THE ABANDONMENT OF THE JEWS -- AMERICA AND THE HOLOCAUST, 1941-1945

14. "LATE AND LITTLE"

Central to the War Refugee Board's work were the rescue operations
conducted by its representatives overseas. At the same time, though,
the board pushed forward on other fronts. It appealed to Allied leaders
to issue war-crimes warnings, it searched for havens for escaping refugees,
and it tried to send relief supplies into the concentration camps.

War Crimes Warnings

The WRB was convinced that explicit threats of postwar punishment
for those involved in harming Jews could contribute importantly to
saving lives. By 1944, with Germany clearly headed for defeat, such
threats should carry substantial weight. The board believed that Axis
satellites would be especially responsive to that pressure. [1]

The WRB planned to create a psychological warfare campaign
around a stem new war-crimes declaration to be obtained from the
President. Roosevelt and other Allied leaders had issued several state
ments condemning Axis atrocities and promising postwar punishment
of war criminals. But only two had referred specifically to Jews, the last
in December 1942. The failure to mention atrocities against Jews was
especially glaring in the important war-crimes declarations proclaimed
at the Quebec Conference of August 1943 and the Moscow Conference
two months later. There was concern that the Nazis had concluded that
the Allies did not care if they went on slaughtering Jews. [2]

The board drew up a declaration that focused on the killing of Jews.
Morgenthau, Stettinius, and McCloy endorsed the draft, and it went to
the White House. On March 24, 1944, the President released a weakened,
though still valuable, war-crimes statement. The WRB's emphasis
on Jews had been dropped from the first paragraph to the fourth. The
intervening paragraphs called attention to ten other victimized peoples
and to American prisoners of war murdered by the Japanese. Yet the
part on the Jews was strong. It condemned their "wholesale systematic
murder" as "one of the blackest crimes of all history." [3]

Nevertheless, the statement had been watered down, deliberately.
Roosevelt's special counsel, Samuel Rosenman, had persuaded the President
that the original placed excessive emphasis on the Jews and had
to be generalized. Rosenman, who was negative toward the whole idea,
believed that too pointed a reference to Jews would fuel American anti'
Semitism and stir up anti-administration sentiment. [4]

Within the Treasury, disappointment was bitter. Rosenman had altered
a policy statement on which three Cabinet departments had
agreed and which Stettinius had personally urged on Roosevelt. Pehle
feared that Rosenman would interfere with future rescue decisions that
went to the President. [5]

The original WRB draft had also included an offer to accept large
numbers of refugees into the United States-to be kept in camps and
returned home after the war. This was to provide a starting point for
dealing with the critical problem of lack of havens. The final version
carried only a vague pledge that "we shall find havens of refuge" for
"all victims of oppression." [6]

Despite the statement's shortcomings, the WRB staff agreed with
Morgenthau that "it's so much better than nothing." In it, the President
promised that "none who participate in these acts of savagery shall go
unpunished.... That warning applies not only to the leaders but also
to their functionaries and subordinates in Germany and in the satellite
countries." He also assured that "in so far as the necessity of military
operations permit, this Government will use all means at its command
to aid the escape of all intended victims of the Nazi and Jap execu
tioner." The British Foreign Office endorsed the statement. Attempts
to obtain Soviet support for it were fruitless. [7]

The WRB spread Roosevelt's words across Axis Europe through
neutral radio stations and newspapers, pamphlets sent in via underground
channels, OWI broadcasts, and air-dropped leaflets. Over and
over in the months that followed, WRB warnings to the Axis-both
public ones and those conveyed through diplomatic channels-stressed
that the President's statement was a fundamental part of American
policy. [8]

Calls for another top-level warning arose in September 1944 when
the Polish underground reported that the retreating Germans intended
to slaughter surviving concentration-camp inmates. The WRB, convinced
that a statement from General Eisenhower would carry the
greatest impact, sent a proposed text to the War Department. Five
weeks later, on November 7, Eisenhower warned the Germans not to
"molest, harm or persecute" concentration-camp internees, "no matter
what their religion or nationality may be." [9]

Efforts to persuade the Russians to issue a statement parallel to Eisenhower's
failed. Not until April 1945, in the chaotic last days of the
war, would the Soviets join the Americans and British in warning that
anyone mistreating a prisoner of war or an internee would be "ruthlessly
pursued and brought to punishment." [10]

