sydney Silverman in London, and the foreign office debated whether to follow it up, but decided to do so in case it had embarrassing repercussions if the public learned the news. So Riegner requested that Silverman consult New York, so he sent a copy of the message to Steven Wise, which arrived on August 29th, three weeks after he’d met with the American Consul. So you see, in a roundabout way, the Americans do not send the note. The Americans do not, it’s left to the British, who send it to Silverman, who sends it to Wise.
Wise sent it to Sumner Welles who asked Wise not to disclose it until he had investigated. Wise shared the news with other Jewish leaders and American officials, but didn’t make a public announcement. And I’ll be talking about that much later on and how the Bergson group reacted and how Wise and Goldmann reacted. Early September to late November, Welles takes the testimony from US diplomats in Switzerland, the Red Cross, the Vatican, and on November 24th, Sumner Welles tells Wise, “Confirmed and the evidence is confirmed "and justifies your deepest fears.” Can we see the next slide, please? Wise spoke with the Associated Press reporter after his State Department meeting. Welles informed him that the State Department wouldn’t publicise the Nazi’s evil plan, but gave Wise the permission to inform the press. On the 25th November, newspapers throughout the world, throughout America, I beg your pardon, reported the news, but few put it on the front page. It’s going to have a huge impact on a man called Peter Bergson who was heading the Irgun in America. And I’m going to do a lot about him. In response, Jewish communities in allied countries held rallies and vigils and declared Wednesday, December 2nd, international day of mourning. Some Hebrew newspapers added black borders to their covers, communities in Palestine, Egypt, Australia, and Nicaragua, and many countries, they fasted, services were held in 1,500 synagogues throughout America. And thousands of Jews joined a large parade down the streets of New York. The State Department was still hesitant to confirm Wise’s announcement and complained internally about the publicity. Yet there was so much public pressure that it led to the Allied Declaration of September 17th, 1942.
And if you just read the end of it, “The above-mentioned governments "and the French National Committee condemn "in the strongest possible terms this bestial policy "of cold-blooded extermination.” Now let’s go on, because now that the news is out, what is going to do? And here you see the declarations. This is from British and American newspapers, but Jewish Chronicle put it on the front page, but no American paper actually puts it on the front page. And it was Peter Bergson who saw it on page six, I think. And he was actually in America trying to raise money for an army, a Jewish army in Palestine. And that’s when he decides all his efforts now have to go on Jewish rescue. So the question now is, we know about the murders, is it possible to rescue? They don’t know about Auschwitz, they don’t know the precise details of the death camps, but they know something is happening. And the question is, what could have been done? Now let’s turn to Mr. Breckinridge Long, please. Now Breckinridge Long, he was the son of wealthy Kentucky horse breeders. He was born into a family that was considered, quote unquote, “Practically Confederate aristocracy.” There were members of his family in the government. He graduated from Princeton, he is an American prince. He studied at Washington law school. He practised law, he worked to establish the League of Nations. He was a great supporter of Woodrow Wilson. He was credited with drafting Wilson’s slogan, “He kept us out of the war” slogan. He joined the State Department and he resigned to pursue elections to the American Senate, he was unsuccessful.
He was a very close friend of Roosevelt. We had known during Wilson’s administration, he generously contributed to Roosevelt’s '32 presidential campaign. He is made American ambassador to Italy, that was his payoff. He liked Italy, he said about Mussolini, “Well-paved streets, punctual trains, black shirted storm troopers.” He somewhat admired European fascism. In a letter to a friend, “The most interesting experiment in government "to come about since the formation of our constitution.” This is what he wrote in his diary in 1938. And remember, he is important in the State Department. “Have just finished Hitler’s 'Mein Kampf,’ "it is eloquent in opposition to Jewry "and to Jews as exponents of communism and chaos.” He was violently anti-communist. “My estimate of Hitler as a man rises with the reading "of this book.” Eleanor Roosevelt, who was always on the side of the good guy, she said to her husband, “Frankly, you know, he’s a fascist.” FDR said, “I’ve told you, Eleanor, you must not say that.” In 1940, he’s back at the State Department and he is in charge of visas. Congressman Emanuel Keller, who was a Democrat from New York, he described him as austere, cold, stiff as a poker, highly diplomatic in dress and in speech, and antisemitic. In Lang’s diary, he kept a diary, he said, “I’m besieged by communists.” You know, people in public life should never really keep diaries if they don’t want their world to be revealed. “I’m besieged by communists, extreme radicals, "Jewish professional agitators "and refugee enthusiasts, woven together in this barrage "of opposition against the State department, "which makes me the bullseye.”
