Analysis: Report on the Failures of the US State Department to Assist European Jews
The analysis of the failures of the US State Department to assist European Jews during World War II highlights significant bureaucratic obstacles encountered in efforts to rescue Jews from Nazi-occupied territories. It focuses on the experiences of Josiah E. DuBois Jr., a Treasury Department official, who became increasingly frustrated by what he perceived as deliberate delays and inaction by State Department personnel. Despite initial discussions and plans to aid Jewish refugees, including attempts to negotiate the release of Jews in Romania, State Department officials often obstructed these efforts.
The historical context reveals that the debate over the US response to Nazi policies began as early as 1933, but substantial progress was lacking, partly due to restrictive immigration quotas. After the US entered the war, the prevailing belief was that military victory was the primary solution to stop the Holocaust. The culmination of DuBois's concerns led to the establishment of the War Refugee Board in 1944, which played a crucial role in saving thousands of lives.
The discussion surrounding this topic invites reflection on the broader implications of governmental response to humanitarian crises and the responsibility of nations to act against injustices. Understanding these historical dynamics is essential for grasping the complexities of refugee assistance and international policy during one of history's darkest periods.
Analysis: Report on the Failures of the US State Department to Assist European Jews
Date: January 13, 1944
Author: Josiah E. DuBois Jr. et al.
Genre: government document
Summary Overview
As part of his work with the US Treasury Department's Foreign Funds Control Division, Josiah E. DuBois Jr. was often involved in trying to get approval for US citizens to send money to Europe to aid in the rescue of Jews from areas occupied by Nazi forces. He became convinced that bureaucrats in the US State Department were deliberately stalling such efforts. DuBois wrote this report to his superior, Treasury Secretary Henry Morgenthau Jr., but it deals with the alleged actions and inactions of the State Department. The report chronicles many instances in which State Department personnel blocked or delayed efforts to rescue European Jews, citing specific dates and concrete facts and naming names. DuBois also notes instances where State Department officials claimed they were doing much on these matters when in reality, he believed, they were actively involved in trying to block such action.
Defining Moment
Debate over precisely how the United States should respond to Adolf Hitler's racist policies and ultimately his efforts to systematically exterminate the Jews of Europe began as soon as he came to power in Germany in 1933. Initial efforts aimed at getting as many Jews as possible out of Germany and neighboring areas which Hitler might come to dominate before the situation got worse. But little was accomplished in these early efforts. The diplomats at conferences on the refugee issue, such as the ones at Évian, France, in 1938 or in Bermuda in 1943, could not agree on any comprehensive plans, in part because both the United States and western European nations refused to raise their immigration quotas in order to accept large numbers of refugees. Once the United States entered the war in December 1941, American policy generally stressed that the only effective way to stop Hitler's extermination policies was a rapid military victory over Germany.
The immediate background to DuBois's report to the secretary of the treasury was an effort to save thousands of Jews in Romania. Officials in Romania agreed to release 70,000 Jews in their country in return for what was essentially a bribe of about $170,000. American Jewish organizations quickly raised the needed funds, and the Treasury Department's Foreign Funds Control Division, where DuBois worked, began the process of issuing the licenses that would allow this money to be sent to Romania. DuBois eventually learned that although the Treasury Department had approved this transfer of funds, and that President Franklin D. Roosevelt had also agreed, officials in the State Department still interposed reasons to delay or prevent the transaction. Frustrated at what he believed was deliberate attempts by State Department officials to block action in this matter, DuBois, with the cooperation of others within the Foreign Funds Control Division, began preparing this report for Morgenthau. Morgenthau, who was Jewish, was often used by Roosevelt as a liaison with American Jewish organizations. Ironically, there were occasions when those opposed to DuBois's actions in this matter used anti-Semitic slurs against him, but DuBois was a Protestant Christian. When the report was given to Secretary Morgenthau, he took it to President Roosevelt. By that time, the American public was calling for the United States to take stronger action on the refugee issue; Morgenthau told Roosevelt that if he did not take action, Congress would. Roosevelt responded by issuing an executive order on January 22, 1944, creating the War Refugee Board, which, over the remaining months of the war, may have saved as many as 200,000 Jews from Nazi death camps.