Because the credibility of the threats depended very much on policies
reached by the London-based United Nations War Crimes Commission,
the WRB was alarmed to learn in the summer of 1944 that the
commission had no plans for punishing people guilty of atrocities
against Jews of Axis nationality. The reason: no precedent existed in
international law. The catalog of war crimes did not include actions by
an enemy nation (or its citizens) against its own subjects or those of its
partner nations. Thus, on technical grounds, the massacres of hundreds
of thousands of Jews (those of German, Hungarian, Rumanian, and
other Axis nationalities) remained outside the scope of the commission. [11]

Confusion was no newcoll1er to the fifteen-nation War Crimes Commission.
Anglo-American steps to establish a United Nations body to
collect evidence of war crimes and to plan postwar punitive action
began in mid-1942. But the organization first met only in December
1943. Roosevelt appointed as the American representative his old friend
Herbert C. Pell, the former minister to Portugal and to Hungary. [12]

From the outset, Pell wanted the commission to be "as tough as
possible." He strongly opposed the view that Axis atrocities against
Axis subjects were outside the realm of war crimes. He won some
members over to his broader interpretation, but they could not act
without orders from their governments. The matter bogged down because
neither Pell nor Sir Cecil Hurst, the British representative and
commission chairman, could get his government to take a position on
it. In January 1945, after eight months without an answer, Hurst quit
in disgust. When he resigned, another member of the commission
openly remarked that the British government treated the delegates to
the War Crimes Commission as if they were "representatives of some
British colony." [13]

The State Department treated Pell even more shabbily. Despite his
frequent requests for instructions on policy issues, it never gave him
definite directions. Thus, while he could "lobby" other commissioners,
he had no authority to take official positions himself. His lack of power
was no accident. Green Hackworth, the department's legal adviser, and
other State Department officials assigned to the war-crimes question
intended that Pell's mission fail. Their motives are not fully clear, but
they apparently did not desire real action by the War Crimes Commission,
and they definitely resented the President's appointment of Pell,
an independent-minded outsider. These middle-level officials even arranged
to saddle him with an assistant who undercut his efforts in
London, both openly (even contradicting him in commission meetings)
and behind his back. [14]

In August 1944, Pell approached Josiah DuBois of the WRB, then in
London on Treasury Department business. He described the situation
and said that a strong request from Washington for the broader interpretation
of war crimes might well convince the whole commission.
Soon afterward, Pehle wrote to Stettinius asking that the State Department
direct Pell to urge the War Crimes Commission to include all Axis
atrocities within its scope. Otherwise, Pehle pointed out, the WRB's
psychological warfare program was endangered. The department's response
was inconclusive. For several months, the board pressed for a
decision. It always received the same reply: the question was "under
active consideration." [15]

In December 1944, Pell returned to the United States to try to clarify
the problem. He made no progress with the State Department, but
conferred with Roosevelt on January 9. By then, Hurst had resigned
from the War Crimes Commission, and it appeared that Pell would
become chairman. The President reassured him and, as he left, said,
"Goodbye, Bertie. Good luck to you. Get back to London as quick as
you can and get yourself elected chairman." When Pell went to the
State Department to bid his formal farewell, he was astonished to hear
Stettinius say that the department had been unable to obtain the appropriation
for continuing his work. The only choice was to close his office
and have some regular American official represent the United States on
the commission. (In fact, the State Department had made only a token
effort to get the $30,000 appropriation.) [16]

Pell soon discovered that the State Department had known for more
than two weeks that the appropriation had failed, but had delayed
telling him until after he saw Roosevelt. Obviously, the intent had been
to keep him from raising the issue with the President. Actually, Roose
velt was aware that there was no appropriation even as he encouraged
his old friend to hurry back to London. [17]

Pell offered to forgo his salary, but the State Department responded
that it was legally impossible for him to serve without payment. He
tried over and over to see Roosevelt again, but had no success. In late
January, aided by the Bergson group, Pell carried his case to the press.
The resulting publicity, along with increasing pressure from the WRB
and Jewish organizations, forced the State Department to clarify Amer.
ica's war-crimes policy at last. On February 1, 1945, Undersecretary
Joseph Grew announced that perpetrators of all crimes against Jews
and other minorities would definitely be punished. [18]