On one 1940 entry, “Refugee sympathisers "who were largely concentrated on the Atlantic seaboard "and principally around New York, have joined up "with a small element in this country, "which wants to push us into this war.” In the State Department, he supervised 23 of its 42 divisions, and he outlined his position to his colleagues. “To delay and effectively stop for a temporary period "of indefinite length, the number "of immigrants into America, the key.” He wrote all this to put every obstacle in the way and to require additional evidence and to resort to various administrative devices which would postpone and postpone and postpone the granting of visas. He frequently clashed with James G. McDonald. Let’s have a look at him, he’s the good guy. Remember we’ve talked about him. Let’s go back now to the slide of Breckinridge. And who of course was chairman of the President’s advisory committee on political refugees over issuing emergency visas to refugee Jewish intellectuals. He warned FDR that McDonald was trying to exploit the visa programme to admit individuals who are not of the desirable elements. He regularly briefed FDR. This is a diary entry of October ‘40. “Mentioned meeting to discuss the whole subject "of immigration, visa safety of the US, "procedures to be followed. "I found that he was 100% in accord with my ideas.” He blocked the granting of visas to 292 German Jewish refugees in Britain because he believed they had been pacifists in World War I. Said, “They would have the same attitude "about this country "as was indicated in the last war. "If this country’s not worth fighting for, "it’s not worth coming to.”
After one of McDonald’s meetings with FDR, FDR assured Long that he admonished McDonald not to pull any sob stuff. This is what Long wrote, “The president expressed himself as in entire accord "with the policy that would exclude people about whom "there was any suspicion that they would be inimical "to the welfare of America, "no matter who vouchsafed for them.” So he also lobbied the president against an attempt by refugee advocates in 1940, 1941 because there was this plan to bring refugees to the Virgin Islands, et cetera. Persuaded the military authorities to declare that the Virgin Islands a closed military zone. “June '41. "At his initiative, rejected all visa applications "of people who had close relatives "in German-occupied lands.” Because remember what we said last time, their relatives might be held hostage. When detailed information about the Shoah began reaching the American State Department from American diplomats by mid-1942, remember Riegner, Long and his colleagues did their best to prevent the information reaching American Jewish leaders and the press. Long actually doctored cables and began a major conflict between the press and the Treasury Department, between the State Department and the Treasury Department. November 26th, 1943, he actually appeared before the Foreign Affairs Committee to testify against a resolution which urged Roosevelt to establish a US rescue agency. Remember, the minute silence is in 1942, we are now in November 26th, 1943. And more and more evidence is coming out, we’re going to talk about Jan Karski later. People are escaping, people are giving information, it’s flooding in.
And he appeals before the Foreign Affairs Committee to testify against a resolution which urges Roosevelt to establish a rescue agency. He urged that the resolution would constitute, quote, “A repudiation of the efforts already made.” Before the hearing, Long’s aid Robert Alexander advised him, “It would be impressive to state "that over 547 visas of all kinds are issued.” Although he pointed out this number of… His aid told him, in fact the number is only 195,000 and not all of them were Jews. But when he testified, he made it seem that 480, beg your pardon, 580,000 persecuted Jews had been allowed in. His testimony persuaded a majority of foreign affairs committee to oppose the resolution, but fearful that voting of the resolution might be seen as voting against the rescue vision, they just shelved it. Long agreed, but it backfired. Jewish organisations and two leading journals, Nation and New Republic, refuted his figures. Can we go on please? There you see James G. McDonald, Henry Morgenthau, who I’ve already mentioned, is going to get into it as is the Joint. Can we go on? And it’s all about, can we go on to Josiah Dubois please? This is Josiah Dubois. He’s a treasury staff member and he’s going to complete a detailed report. Now he is the man who is actually going to go public about what Long is up to. He’s a graduate of the University of Pennsylvania Law School.
