# US Involvement in WWII vis a vis The Holocaust **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [November 4, 2010, 5:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/us-involvement-in-wwii-vis-a-vis-the-holocaust/559480 "2010-11-04T17:27:08Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 15\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Gary\_Robson](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gary_robson/32/3448_2.png) [@Gary\_Robson](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gary_Robson)\ **Post date:** [November 5, 2010, 10:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/us-involvement-in-wwii-vis-a-vis-the-holocaust/559480/21 "2010-11-05T22:02:01Z")
> [@hajario](#): > > If recent history is any guide, he won’t be back to back up his “claims.” He has many posts like this one that deny the extent of the Holocaust and a few even worse ones that are pure anti-Semitism. My reporting of said posts has been in vain thus far. It’s not in vain, **hajario**. He’s on thin ice and he knows it. In this specific post, however, **Captain Midnight** stayed civil, didn’t issue personal insults, and didn’t cross over into hate speech. He is, as usual, quite wrong, but being wrong isn’t against the rules of the SDMB. > [@Zsofia](#): > > > [@Sailboat](#): > > > > C’mon, Cap, you’re not stupid. 🙂 > > Cite? Because I have a countercite in this very thread. [mod note] No warning issued, but being indirect doesn’t make it any less a personal insult, **Zsofia**. ---
**Author:** ![Eyebrows\_0f\_Doom](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/eyebrows_0f_doom/32/3119_2.png) [@Eyebrows\_0f\_Doom](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Eyebrows_0f_Doom)\ **Post date:** [November 6, 2010, 6:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/us-involvement-in-wwii-vis-a-vis-the-holocaust/559480/22 "2010-11-06T06:50:22Z")
[quote=“Gary “Wombat” Robson, post:21, topic:559480”] He is, as usual, quite wrong, but being wrong isn’t against the rules of the SDMB. [/QUOTE] Funny, I thought it was actually the motto… ---
**Author:** ![Quintas](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/q/48db29/32.png) [@Quintas](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Quintas)\ **Post date:** [November 6, 2010, 7:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/us-involvement-in-wwii-vis-a-vis-the-holocaust/559480/23 "2010-11-06T07:55:53Z")
> [@t-bonham@scc.net](#): > > **Before?** > Hitler & the Nazis started almost as soon as they took power. > The first concentration camps were opened about 40 days after Hitler became Chancellor, and people were arrested & sent there at once. And more and more were sent as time went on. > > I suppose it may depend on what you see as “large scale”. In 1938, a year before the war started, 17,000 Polish-born Jews were sent to camps. On Nov 9-10 (‘Kristallnacht’), 30,000 Jews were arrested and sent to concentration camps. How many have to be murdered for you to consider it “large scale”? They didn’t start gassing Jews the day after Hitler became chancellor. The Nuremberg laws prohibiting interracial marriage and barring Jews from professions wasn’t until 1935. Kristalnacht in 1938. But even in 1938, people didn’t envision mass murder. That decision was made in 1942. It was a gradual process over many years from getting harrassed by SA thugs occasionally, to discriminatory laws, to being sent to Jewish Ghettos to being being loaded on trains to the death camps in Poland. By 1942, it was wartime and there was no way out. Many people have the idea the the holocaust started as soon as Hitler came to power. The reality of what happened is much more frightening, IMO. ---
**Author:** ![Quintas](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/q/48db29/32.png) [@Quintas](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Quintas)\ **Post date:** [November 6, 2010, 8:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/us-involvement-in-wwii-vis-a-vis-the-holocaust/559480/24 "2010-11-06T08:11:31Z")
This is pure speculation, but it seems to me that the Nazis must have managed to maintain the illusion that the Ghettos were for ‘resettlement’ and the train cars to the east were the same. Had everyone stepping off the train at Auschwitz known their fate, it seems they would have taken their chances and rushed the guards. This leads me to believe that the majority didn’t realise what was really happening until the doors closed and the gas was dropped. ---
**Author:** ![Quintas](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/q/48db29/32.png) [@Quintas](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Quintas)\ **Post date:** [November 6, 2010, 8:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/us-involvement-in-wwii-vis-a-vis-the-holocaust/559480/25 "2010-11-06T08:22:36Z")
“Understanding the Holocaust” by Professor David Engel may be available at your local library. Modern scholar series. Book on CD. It taught me alot. ---