Pell appeared to have won his long battle for a broadened interpre
tation of war crimes. Actually, however, officials of the War, State, and
Justice departments had been studying the question of war-crimes trials
since September. During January, the three departments had agreed on
an overall policy and submitted it to Roosevelt. Included among war
crimes were Axis atrocities against Axis subjects. But the policymakers,
especially in the War Department, wanted to keep the matter secret.
Some argued that additional publicity about the punishment of war
crimes would stiffen Germany's resolve and delay surrender. Others
claimed that the Nazis might react by harming Allied prisoners of war.
Grew's press statement came reluctantly and only because of pressures
generated by the Pell episode. [19]

What Pell definitely achieved, then, was to force the administration
to make its war-crimes policy public, a step the WRB greatly desired.
Whether his year of effort and the WRB's added pressure influenced
the policy itself cannot be determined. [20]

Pell's deputy, an Army officer, filled in as American representative to
the War Crimes Commission, and the State Department found ways to
fund the office and its staff. At the end of March 1945, Roosevelt sent
Samuel Rosenman to London with broad authority to make agreements
on war-crimes policies. A month later, the new President, Harry Tru
man, named Supreme Court Justice Robert H. Jackson the United
States chief counsel for the prosecution of war crimes. In August,
the United States, Britain, Russia, and France agreed on the basic structure
and scope of the war-crimes trials. One of the categories, crimes
against humanity, included atrocities against Jews, whatever their
nationality. [21]

The Search for Havens

From its inception, the War Refugee Board realized that a major obstacle
to rescue was the lack of places to which Jewish refugees could go.
So the board began immediately to search the world for havens. There
was hope that Libya, which was controlled by the British, could become
an important reception area for Jews coming out of the nearby Balkans.
In April 1943, the Bermuda Conference had urged Libya as a sanctuary,
but the British had failed to act. In 1944, the WRB pressed the question
for months. The British continued to stall, citing "involved political
problems" -- meaning Arab opposition to allowing Jews into Libya,
even temporarily. In June, the British finally agreed to one camp, with
a capacity of 1,500, but they managed by procrastination to avoid even
that token step. [22]

As it hunted for havens, the WRB assisted in the final push for the
long-delayed North Africa refugee camp. The Bermuda Conference had
recommended the camp in order to dear Spain of refugees. But for
four months after the conference, the State Department and the British
government had done almost nothing about it. Once they finally chose
a site, a former American Army barracks at Fedala, near Casablanca, it
took almost three more months to gain the consent of the authorities in
French North Africa, the French Committee of National Liberation. At
that, the French set a limit of 2,000, although the facility could hold
15,000. Then, from November 1943 until March 1944, the French continued
to impede the project by requiring a time-consuming security
screening. (Ultimately, one-quarter of the refugees who applied were
rejected.) The French were not really worried about security; it posed
no problem at a holding camp like Fedala. Their concern was that
refugees unable to find permanent homes elsewhere would be left on
their hands after the war. The United States guaranteed postwar re
moval, but the French were not convinced. [23]

At the end of March, the first group was at last ready for transfer to
Fedala. But the British, who had agreed to provide sea transportation,
could not locate a ship. After several weeks of failed British attempts,
the WRB's Leonard Ackermann turned to the War Shipping Administration
office in Algiers. The response was positive. Not long afterward,
the first boatload landed in North Africa. [24]

Fedala opened in early May 1944 -- one year after the Bermuda Conference
adjourned. During that year, 800 refugees had left Spain, most
of them for Palestine. French screening kept many of the rest out of the
new camp. Others were reluctant to leave a known situation in Spain
for an unknown camp existence. As a result, only 630 went to Fedala.
The WRB was able to obtain use of the rest of the camp's 2,000 places
and thus found its first haven. [25]

In mid-1944, the Allied Mediterranean military command, seeking to
relieve the refugee buildup in southern Italy, put heavy pressure on the
French to agree to a second camp. French permission came promptly
this time. The location was a former Allied military barracks at Philippeville,
on the Mediterranean coast in Algeria. It could accommodate
2,500, expandable to 7,000 with the addition of tents. By the time
Philippeville opened, however, the problem in Italy had eased and the
original need for the camp had passed. So a second haven became
available to the WRB. The board's third and last sanctuary, a camp for
1,000 refugees at Fort Ontario, New York, came only after months of
effort. [26]