He began working at the Treasury Foreign Funds Department. He’s a foreign man, he’s treasury foreign funds, in order to send funds to enemy territory, special permission is needed. And this is of course from the Joint. After America entered the war, it was very difficult for American Jews to send money to help in Europe. When the World Jewish Congress, in early 1943, sought to send funds to Europe to run some Jewish refugees in France and Romania, he requested authorization. Dubois sanctions it and sends it to the Treasury, and he sends it from the Treasury to the State Department. He’s troubled by the delay and he begins to investigate. This is from a presidential aid called Richard Goodwin. “As Josiah dug deeper, he started making enemies. "He told me, State Department officials would say to him, ”'You Jews are a pain in the ass.’“ They assumed he was Jewish, which he wasn’t. Another told him, "Dubois, you are heading for a lot of trouble, "more than you can handle. "You better drop the whole issue.” Another friend told him, “The Jew, Morgenthau, "and his assistant Dubois are meddling in state affairs.” Documents, can we go on please? Documents are actually provided, surreptitiously provided by a man called Donald Hiss, who was a close friend of Dubois. And by the way, was the brother of Alger Hiss who was later indicted as a communist spy. He’s a friend in the State Department and he tells Dubois, he sends him documents revealing the obstruction to rescuing Jews and the blocking of Holocaust-related information. Dubois refers the information to Henry Morgenthau who decided not to speak to FDR, because remember, he’s very close to FDR, he doesn’t want to spoil his friendship, you can make your own minds up about all of this, and thought he could iron it out with a meeting with Cordell Hunt.
The turning point was when Dubois asked Morgenthau to request a copy of a specific telegram that the State Department officials had sent to American officials in Switzerland, instructing them to stop transmitting news about the mass killing. I mean, this is absolutely mind blowing. When Long doctored the cable, Dubois revealed his duplicity and instructed staff member Randolph Paul to prepare a full report. Paul gave the assignment to Dubois. On the Christmas Day, 1943 an 18-page report, report to the secretary of the acquiescence of this government in the murder of the Jews. And the report, let’s go back to Dubois’ face because he is the hero of all of this. “The State department officials have been,” I’m quoting, “have been guilty not only of gross procrastination "and willful failure to act, "but even of willful attempts "to prevent action from being taken "to rescue Jews from Hitler. "Unless remedial steps "of a drastic nature are taken immediately "to prevent the complete extermination of the Jews, "this government for all time will have a share "in the responsibility for this extermination.” Now this is strong, this is really strong stuff. Dubois informed Morgenthau that if he didn’t take it to FDR, he would resign and go public. Now it’s actually going to lead to the creation of the War Refugee Board. And what then happens as a result of this, Roosevelt realises he’s got to do something because too much information is coming through. And the board arranged for 48,000 Jews to be removed from Transnistria, where they were in the path of the retreating German army, to safe areas in Romania. About 15,000 Jews and about 20,000 Gentiles were evacuated from axis-occupied land. A lot of them are protected and the Joint is managing to get money in.
Okay, now, later on Dubois was put… Later on, I’m going to give you a bit more on Dubois ‘cause he’s a fascinating man. After the war, the Truman administration put Dubois in charge of the IG Farben Trial at Nuremberg, the case of 24 directors. And despite the efforts of Dubois and his colleagues, only 13 were ever convicted on any of the counts and others acquitted of all counts. The sentences meted out, according to Dubois, “Light enough to please a chicken thief "or a driver who had irresponsibly run down a pedestrian.” The directors actually only received prison terms between one and a half and eight years. Many war criminals were later granted clemency by the future American High Commissioner in Germany, John J. McCloy, and I’m going to come on to him in a minute. Now, so let’s talk about Pehle because he’s another one of the good guys. Can we go on please? These are characters who helped with Dubois. Now let’s go on with Pehle. Can we see? Now he’d attended Creighton University. He moved to Washington. He took a post in the Treasury Department and in the late 1940 he’s in charge of foreign funds, so he’s controlling something like $7 billion worth of assets belonging to enemy and neutral- To prepare the report for Morgenthau, and he participated in it. He said in a speech at the Fonteno Hotel on April 1944, “Simple, honest job of saving the lives of people "who were inside Hitler’s reach "and in imminent danger of death.” He later said, “What we did was little enough, "it was too late and too little, I would say.” He resigned from the Treasury Department after the war to become a private practitioner. He was the son of German immigrants and he worked his way through college. In an interview, shortly before his appointment, he said this, “We must thwart the Nazi programme swiftly. "We have no blueprints to guide us.