Author Biography
Josiah Ellis DuBois Jr. was a lawyer who served in various US government agencies in the 1930s and 1940s. He was born in Camden, New Jersey, on October 21, 1912. DuBois graduated from the University of Pennsylvania and obtained his law degree there in 1934. During World War II, DuBois was chief counsel for the Foreign Funds Control Division of the Treasury Department under Secretary Henry Morgenthau Jr. After this report was released, President Franklin D. Roosevelt created the War Refugee Board, and DuBois served as its general legal counsel. After the war, DuBois served as a prosecutor in the Nuremburg war-crimes trial of officials of the I. G. Farben chemical company, which had manufactured the gas used to execute prisoners in the Auschwitz death camp. He died in Woodbury, New Jersey, on August 1, 1983.
Document Analysis
Although Josiah E. DuBois Jr. wrote this report and is listed as the sole author, other staffers in the Foreign Funds Control Division of the Treasury Department were also involved in the events that led to its creation, as well as in researching the detailed chronicle of facts that DuBois includes. Those who gave DuBois significant aid in compiling the report included Randolph Paul, John Pehle, and Ansel Luxford. Like DuBois, all three of these men were lawyers with long experience in government, and none of them was Jewish.
DuBois begins the report with a statement of what the US government claimed was its policy: “to work out programs to serve those Jews of Europe who could be saved.” But DuBois quickly and directly moves on to his major charge that “officials in our State Department, which is charged with carrying out this policy, have been guilty not only of gross procrastination and willful failure to act, but even of willful attempts to prevent action from being taken.” DuBois also charges that these State Department officials have attempted to conceal and misrepresent their obstructionist actions, instead seeking to give the outward appearance of compliance and assistance. DuBois admits that he had partial access to the facts, but he believed he had obtained sufficient evidence from a variety of sources to support the charges he was making. Throughout the report, DuBois often cites speeches in which members of Congress raised similar charges about inaction and delays by the State Department. He also carefully lists the dates and names for each interaction that he believes lends support to his case.
A major part of the document is a detailed examination of the case with which DuBois was most directly related—the effort to rescue thousands of Jews from France and Romania, by means of a payment of what was sometimes called a ransom, or perhaps a bribe. Private Jewish aid organizations in the United States had quickly raised the funds needed, and the Foreign Funds Control Division of the Treasury Department approved sending these funds to Europe. But the State Department continued, for a period of about six months, to cause delays and raise objections. DuBois also charges that Breckinridge Long, assistant secretary of the State Department, had actually instructed US diplomats in Europe not to transmit reports that dealt with the extermination of European Jews by the Nazis. By a detailed examination of State Department cables, he seems to substantiate this grave charge.
In the introduction to his report, DuBois suggests that were nothing done to change the US government's policy of inaction, “This Government will have to share for all time responsibility for this extermination.” He concludes by noting that unless American immigration policies were changed so that more refugees could be granted admission to the United States, “We may as well take down that plaque from the Statue of Liberty and black out the ‘lamp beside the golden door.’”
Glossary
affidavit: a written declaration upon oath made before an authorized official
falangist: a member of the Falange, which is the official state political party in Spain from 1936 to 1977
ghetto: formerly, a section of a city in which all Jews were required to live
martyrdom: extreme suffering; torment; the condition, sufferings, or death of a martyr (a person who willingly suffers death rather than renounce his or her religion or cause)
Bibliography and Additional Reading
Feingold, Henry L. Bearing Witness: How America and Its Jews Responded to the Holocaust. Syracuse: Syracuse UP, 1995. Print.
Medoff, Rafael. Blowing the Whistle on Genocide: Josiah E. DuBois, Jr. and the Struggle for a U.S. Response to the Holocaust. West Lafayette: Purdue UP, 2009. Print.
Rosen, Robert N. Saving the Jews: Franklin D. Roosevelt and the Holocaust. New York: Thunder's Mountain, 2006. Print.
Wyman, David S. The Abandonment of the Jews: America and the Holocaust, 1941–1945. New York: Pantheon, 1984. Print.