While seeking openings elsewhere, the WRB was also pressing for an
American commitment. If America opened its gates partway, not only
would a key haven become available, but the board would gain leverage
for its attempts to persuade other nations to do the same. A major
problem was strong opposition to immigration {especially to Jewish
immigration) in Congress, in the State Department, and among much
of the American public. [27]

The board's answer was emergency camps where refugees could be
interned, like prisoners of war, and repatriated after Germany's defeat.
The whole operation would take place outside the immigration system,
thus avoiding any question of altering quotas or visa procedures. A
precedent existed; in 1942, civilian enemy aliens interned as security
risks by Latin American governments had been transferred to camps in
the United States, where more adequate control was available. This
move, like the entry of enemy prisoners of war, had bypassed the whole
official immigration structure. [28]

An opportunity to raise the issue came in March 1944 when the
President's war-crimes statement was released. It included an assurance
that "we shall find havens of refuge" for the oppressed. The WRB staff
proposed a follow-up message for the President to issue. It would
declare that, in line with the promise to find havens of refuge, the
United States was offering temporary asylum to all who could escape
Hitler. They would have to live under restrictions similar to those imposed
on POWs, but they would receive humane treatment. After the
war, they would be returned to their homelands. [29]

The WRB also drafted a separate memorandum for the President
explaining the situation. It emphasized that no significant rescue cam
paign was possible unless havens were opened up, and they would not
open unless the United States set the example. Once America took the
step, though, the other United Nations would undoubtedly follow. Furthermore,
the approaching end of the war and the long transatlantic
trip made it unlikely that many refugees would actually come to the
United States. The important thing, the board stressed, was to offer to
receive them. [30]

Before the proposal could go to the White House, it needed the
approval of the secretaries of War, State, and the Treasury. Stimson
had serious doubts. His main objection had nothing to do with military
affairs, but arose from his own strongly restrictionist views. ,He believed
that, if refugees entered in this way, heavy pressure later on might
induce Congress to alter the immigration laws and let them stay. And
he thoroughly opposed any increase in permanent immigration or any
compromise of the immigration laws. This position, he maintained,
reflected that of Congress and much of the public. He was willing to
endorse the proposal, though, if the President obtained the consent of
Congress before acting. [31]

For a time, Morgenthau also maintained that FDR should not implement
the plan without congressional approval. He was worried lest the
President antagonize the lawmakers and incur political damage. On the
other hand, he was sure Congress would not enact the proposal, and he
wanted the camps established. With time, his staff persuaded him that
Roosevelt should use his executive powers to carry out the plan. [32]

Hull, basically cool toward the havens proposal, barely involved him·
self with the question. Visa Chief Howard Travers warned him that the
idea was likely to be unpopular with Congress and the public and could
open him to criticism. George Warren, the department's liaison with
the WRB, advised him to be leery of any plan for bringing in more than
"a limited number" of refugees. In the end, though, Hull went along
with Morgenthau. [33]

Finally, Morgenthau, Hull, and Stimson agreed to a weakened form
of the proposal. The original plan would have offered temporary sanctuary
in the United States "for all oppressed peoples escaping from
Hider." The new version omitted the word all. The recommendation
went to the White House on May 8. [34]

Meanwhile, public support had been building behind the plan for
emergency camps. Early in April, New York Post writer Samuel Grafton,
whose column ran in forty newspapers with combined circulations
of over four million, launched a campaign for what he termed "free
ports":

A "free port" is a small bit of land, a kind of reservation, into which
foreign goods may be brought without paying customs duties . ... Goods
brought into it from overseas are destined either for transshipment to other
countries, or for temporary storage.

Why" couldn't we have a system of free ports for refugees fleeing the
Hider terror? ...

The refugees, Jewish and other, "ask only for a few fenced-in acres of the
poorest land in America. They don't want to keep it. They just want to sit
on it until they can go home again.