"We have no precedents, no panaceas, no PAP formulas.” So what happens is Roosevelt, there’s so much coming through, that to placate he sets up the War Refugee Board with Pehle and Dubois. Now I’m coming onto the character of John J. McCloy because this is the other important issue, could more have been done? He was born in Philadelphia on the wrong side of the tracks. He worked as a waiter to support himself through Amherst. He graduated from Harvard Law School, he was a bright man. He became a captain in field artillery in World War I, a successful lawyer. He worked as a Wall Street lawyer before focusing on public affairs. He was politically conservative. He was an advisor to FDR, Truman, Eisenhower, he becomes one of the most important figures in American political life. He goes through Nixon, Carter and Reagan. He headed up many corporations, many organisations. He was head of the World Bank. He was head of Chase Manhattan Bank, Chase National Bank, and prior to World War II, he did extensive work for several corporations in Nazi Germany, including IG Farben. He’d been deeply involved in the internment of Japanese Americans. World War II, he is the Assistant Secretary of War. But now, the point about John McCloy, it is he who is asked for something else. Because the other issue was, as more and more information came through of what was happening, and I haven’t even begun to talk about the case of Hungarian Jewry, which I’m going to talk about when I talk about the Bergson Group and Stephen Wise.
So what is happening between '43 and '45 and '44, news is being blocked. In January '44, the War Refugee Board is set up and that is going to enable the Joint to get money into Europe. And it’s also going to lead to the rescue efforts. And in the end, it’s estimated that the War Refugee Board was responsible for saving in Europe and also in bringing to them, they only brought about 1,000 to America and they put them in a camp in Oswego. But they were the only allied country to take in refugees in this period. But having said that, the War Refugee Board did quite a lot. And it was Pehle and it was Josiah Dubois. Now, John J. McCloy, he is the Assistant Secretary of War and he’s actually asked if it’s possible that the camps could be bombed because the last Jewish community to be attacked was actually Hungary. And the date when Hungary was allied to Germany, March 19th, the alliance is wavering, the Nazis move in. Eichmann enters, and believe it or not, from the beginning of May to July 1944, when the Shoah is a total open secret, there are press articles. People have escaped from Auschwitz, you have the Wannsee, you have not only the Wannsee report, you have Weissmandl, you have an extraordinary man called Rudolf Vrba who sends the information out, and yet nearly 450,000 Hungarian Jews were deported to Auschwitz. Auschwitz had revealed its secret, Roosevelt protests, the Vatican protests.
This time there are lots of protests and one of the requests is, can you bomb the camps? And this is from John Pehle, “I refer to your letter of November 8th "in which you forwarded the report "to eye witnesses on the notorious German concentration camp "of Auschwitz and Birkenau. "The operational staff…” Because this is John Pehle from the War Refugee Board, and this is the letter that he’s sending to McCloy. “The operation staff of the war department "have given careful consideration to your suggestion "that the bombing of these camps be undertaken. "The following points were brought out.” So positive destruction, and what he goes on to say, “The war department has felt it should not, at least "for the present, undertake the operation. "McCloy, Assistant Secretary of War.” If we want to know a little bit more about him, he’d written to Herbert Stein president, and this is a JTA bulletin, acts of antisemitism have alarmed not only you and other Americans, but have drawn increased attention from all occupation powers in the press. So basically a woman writes to him saying, “Are you going to do more?” And he basically says that there is nothing more that he can do. Now, Rudy Vrba said of him, and it’s a term that is often attributed to Hannah Arendt, he was the man who escaped from Auschwitz, believing that when he revealed, it would happen. He coined the term death murderer, desk murderer. It was frequently used by Simon Wiesenthal. Now, fascinating what happened to McCloy, he becomes the American commissioner in Germany and he rescinded the sentences of the IG Farben people who he had previously worked for. And not only that, this is from Kai Bird who writes about him. “McCloy, he was known as the chairman "because he was so important in American politics, "that his was a product of the general attitude "of his generation of wasps. "His father’s law company had refused to do… "Kai’s father’s law company had refused to do business "with him as a matter of principle.