**Author:** ![MEBuckner](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mebuckner/32/2896_2.png) [@MEBuckner](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MEBuckner)\ **Post date:** [November 6, 2010, 9:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/us-involvement-in-wwii-vis-a-vis-the-holocaust/559480/26 "2010-11-06T09:32:08Z")
> [@Captain\_Midnight](#): > > Basically the Germans did with the Jews what the Americans did with the Japanese Americans. Without defending the Japanese internment camps in the slightest, this is utterly not true. We have [reports from the Einsatzgruppen](http://www.nizkor.org/hweb/orgs/german/einsatzgruppen/esg/einsatz.html) death squads that were active in the Nazi-held areas of the Soviet Union in the first phase of the Holocaust. They talk openly, frequently without euphemism, about the mass murders of tens of thousands of Jews, because they were Jews (and not because the were Communist officials or anything like that): > [@](#): > > [Operational Situation Report USSR No. 129](http://www.nizkor.org/hweb/orgs/german/einsatzgruppen/esg/osr129.html) > > During the last two weeks, the activity of the Kommandos and Einsatzgruppen consisted mainly in searches and in finishing off partisan groups. Besides, more places were freed of Jews, and inquiries were made concerning Bandera followers. During the time under report, 11,037 Jews and 31 Communist officials and saboteurs were executed. In all: 31, 767. > [@](#): > > [Operational Situation Report USSR No. 143](http://www.nizkor.org/hweb/orgs/german/einsatzgruppen/esg/osr143.html) > > Between November 2 and November 18, 1941, EK5 shot > > 15 political officials > 21 saboteurs and looters > 10,650 Jews > and 424 hostages. > [@](#): > > [Operational Situation Report USSR No. 150](http://www.nizkor.org/hweb/orgs/german/einsatzgruppen/esg/osr150.html) > > Simferopol, Yevpatoria, Alushta, Krasubasar, Kerch, and Feodosia and other districts of western Crimea are free of Jews. From November 16 to December 15, 1941, 17,645 Jews, 2,504 Krimchaks, 824 Gypsies, and 212 Communists and partisans have been shot. Altogether, 75,881 persons have been executed. > > Rumors about executions in other areas complicated the action in Simferopol. Reports about actions against Jews gradually filter down from fleeing Jews, Russians, and also from the loose talk of German soldiers. > [@](#): > > [Operational Situation Report USSR No. 153](http://www.nizkor.org/hweb/orgs/german/einsatzgruppen/esg/osr153.html) > > The operational areas of the Teilkommandos, particularly in smaller villages, were made free of Jews. During the period covered by the report 3,176 Jews, 85 partisans, 12 looters, and 122 Communist officials were shot. In all: 79, 276. In Simferopol, apart from Jews, the Krimchak and Gypsy question was also solved. The population generally welcomed the elimination of these elements. > [@](#): > > [Operational Situation Report USSR No. 156](http://www.nizkor.org/hweb/orgs/german/einsatzgruppen/esg/osr156.html) > > On November 30, 1941, 10,600 Jews were shot in Riga. The action was led by the Higher SS and Police Chief. One officer and 20 men of Einsatzkommando took part. > [@](#): > > [Operational Situation Report USSR No. 173](http://www.nizkor.org/hweb/orgs/german/einsatzgruppen/esg/osr173.html) > > In the course of a routine Security Police screening of an additional part of the civilian population around Leningrad, 140 more people had to be shot. The reasons for this were as follows: > > ``` > a) Active participation in the Communist Party before the arrival of the German troops; > b) Seditious and provocative activity since the arrival of the German Army; > c) Partisan activity; > d) Espionage; > e) Belonging to the Jewish race. > > ``` > [@](#): > > [Operational Situation Report USSR No. 177](http://www.nizkor.org/hweb/orgs/german/einsatzgruppen/esg/osr177.html) > > Sonderkommando 4b executed 1,317 people (among them 63 political agitators, 30 saboteurs and partisans, and 1,224 Jews). With this action, the district of Artemovsk was also freed of Jews. > > As a result of the activity of Einsatzkommando 5, a number of political agitators, 114 saboteurs and looters, as well as 1,580 Jews were shot, in all 1,880 people. This kommando also carried out an action against the Bandera group. > [@](#): > > [Operational Situation Report USSR No. 186](http://www.nizkor.org/hweb/orgs/german/einsatzgruppen/esg/osr186.html) > > Further large-scale actions against Jews, for instance, in Rakov and Cherven (15,000 Jews were shot in Cherven) caused insecurity, even some anxiety among the Byelorussian population, whose educated circles remarked that they are not used to such actions since the time of the Soviets and [worried] that there might be unforseen consequences to such measures. The Nazi commanders were also not above [boasting about the occasional success of their propaganda](http://www.nizkor.org/hweb/orgs/german/einsatzgruppen/esg/osr128.html) that the Jews were merely being “evacuated to the East” or “resettled”: > [@](#): > > The difficulties resulting from such a large-scale action, in particular concerning the round-up, were overcome in Kiev by requesting the Jewish population to assemble, using wall posters. Although at first only the participation of 5-6000 Jews had been expected, more than 30,000 Jews arrived who, until the moment of their execution, still believed in their resettlement, thanks to extremely clever organization [propaganda]. Himmler, the head of Nazi Germany’s SS and Gestapo secret police empire, gave [a speech to high