During April, Grafton wrote two more columns advocating free ports.
He also publicized the plan on radio. [35]

The New York Post hammered away on the issue in editorials and
news articles. Its reporters raised the question at Roosevelt's press conferences.
The New York Herald Tribune, the Times, the Christian Science
Monitor, and numerous other papers soon joined the call for. free
ports. So did the entire Hearst chain, syndicated columnist Dorothy
Thompson, several radio commentators, the New Republic, the Nation,
the Commonweal, and the Christian Century. The Jewish press and all
important Jewish organizations backed the plan. The Bergsonite Emergency
Committee dramatized it in full-page newspaper advertisements
that were linked to a nationwide petition drive. [36]

Among many others to advocate the free-ports proposal were the
Federal Council of Churches, the Church Peace Union, the National
Board of the YWCA, the Catholic Committee for Refugees, the Friends
and Unitarian service committees, the President's Advisory Committee
on Political Refugees, the AFL, the CIO, and the National Farmers
Union. William Green, head of the AFL, sent a personal appeal to
Roosevelt. Alfred E. Smith and seventy-one other prominent non-Jewish
Americans, in a statement to the President, called the establishment
of temporary havens a "moral obligation." Several congressmen introduced
legislation for free ports. [37]

As support grew for the camps proposal, the WRB kept silent.
Pressed at a mid-April news conference, Pehle would say only that the
question· was under consideration. By. then, interest was so high that
even that vague answer drew front-page coverage in major New York
newspapers. Actually, behind the scenes, the WRB was actively encouraging
Jewish organizations to carry out a coordinated drive to gain
support for free ports from newspaper editors, radio commentators,
members of Congress, and other influential Americans. [38]

A mid-April Gallup poll, requested by presidential assistant David
Niles, found 70 percent approval of emergency refugee camps in the
United States. Further indication of widespread backing for the plan
was seen in the large numbers of favorable letters, telegrams, and peti
tions that were reaching the President, Congress, and the WRB. Only a
few messages of dissent turned up, forerunners of an opposition that
had not yet awakened. [39]

On May 11, Pehle discussed the plan for emergency camps with
Roosevelt. He showed him a book of press clippings generated by the
proposal, the letters of support from organizations and important indi
viduals, and the Gallup poll. The President was impressed. He had
read one of Grafton's articles the night before, he said, and liked it very
much. He appeared to Pehle to be "very, very favorably disposed toward
the whole idea." Pehle told the President that he thought it was
too late to go through Congress. Roosevelt said he was reluctant to
bring in large numbers of refugees without congressional consent. Instead,
he proposed that if a situation developed in which a specific
group of 500 to 1,000 refugees needed a haven, he would take them in
and, at the same time, explain his action in a message to Congress. [40]

A few days later, the WRB learned of the crisis that had arisen in
southern Italy. Because of the heavy influx of Yugoslav refugees, the
camps in Egypt to which they were being transferred were reaching
capacity. Fearing a pile-up in southern Italy, Allied military authorities
had curtailed the flow. Clearly, additional temporary havens were essential
for the Adriatic escape route to remain open. [41]

Pehle sent a message to' the President explaining the problem. He
pointed out:

This emergency situation is, I believe, exactly the type of situation which
you had in mind. We can break this bottleneck by immediately bringing to
the United States approximately 1,000 refugees from southern Italy and
placing then in an unused Army camp along the Eastern seaboard, where
they would remain until the end of the war. [42]

Nothing happened for a week. Then, at a May 26 Cabinet meeting,
Morgenthau brought up the refugee situation in Italy. Roosevelt immediately
ordered the Army to reopen the refugee flow across the Adriatic.
But he still did not respond to Pehle's request. At his press conference
on May 30, the President Was asked about the plan for free ports. He
replied, "I like the idea, and we are working on it now," but went on
to say, "it is not, in my judgment, necessary to decide that we have to
have a free port right here in the United States. There are lots of other
places in the world where refugees conceivably could go to." When
Pehle heard that news, he checked with the White House. He was told
that the President had meant that free ports did not have to be limited
to the United States; they could be opened elsewhere too. The question
had apparently caught him off guard. [43]

Morgenthau and Pehle saw Roosevelt on June 1. He Was aware of
the problem in Italy. But he had forgotten most of his discussion of
three weeks earlier with Pehle. Pehle repeated the main points, empha
sizing the widespread support for free ports. The President then agreed
to bring 1,000 refugees over from Italy. [44]