"The clubs he belonged to all barred Jews from membership. "He was antagonistic to Zionism. "Even when all the gory details of the camps were known, "he refused to attempt any action. "Then as high commissioner in Germany, he was pressured "by church and industrialists, "he stopped the denazification of many leading figures "and allowed clemency to war criminals. "He later sided with NASA in trying to finance the Aswan Dam "who considered him as a friend of the Allies.” So these are the kind of characters in power. And I think it’s important to remember that this is, look, it’s a very difficult question. Could Auschwitz have been bombed? Well, he’s saying they wouldn’t even try. The request also went to the British, and what is ironic is that Churchill gave the order in the summer of 1944 to bomb the camp, it was never received by Bomber Command. This is something that Martin Gilbert established. So if you want understand, why am I telling you all this? Because not only for the sake of facts, but also because if you want to want to really try and understand Israel, then I think we need to take this all into account. Can we go on please? This was a note from Ben Hecht.
This is an article from Ben Hecht, who I’m going to talk about. Because in the Bermuda Conference, which was before the refugee board was set up, the allies did discuss what was happening to the Jews, but basically they decided to do nothing. And the further evidence was given by another man. Can we go on? This is Jan Karski, he was extraordinary. He was a Polish aristocrat, he’d been caught by the Nazis, he’d managed to escape. And his main job was to inform the Polish government in exile what was going on. He was twice smuggled into the Warsaw ghetto by the Jewish underground. And he said, “My job was to observe and remember: "the odour, the children dying, dirty. "I remember degradation, starvation, "dead bodies lying on the streets. "My guide said, 'Look at it, remember, remember,’ "and I did remember.” He was smuggled to a transit camp outside Belzec. He visited, disguised as a guard. Now from 1940 onwards, he reports to the Polish, American and British governments on the situation in Poland.
And his information spurred on the allied declaration because it was the Polish foreign minister Bartoszewski who puts pressure on the British to issue the Allied declaration. He met Roosevelt on the 23rd July, 1943, who evidently asked no questions about the Jews. He said he was scarcely believed, either by Gentile or Jewish leadership. And he, in 1944, he published his story, “The Courier from Warsaw.” During an interview with Hannah Rosen, he died in 2000, he discussed the failure of the allies to rescue the Jews. So it’s a very, very dark tale. Could anything have been done to rescue Jews? Could the camps have been bombed? Today, historians argue about it. But the point I wanted to make today is that there were really deliberate actions by the State Department to stop the evidence and stop the rescue. And it really further exacerbated the situation because as I said to you before, I personally believe it’s very much tied up with the attitude of the state of Israel, particularly the government of Begin following on. And I’ll talk about that when I talk about Bergson. I hope I haven’t rushed this too much, because I had so much information tonight, I hope it’s been clear. But let’s have a look at the questions.
Q&A and Comments:
Adrian’s telling us, “As every Friday I bring meals "to the IDF soldiers, to soldiers stationed in Gaza, "we meet close to the border, it’s rainy and cold.”
“The PBS show has echoes of the MAGA movement.” I agree, very disturbing.
“The Kindertransport children went to England "because the British refused to allow them into Palestine.” Oh yes, the British, there was a lot of opposition to the kinder in Britain. But it was the Quakers, Jewish groups, the extraordinary Rabbi Schonfeld. But no, they would not relax the quota on Palestine, of course not.
