Primary Source Sets
Holocaust and America's Response to Other Genocides

Holocaust and America's Response to Other Genocides

Great Depression and World War II (1929-1945), Postwar United States (1945-early 1970s), Contemporary United States (1968 to the present)
US History, World History

Nazi Genocide: What was America’s role in the Holocaust?

Following its defeat in World War I and the punitive peace treaty the followed, Germany fell into a deep and extended economic depression. Nationalist leaders found a willing audience when they looked for scapegoats who could be blamed for the country’s troubles. Adolf Hitler’s National Socialist Party claimed that the Jewish people were traitors during the war and a blight on the nation. Hitler claimed that the Aryan race (northern Europeans) were genetically superior to all others and that the Jews were inferior. When he rose to power in the early 1930s, he began to impose punitive policies to punish and shame the Jews.

Extermination of the Jewish People

With the start of the war, Jews were rounded up and forced into work camps to make war supplies for their Nazi captors. They imposed similar policies on nations that they conquered, including France and eastern Europe. As the war progressed, the Nazis moved to even harsher measures until they reached the "ultimate solution" to the Jewish question: extermination of all Jews under their control. Concentration camps began the grisly process of killing Jews in massive numbers. Allied troops that began liberating these camps in 1945 were shocked at Nazi inhumanity, and German leaders responsible for giving such orders were tried and convicted in the Nuremburg Trials by international courts for their crimes.

While America knew about pre-war Nazi discrimination against the Jews, it did little to protest or demand an end to it. There was a heated debate in the nation about American involvement in or isolation from European disputes. The U.S. refused to expand its immigration policies to accept more Jews fleeing from Nazi persecution.

Anne Frank's Iowa Pen Pal

Iowa played a peripheral role in the debate on Nazi persecution. Some Iowans who traveled to Europe, including some Jewish Iowans, reported on disturbing trends in Germany. One connection stands out. In 1939, a teacher in the southeast Iowa town of Danville arranged for her students to select names pen pals. Margaret Wagner, 10, chose a girl her own age who lived in Amsterdam in the Netherlands. The girl’s name was Anne Frank. Margaret and Anne wrote several letters back and forth until Anne stopped writing. Margaret did not know why.

The reason was that Anne and her family had gone into hiding where they would stay for several years until they were discovered by the Nazis and sent to a concentration camp where Anne died. After the war, Anne Frank's diary written as the family was in hiding, was discovered and became one of the most famous documents in the Jewish experience under Nazi oppression. Today, a museum in Danville, The Anne Frank Connection, tells the story of the two girls. Their letters are on display, one of the two places in the world where visitors can see the correspondence itself.

In 2013, there was a groundbreaking for the Iowa Holocaust Memorial on the grounds of the Iowa Capitol. Today, it stands as a grim reminder of the Nazi genocide and a memorial to those who suffered it.

Supporting Questions

What was the Holocaust?

How did America respond to the Holocaust?

How has America responded to other genocides?