22 No. 77 JUSTICE Jews deteriorated in ways that no one could have expected or imagined. Initially about 50,000 Jews left the country, but most Jews remained cautiously hopeful that the Nazi persecution would subside. They viewed themselves as patriotic German citizens loyal to their homeland. By the middle of the decade, however, most Jews were attempting to leave Germany. In the 1930s about 60,000 German Jews would make it to Palestine along with close to 200,000 other European Jews. Jews left Germany for the Netherlands, France, and England. Others went to Latin America. Australia agreed to accept 15,000 Jewish refugees, but only about 9,000 arrived before the War broke out; New Zealand accepted 1,100, although thousands of others unsuccessfully sought visas; about 6,000 went to British South Africa.27 Canada mostly refused to offer sanctuary for European Jews; by 1945 only about 5,000 Jewish refugees had come there.28 Except for committed Zionists moving (or trying to move) to Palestine, most German Jews probably would have preferred to go to the United States. In mid-1933, FDR met with Treasury Secretary Henry Morgenthau, his close advisor Felix Frankfurter, and other Jewish leaders, but no clear path for the administration emerged and there was no consensus on the best strategy to deal with Germany. Official condemnation or public demonstrations would probably have strengthened Hitler in Germany and might have made things worse for Jews.29 Saying nothing might imply acquiescence or even sympathy for the Nazi policies. FDR tried private diplomacy, but it had no effect on German policy. While some Jewish American leaders lobbied for expanded immigration for Jews from Germany, others feared that special treatment of German Jews would lead to a backlash or violence from the growing number of antisemites in the United States. From the beginning of his administration, FDR appointed Jews in unprecedented numbers. About 15% of all his appointees were Jewish, even though Jews constituted only about 3.5% of the population. Antisemites, isolationists, many Republicans, and some Democrats were already attacking FDR because of the number of Jews in the administration. Some critics called his ambitious “New Deal” legislative agenda, the “Jew Deal.” FDR and some Jewish leaders feared that giving Jewish immigrants special treatment would only strengthen the antisemites, isolationists, and America Firsters, like the popular hero Charles Lindbergh, who admired Hitler and wanted the United States to support his rebuilding of Germany. 27. Julia Schneidawind, “From Altona to Melbourne. German-Speaking Jews in Australia,” (HI)STORIES OF THE GERMANJEWISH DIASPORA (May 8, 2025), available at https://diaspora.jewish-history-online.net/article/schneidawind-australia; Jock Phillips, “History of immigration — The Second World War: 1939 to 1945,” TE ARA – THE ENCYCLOPEDIA OF NEW ZEALAND (updated Aug. 1, 2015), available at https://teara.govt.nz/en/community-contribution/2143/refugeesfrom-nazism; Ann Beaglehole, “The Response of the New Zealand Government to Jewish Refugees and Holocaust Survivors, 1933-1948,” HOLOCAUST CENTRE OF NEW ZEALAND (updated 2013), available at https://www.holocaustcentre. org.nz/uploads/1/2/2/4/122437058/response_of_nz_govt_-a_beaglehole.pdf; Shirli Gilbert, “From One Racial State to Another. German-speaking Jews in South Africa,” (HI)STORIES OF THE GERMAN-JEWISH DIASPORA (May 8, 2025), available at https://diaspora.jewish-history-online.net/article/gilbert-sourth-africa 28. See https://humanrights.ca/story/canada-antisemitism-and-holocaust; see also Irving Abella and Harold Troper, NONE IS TOO MANY: CANADA AND THE JEWS OF EUROPE, 1933-1948 (2023). 29. Official condemnation of German discrimination against Jews would also have raised issues of American discrimination against Blacks and Asians. Many of Hitler’s early laws against Jews mirrored American segregation laws. For example, laws banning interracial marriage were common in the U.S. and were a model for Hitler’s prohibitions on intermarriage between Jews and non-Jews in Germany. Similarly, at least seventeen states and Washington, D.C. segregated their schools and Hitler forced Jews out of schools and other institutions. Roosevelt and others were appalled by the growing violence against Jews in Germany, but Congress refused to pass the Dyer Anti-Lynching Bill, first introduced in 1918, and murderous violence against Blacks rarely led to any punishments for the White perpetrators. When a White mob kidnapped and lynched the Jewish businessman Leo Frank in 1915, no one was punished, even though many of the murderers were well known. Given this history, at least before Kristallnacht, legal segregation, American lynching, and the utter failure of the national government to protect Blacks from southern lynch mobs compromised American condemnation of German policies towards Jews.
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