ranking SS officers in Poznan in 1943](http://www.holocaust-history.org/himmler-poznan/index.shtml), which as it happened was recorded, and a copy of the recording was captured by American troops after the war; that recording is now in the National Archives. [Among the things Himmler said](http://www.holocaust-history.org/himmler-poznan/speech-text.shtml): > [@](#): > > I also want to mention a very difficult subject before you here, completely openly. > > It should be discussed amongst us, and yet, nevertheless, we will never speak about it in public… > > I am talking about the “Jewish evacuation”: the extermination of the Jewish people. > > It is one of those things that is easily said. “The Jewish people is being exterminated,” every Party member will tell you, “perfectly clear, it’s part of our plans, we’re eliminating the Jews, exterminating them, ha!, a small matter.” > > And then along they all come, all the 80 million upright Germans, and each one has his decent Jew. They say: all the others are swine, but here is a first-class Jew. > > And none of them has seen it, has endured it. Most of you will know what it means when 100 bodies lie together, when there are 500, or when there are 1000. And to have seen this through, and – with the exception of human weaknesses – to have remained decent, has made us hard and is a page of glory never mentioned and never to be mentioned. Their own words make it totally clear that the Nazis were intent on genocide, on eliminating the Jews as a people by murdering every one of them. ---
**Author:** ![Gary\_Robson](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gary_robson/32/3448_2.png) [@Gary\_Robson](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gary_Robson)\ **Post date:** [November 6, 2010, 5:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/us-involvement-in-wwii-vis-a-vis-the-holocaust/559480/27 "2010-11-06T17:59:04Z")
> [@Eyebrows\_0f\_Doom](#): > > [quote=“Gary “Wombat” Robson, post:21, topic:559480”] > > He is, as usual, quite wrong, but being wrong isn’t against the rules of the SDMB. Funny, I thought it was actually the motto… [/QUOTE] How does one fight ignorance if the ignorance doesn’t show itself? ---
**Author:** ![Sailboat](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/sailboat/32/461_2.png) [@Sailboat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sailboat)\ **Post date:** [November 8, 2010, 4:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/us-involvement-in-wwii-vis-a-vis-the-holocaust/559480/28 "2010-11-08T16:30:54Z")
> [@Quintas](#): > > But even in 1938, people didn’t envision mass murder. That decision was made in 1942. It was a gradual process over many years from getting harrassed by SA thugs occasionally, to discriminatory laws, to being sent to Jewish Ghettos to being being loaded on trains to the death camps in Poland. By 1942, it was wartime and there was no way out. I think that analysis ignore the history of antisemitism in Europe. Mass murder is exactly what they should have envisioned, because it had already regularly happened. Going back to the Dark Ages, there’s a long sad history of both petty local strongmen and national rulers turning on the Jews and killing them (usually for economic gain – to take land or money). Pogroms, burnings and slaughter by the sword go way back and the Jews were painfully aware of it. I am certain that large numbers of Jews and many historically-aware non-Jews understood what was coming, if not the industrial scale the Nazis brought to the practice. If you read memoirs of the day, a lot of people claim they got out of Germany (or tried to, or wanted to) early on specifically because they were afraid the Nazis would eventually get around to the killing part. > [@Zsofia](#): > > Cite? Because I have a countercite in this very thread. After years of dealing with Holocaust denial, I’ve formed the considered opinion that most literate deniers _must_ know it really happened – the evidence is overwhelming. But they continue to spread the myths and to “question.” Therefore I conclude there is a deliberate agenda, not simple stupidity, behind their efforts. ---
**Author:** ![Zsofia](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/z/7bcc69/32.png) [@Zsofia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Zsofia)\ **Post date:** [November 8, 2010, 5:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/us-involvement-in-wwii-vis-a-vis-the-holocaust/559480/29 "2010-11-08T17:09:39Z")
Well, I like to think that some of them may do it out of an innocent longing to believe that people (well, white people) can’t really be _that bad._ ---