Q: “Why is there a mistreatment of Catholics in Poland?”
A: Well, the Nazis, it’s interesting. Can we hold that Shelly, because I think I’m going to have to do a whole session on the Vatican. Can we hold that question? It’s an important question, I’m not saying that, but it’s too big.
Q: And this is from Bev, “Never been able to get my head "around the Nazi cruelty against the Jews prior to them "if they wanted to kill or force labour, "but why the sadistic cruelty in its attendant pleasure "on a mass scale? "What benefit or aspect of their power "do their cruelty serve "beyond the dispensation of a diagnosis of psychotic?”
A: I’m not a psychologist, but can you apply the term psychotic to people? I think it’s the dehumanisation process. And the question is, it’s the Nazis who actually dehumanise themselves, don’t they? They stop seeing their victims as human. But never forget what Hugo Gryn said, “Nazism is the overturning of the 10 Commandments.” They created a world where you could steal. It’s liberating on an obscene level. You throw away any moral conscience. Is a moral conscience acquired? Is it inherent? These are the questions we need to know. What made Josiah Dubois threaten to resign, if they didn’t announce what was going on? What made people turn to the light? What made Jan Karski risk his life? What made people die to save Jews? What made other Jews die to save other Jews? What made people behave as human beings? That’s the question. And these questions are just as pertinent today as they were then. And behind it is this 2000 year old history of antisemitism, in my view.
“Recommended reading, ‘Mein Kampf,’ "the work describes the process "by which Hitler became antisemitic.” Yes, “Mein Kampf.” Well, if you’ve got the stomach for it, I have three copies. One is a first edition that was given to me, believe it or not, as a present. Another I bought in New York on a Black Panther bookstore, believe it in or not in the eighties. And the other, a student bought me in the mosque in Regents Park.
Bev says, “I still can’t see the need for cruelty.” But that’s because you don’t have a dark soul. You’ve got to understand the human, look, remember the words of Nietzsche, “Beyond Good and Evil”? Hitler actually hated Christianity because he said, “It created an equality in the world "and he believed in blood and race.” And if you will have the right blood, you could do anything, you were a lord of the Earth. Throw aside any notion of morality to understand Nazism. Think Nietzsche, although Nietzsche was not a Nazi, but some of his ideas of “Beyond Good and Evil.” Listen to Wagner, think of the content of his operas, which are beyond good and evil. This is the world, they wanted to go beyond the European Enlightenment, which is a big subject we’re going to look at soon. They wanted to go beyond the rule of this. To understand Nazism, you really do need the soul of a Dante, the darkness, to understand the darkness. But on one level, what you have to ask yourselves is the dark side attractive to that kind of twisted mentality? You can do what you like, you are Lord of the Earth. Think of what it did, it put people in uniform. It gave them strength and power, heady wine. A psychologist would probably say that is a part of a diseased personality.
“Look for ‘Nazi Town’,” says Roger.
Q: Neil asks, “Was Breckinridge Long related to Huey Long?
A: I don’t know the answer to that, I’m sure someone will be able to help me.
Sonny Lubner, "Our delivery man, Sora Masuda, told me his Jewish grandfather was taken by the Dominican Republic with the help of the Joint. Yes, the Dominican Republic was one of the few places that did allow Jews in after Evian, and the Joint was indispensable.
This is Rose, she’s saying the hero in her book was Truman. You know, there aren’t that many heroes are there, Rose?
Katarina, "Your talk made me cry.” I don’t want to make you cry. You know, Ben Hecht said when he put on his pageant in New York, “In the end, the only thing "it ever did would make a few Jews cry, "and that’s not difficult to do.” You know, in the end, I don’t want you to cry. It’s the others who have to cry, in memory of my beloved. Presumably claims made by the US State Department did not believe it, is suspect to put it mildly. Yes, of course, Yehuda, there was so much evidence coming through.
