Ken Burns Holocaust documentary makes it harder to kid ourselves about U.S. culpability

[Yo_Mama_Been_Loggin]

Those who think we should tell only happy stories about America will not want to watch the new PBS Ken Burns documentary, “The U.S. and the Holocaust.”

History majors like Yale and Harvard Law grad Ron DeSantis, the Florida governor who hijacks asylum seekers for his own amusement, and Stanford and Yale Law grad Josh Hawley, the Missouri senator who authored the “Love America Act,” know just how dangerous knowledge of the past can be.

-snip-

“The U.S. and the Holocaust” shows how our xenophobic 1924 law imposing new immigration quotas that favored the white and the Protestant — and tragically, made no exception for refugees — delighted Hitler. He probably needed some cheering up, reading about it as he did in the prison cell where he was serving time for treason after leading a failed coup.

Later, our Jim Crow laws and widespread beliefs about “defectives” became both a model and a “who are you to criticize?” defense for the Nazis. Hitler saw the mass killings of Jews in Eastern Europe as a continuation of what we had done to the Native Americans we murdered or sequestered in reservations as we “settled” the American West.

https://www.yahoo.com/news/ken-burns-holocaust-documentary-makes-182832079.html

[onecaliberal]

1. We turned away boatloads of Jews.

If you’re in California I highly recommend the Museum of Tolerance. They have Holocaust survivors there daily who tell their stories. There is an Anne Frank exhibit, as well as a WWII exhibit. At my last visit about 3 years ago I was struck at the parallel. And that was before J6. It’s so scary.

[Joinfortmill]

2. An important work.

[bahboo]

3. really sobering series...

[walkingman]

4. I think every American should watch the series - we didn't learn much of this in school.

[Behind the Aegis]

5. He could have dealt an even stronger blow.

The third installment was a bit of a letdown. The reactions of America and Americans after the war and when the horrors of the Holocaust were in full view of the world, the anti-Semitism in the US (and the world) was still in full swing. There were debates on the floors of Congress that broke out into full anti-Semitic diatribes, including blaming Jews for their own deaths as well as claiming many were actually responsible for the war, getting the US involved, and bringing socialism and communism to the US.

[FakeNoose]

6. I believe those anti-Semitic feelings were express later by Sen. McCarthy as "anti-communism"

... of the 1950s. The House Unamerican Activities Committee held hearings that ruined people's careers, especially show-business people, who had innocently joined the Communist Party before the 2nd World War. The whole thing really turned ugly for a few years, but the base of it all was anti-Semitism and anti-intellectualism.

[Behind the Aegis]

9. Very true.

However, I was discussing the immigration debates that were taking place days after the war ended up until 1956! Some of the debates got so ugly they almost came to blows, including using outright anti-Semitic language and stereotypes. People tried to pretend Jews weren't being singled out until it became so obvious there was no denying it. Of course, it wasn't just the US, the UK was just as horrific, so was Canada, France, Australia, and Spain (?). Countries were doing anything and everything to limit the number of Jews coming to the US after the war.

PUBLIC OPINION POLLS AFTER KRISTALLNACHT -- November 1938
Do you approve or disapprove of the Nazi treatment of Jews in Germany? 94% Disapprove; 6% Approve
Should we allow a larger number of Jewish exiles from Germany to come to the United States to live? 71% No; 21% Yes, 8% No Opinion
(American Institute of Public Opinion)

BETTER TREATMENT FOR JEWISH SURVIVORS
In the summer of 1945, President Harry Truman asked former US immigration commissioner Earl Harrison to tour the DP camps. Harrison was shocked by what he found and informed Truman: “We appear to be treating the Jews as the Nazis had treated them, except that we do not exterminate them.” Based on Harrison’s report, the United States established separate camps for Jewish DPs.

CONGRESS ACTS TO ADMIT DIPLACED PERSONS
In 1948, Congress passed the Displaced Persons Act, authorizing 200,000 displaced persons to enter the United States without being counted against the immigration quotas. The act did not include any special provisions for Jewish DPs.

Between the establishment of the DP camps in 1945 and the closure of the last camp in 1957, approximately 140,000 Jewish Holocaust survivors immigrated to the United States.

(It was the Displaced Persons Act that kept getting dicked around with in order to make sure the white, er... "right", people were being allowed into the US.)

PUBLIC OPINION POLL: DECEMBER 1945
Should we permit more persons from Europe to come to this country each year than we did before the war, should we keep the number about the same, or should we reduce the number? 37% Fewer; 32% Same; 12% No Opinion; 14% None At All; 5% More

source: United States Holocaust Memorial Museum

[FakeNoose]

11. Thanks for this - well done!

[mountain grammy]

7. It's a very good series..

frustrating and horrifying to watch, but watch we must.

In 1932, my mom was 20 years old and living in NYC. The American born daughter of Polish Jewish immigrants, she worked with these groups desperately trying to get Jews out of Europe. In 1942, still single, she joined the Marines.

There was no ignoring of history in our house.

[Solly Mack]

8. ...

[hlthe2b]

10. I just watched the second episode and was taken by the parallels between Lindbergh & Trump

Lindbergh wasn't a fool, but what a horrendous racist antisemite--we all knew that, but damn. But his celebrity gave him such a platform and for a very long time kept the media from really critically reporting on him. That ended some time before Pearl Harbor when he noted (paraphrasing from memory) that the US had three enemies "pressing the US to war, the British, the Roosevelt administration, and the Jews" and that instead of agitating for war, they (Jews) should be advocating for tolerance since tolerance towards Jews could not continue in war. (paraphrased, but close). This was his infamous "Des Moines" speech on (ironically) Sept 11, 1941. The media finally turned against him.
https://www.cfr.org/blog/twe-remembers-charles-lindberghs-des-moines-speech

What will it take for ALL the media to finally turn against Trump?


Off-topic, but how can we get every high school in the country to play all four episodes of this documentary for their students? They SOOOO need to learn this history.