**Author:** ![constanze](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/f9ae1b/32.png) [@constanze](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/constanze)\ **Post date:** [November 10, 2010, 5:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/us-involvement-in-wwii-vis-a-vis-the-holocaust/559480/30 "2010-11-10T17:01:32Z")
> [@Quintas](#): > > This is pure speculation, but it seems to me that the Nazis must have managed to maintain the illusion that the Ghettos were for ‘resettlement’ and the train cars to the east were the same. Had everyone stepping off the train at Auschwitz known their fate, it seems they would have taken their chances and rushed the guards. > > This leads me to believe that the majority didn’t realise what was really happening until the doors closed and the gas was dropped. True. We know that even the Jews themselves were told, when the Ghettos were evacuated, that they would be resettled, and that the camps were places that they could live in. They were told to bring not more than 1 small suitcase, with the necessities and personal stuff, because other things would be provided, and people did bring suitcases. (There are photos of huge mounds of stuff that’s been sorted after the gassings, where you can see the personal effects they brought with them.) And the gas chambers themselves were disguised as showers for that reason. Telling people that they have to get de-loused, after coming from a very crowded ghetto, where fear of diseases (esp. as soap and disinfectants were rationed because of the war shortages) was obvious, made sense, so people didn’t refuse. Telling people that they will be killed would have complicated the matter. Additionally, not all camps were death camps (Vernichtungslager), some were “only” work camps (Arbeitslager). Though in that case the aim shifted to “death through work (by exhaustion)” - the rationale being: instead of just killing them, why don’t we exploit them before?; similar pragmatism lead to research on how to use the fat or the bones of the dead instead of incinerating them - people still lived for months or years in the camps, wrote letters and could receive parcels, so people back home believed that it was possible to live in the camps. Plus, the Nazis themselves used some of the ideas of the early Zionists - how about the Jews all leave Europe and be done with the progroms? - and considered deporting them to Africa or elsewhere. There was a lot of back-and-forth by the top Nazis, even Hitler, between “letting the Jews emigrate to where they can’t bother us ever again” and “let’s exterminate them”. Partly the question of “Jewish influence on press and banks / international cabal” probably fueled the fear of “if we don’t kill all of them, they will come back for revenge later”, which favoured the extermination option. So the Nazi leaders sent contradictory signals and talked both ways. ---
**Author:** ![constanze](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/f9ae1b/32.png) [@constanze](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/constanze)\ **Post date:** [November 10, 2010, 5:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/us-involvement-in-wwii-vis-a-vis-the-holocaust/559480/31 "2010-11-10T17:17:49Z")
> [@Sailboat](#): > > I think that analysis ignore the history of antisemitism in Europe. Mass murder is exactly what they should have envisioned, because it had already regularly happened. Going back to the Dark Ages, there’s a long sad history of both petty local strongmen and national rulers turning on the Jews and killing them (usually for economic gain – to take land or money). Pogroms, burnings and slaughter by the sword go way back and the Jews were painfully aware of it. I am certain that large numbers of Jews and many historically-aware non-Jews understood what was coming, if not the industrial scale the Nazis brought to the practice. If you read memoirs of the day, a lot of people claim they got out of Germany (or tried to, or wanted to) early on specifically because they were afraid the Nazis would eventually get around to the killing part. Actually, if you look at the diaries and letters of the Jews themselves, both those who stayed and those who got out, a lot of the Jews didn’t believe it, just as most Germans didn’t really believe that Hitler meant “Mein Kampf” literally (plus, it’s hard to read - I had excerpts in my history book, and the style is terrible). I skimmed through a lot of pamphlets about the “Jewish question” (Judenfrage) from the end of the 19th century till the 1930s, both from anti- and pro-semites, Jews and Gentiles, and most of it is about the stereotypical Eastern European Orthodox Jew - the one with long hair, a hat and dressed in black (Orthodox) who doesn’t own land (because of the anti-semite laws previously), therefore makes his living as peddler or similar and is poor and badly educated. A lot of German Jews were neither that, nor the money-grubbing, hands-rubbing, half-criminal money-lender/ pawn-broker (the other stereotype), they were agnostic or atheists from enlightment, part of the intellengtsia, who worked as doctors, lawyers and similar, and considered themselves German, part of the German culture. They did not believe that progroms would target them, because in the past, progroms were always against the outsiders - Jews who looked different and had different religion. Germans who had jewish ancestors, but converted or didn’t practice religion (some even put up Christmas trees for their kids, just like all the classmates), who were educated, often blue-eyed and blond because they had married gentiles - would not have been targets of old-style progroms. It was because the Nazis put “race” and not religion /otherness on their list that they were targeted. ---