And Mrs. Myrna, she recommends “Presidents of War” by Michael Beschloss. “The Wise Men” by Walter Isaacson, he is a brilliant writer. John McCloy in 1992, US General Schwarzenegger refused to allow Israel to bomb the scud missile sites in Western Iraq. No, you mean Schwarzkopf, I think, Storming Norman, yes, of course. They also refused to bomb the railway lines, now this is the point. The evidence was that the Nazis could have repaired those lines within a day. The tragedy is that as the Nazis were losing the war killing Jews became just as important. Maybe more important, just think about it, Hungarian Jewry, they ratchet up, they murdered half of Hungarian Jewry in three months, it is beyond imagination. This is unbridled, unlicensed evil.
David’s saying, “Good people and bad characters,” yeah.
Yes, Dennis, he mentioned Schwarzkopf, yeah.
Q: “Is there a table anywhere showing dates of each Britain?”
A: Yes, there are many, many books on this. Actually a timeline I’ve tried, it’s something that you probably need the timeline, yeah. I’ve tried to give it, but I think what I’ll try and do, you’ll have to give me a couple of weeks, I’ve done it in other books, is actually to prepare you a timeline. Look, basically, if you think the actual extermination process begins with the invasion of Russia, June ‘41. January '42 they have decided, actually creating the extermination centres, they’re setting them up. The Riegner telegram, evidence is sent to Gerhard Riegner in July of 1942. America comes in the war, remember, December '41 as well, but they’re more involved in the Pacific. The news reaches Wise and the State Department July, August. The State Department refused to do anything about it till November, but then Wise goes public. '43, the Bermuda Conference, they decide they’re just going to talk about it. There’s the Allied Declaration, remember, January 17th, sorry, December, I’m getting confused myself, December 17th, 1942. Then you’ve got the Bermuda Conference, they’re not doing anything. More and more evidence is coming through, Jan Karski’s visit, then we have the attack of Hungarian Jewry. And the point made about bombing the camps, bombs did fall on Auschwitz by accident when the American Air Force was bombing the IG Farben plant. And actually, it was a few miles away because IG Farben was using Auschwitz for slave labour. And don’t forget what I said, how the directors had such light sentences, what Dubois said, “You’d give that to a chicken thief.” And it was McCloy when he was the American high commissioner in Germany, he released them all and he’d worked with IG Farben before the war. And he had this huge reputation in America, in fact, even Kissinger praised him.
Yes, Stuart, Karski talked for decades at Georgetown University in international race relations. But he didn’t speak publicly until 1981 when he was invited as a speaker to a conference on the liberation of the camps. And of course, he’s featured in Claude Lanzmann’s film “Shoah.” He’s honoured by the Polish government. There’s also a very good documentary on Karski, he’s quite a man. Yes, the Brazilian embassy did.
Look, Deborah, this is something we haven’t really covered. There were lots of diplomats who saved Jews. There were the good people too, I’m trying to bring them in as I go.
“I’ve heard that during the war, "a third soldiers enjoyed killing, "a third soldiers were killing, "and third refused to kill.” Well, think about the pain experiments.
Q: “Did Dubois and Mehrle get honoured?”
A: Yes, in Israel.
“The Brazilian consul sent the Jews to Brazil.” Yes, the Brazilians issued, so did the Portuguese. And of course, don’t forget the extraordinary Wallenberg who was actually working for the Joint, Carl Lutz, the Swiss, there are many, many, there was a Japanese consul, Sugihara in Lithuania. There was all sorts of extraordinary individuals.
Michael, yes, Michael, of course they could. Look, it depends. Look, everything I’m talking about today is contentious and I suggest it’s still, is very painful for the Jewish world because one way, and I know how the revisionists saw it, the world knew what was happening and they stood by and let it happen. Now that was certainly the revisionist argument. Okay, as we say, enough, I hope it has been informative. I think I probably went a little too fast today, but I will be picking up with the extraordinary Ben Hecht and the Bergson Group next week. And then the week after I’m going to talk about Stephen Wise and Nahum Goldmann, but I think we’ve got to be careful as well because the one thing I would say, a lot of people knew it but didn’t believe it. And I mentioned this on Tuesday, when do you really believe? When you see, and it’s the films of the liberation of the camps that really resonated.
So let me end there and thank you very, very much. And God bless you all.