Holocaust, American Response To
The American response to the Holocaust is characterized by a series of fluctuating policies. One must first examine the attitude of Americans towards the persecution of Germany's Jewish population under the Nazi regime and then examine how these attitudes changed once the war began in 1939.
Persecution and Immigration, 1931–1939
As Jews in Germany faced increasing acts of violence and discrimination sponsored by Hitler's government, some American Jewish leaders and American Christian liberals urged the U.S. State Department to alter their standards with regards to German Jewish immigration. By 1936 U.S. immigration officials did change their considerations to include the level of a German Jew's education, job skills, and affidavits of support from American relatives. In just one year this new policy led to a near doubling in the amount of visas granted to German Jews.
The immigration situation became further complicated in 1938 with the Nazi annexation of Austria and the subsequent increase in persecuted Jews living in the former Austrian lands. President Franklin Delano Roosevelt suggested that the immigration laws be further liberalized and added that the application wording of "Jewish refugees" should be changed to "political refugees." It has been argued that he was motivated to change this wording because he was well aware that public opinion polls demonstrated an American perception that Jews already held too much power.
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