**Author:** ![Elendil\_s\_Heir](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/7cd45c/32.png) [@Elendil\_s\_Heir](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Elendil_s_Heir)\ **Post date:** [November 10, 2010, 8:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/us-involvement-in-wwii-vis-a-vis-the-holocaust/559480/32 "2010-11-10T20:27:18Z")
Although well-informed Americans certainly knew or suspected what Germany was doing to the Jews, there was also some persistent doubt, as much of the anti-German propaganda during World War I had been revealed to be hyperbolic and overstated. When the concentration camps were liberated in 1945, from all I’ve read, most Americans - including those in top positions of the government and military - were genuinely shocked. ---
**Author:** ![clairobscur](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/839c29/32.png) [@clairobscur](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/clairobscur)\ **Post date:** [November 10, 2010, 10:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/us-involvement-in-wwii-vis-a-vis-the-holocaust/559480/33 "2010-11-10T22:32:24Z")
I will leave people more informed than me fill up the details, but since I’m very surprised that it still hasn’t been stated, I will do so, despite not being amongst the best informed : Yes, the allied were informed of the existence of extermination camps well before the end of the war. Although the first reports about them were met with incredulity, there was eventually no doubt left about their existence long before the first GIs found them. The allied command made the choice of not spending military ressources to bomb the railways or even the camp themselves (although it might seem weird, bombing directly the camps despite the presence of the inmates was considered as a way to seriously hinder the ongoing massacre), since it didn’t seem very effective to them, and since they thought that they should use all ressources available to win the war as quickly as possible. This choice is still debated today and many feel that the allies didn’t do what they should have. By “allies”, I’m refering to the western allies, since I’ve no clue about what the Soviet commanders knew or thought on this topic. Although there are a lot of informations out there on this issue regarding the USA/UK, I’ve never read or viewed anything related concerning the Soviet Union. ---
**Author:** ![clairobscur](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/839c29/32.png) [@clairobscur](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/clairobscur)\ **Post date:** [November 10, 2010, 10:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/us-involvement-in-wwii-vis-a-vis-the-holocaust/559480/34 "2010-11-10T22:58:12Z")
Here’s a link to an abstract of a book, this part specifically dealing with the general perception of the Shoah in the USA during the war that seem quite interesting in the context of this thread : [http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:xl0tBm1YetcJ:www.nytimes.com/books/first/n/novick-holocaust.html+knowledge+holocaust+american+government&cd=1&hl=fr&ct=clnk&gl=fr](http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:xl0tBm1YetcJ:www.nytimes.com/books/first/n/novick-holocaust.html+knowledge+holocaust+american+government&cd=1&hl=fr&ct=clnk&gl=fr) ---
**Author:** ![Little\_Plastic\_Ninja](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/f07891/32.png) [@Little\_Plastic\_Ninja](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Plastic_Ninja)\ **Post date:** [November 15, 2010, 1:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/us-involvement-in-wwii-vis-a-vis-the-holocaust/559480/35 "2010-11-15T13:11:00Z")
> [@constanze](#): > > True. We know that even the Jews themselves were told, when the Ghettos were evacuated, that they would be resettled, and that the camps were places that they could live in. They were told to bring not more than 1 small suitcase, with the necessities and personal stuff, because other things would be provided, and people did bring suitcases. (There are photos of huge mounds of stuff that’s been sorted after the gassings, where you can see the personal effects they brought with them.) This was what got me in the end. I mean, as a kid I’d always been grimly fascinated by World War 2 and the Holocaust. I’d read the Diary of Anne Frank and a half dozen novels taking place during the same time including The Devil’s Arithmetic – a story about a modern girl who goes back in time and experiences the Holocaust for herself, right up to the end. I thought it was horrible and fascinating. I saw the pictures, the numbers, and they never affected me beyond a detatched “oh wow, huh.” For me, it was the piles that did it. Heaps of shoes. Heaps of _teeth_. Empty suitcases. Just the knowledge that I was looking at _heaps of cut-off hair_ and realizing every handful belonged to a different person who had gone through those gates… I think it really was the shoes in the end that took me from “yeah I get it, it was horrible” to going pale and gibbering a bit in the corner. I can’t remember, but I think I had to leave the room. In high school, ordinarily that sort of thing would be blood in the water for the other kids – never show weakness, they can smell fear and all – but I didn’t get bugged about it. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/us-involvement-in-wwii-vis-a-vis-the-holocaust/559480.md?page=1)