At his news conference the next day, FDR was asked to clarify what
he had said about free ports at the preceding press conference. He
explained that some refugees would be coming to the United States,
but it was only common sense to take care of most of them overseas
and thus avoid the long ocean voyages Over and back. He mentioned
that Pehle was looking into the possibility of using a vacant Army camp
in the United States. Questioned about taking refugees in without re
gard to quotas and visas, Roosevelt answered, "If you have some starv
ing and perfectly helpless people -- after all, they are human beings and
we can give them the assurance of life somewhere else, it seems like
it's the humanitarian thing to do." [45]

That same day, Pehle found a camp. In fact, the War Department
offered a choice of two Army camps, both in northern New York, one
at Oswego and the other near Watertown. On June 8, Morgenthau and
Pehle saw the President again and reported that two camps were avail.
able. Roosevelt enthusiastically recommended the one at Oswego: "Fort
Ontario is my camp. I know the fort very well. It goes back to before
Civil War times and is a very excellent place." He carefully read and
then initialed the enabling documents that Pehle handed him. The next
day, at his press conference, he announced that "we are going to bring
over a thousand, that's all, to this country, to go into that camp -- Fort
Oswego -- Fort Ontario." [46]

Soon afterward, Roosevelt sent a message-prepared by the WRB to
Congress. It summarized the refugee situation in Italy, explained the
urgent need for additional temporary havens, and declared that "our
heritage and our ideals of liberty and justice" required the nation to
"take immediate steps to share the responsibility for meeting the prob
lem." Arrangements were therefore under way to bring 1,000 refugees
from southern Italy to the United States. To counter a potential negative
reaction in Congress, the statement emphasized that the refugees would
be kept in a camp "under appropriate security restrictions." And it
pledged that "upon the termination of the war they will be sent back to
their homelands." [47]

Fort Ontario was the only American free port. While America's immigration
quotas allotted to countries of occupied Europe were 91
percent unfilled (more than 55,000 unused slots that year), the nation
opened its gates to 1,000 fugitives from extermination. Eight months
before, Sweden had welcomed 8,000 Jews from Denmark. Sweden's
population and her land area were each about one-twentieth that of the
United States. Journalist I. F. Stone described the American contribution
as "a kind of token payment to decency, a bargain-counter flourish
in humanitarianism." [48]

The outcome of the campaign for emergency havens, one camp, only
faintly resembled the WRB's original objective, an American offer of
temporary refuge "for all oppressed peoples escaping from Hitler." A
dramatic proposal of that dimension would have put pressure on other
nations to open their doors. And, a point of signal importance, Spain
and Turkey might have agreed to act as bridges to safety once they were
certain that the refugees would move right through. [49]

With a generous American offer in hand, the WRB had planned to
launch a bold initiative and call on Germany and its satellites to release
the Jews en masse. That challenge, in combination with the havens offer
and the President's war-crimes threat, would make crystal clear to the
Germans, and to the world, America's determination to do all it could
to stop the extermination of the Jews. [50]

It is impossible to know what the plan might have achieved. At a
minimum, though, if Turkey and Spain (and Switzerland) had publicly
announced their willingness to take in any Jew who reached their borders,
escapes from Axis territory would have increased by the thousands.
The WRB proposal might not have budged Hitler, but chances
were strong that the Axis satellites would have responded positively.

Actually, middle-level State Department officials were not at all sure
that Hitler was immovable. They warned Hull to be cautious about the
WRB plan:

The proposal, if carried through, would inevitably involve the risk that
Hitler might take advantage of the offer to embarrass the United Nations at
this time by proposing to deliver thousands of refugees at stated ports on
definite days. Should the United Nations fail to provide the shipping to
remove them serious embarrassment to all concerned would result.

In reality, it was not shipping that worried the State Department but
the specter of a mass outflow of Jews and no place to put them. At that
very time, the Allies had ample shipping available for moving refugees.
This was verified by Assistant Secretary of War McCloy, and it was
proven by the ongoing evacuation of thousands of Yugoslavs from Italy
to Egypt. [51]

The President's limited offer annulled the WRB's basic plan. The
single camp failed to open any other doors. As Charles Joy of the
Unitarian Service Committee pointed out, the smallness of the offer
"destroys the value of the gesture. If the United States with all its
resources can take only one thousand of these people what can we
expect other countries to do?" [52]

In the United States, two reactions greeted the President's decision.
One was gratitude, combined with disappointment that the step had
been so limited. The other was bitter anger at Roosevelt for his highhanded
breaching of the immigration bulwarks. The response in favor
of free ports was immediate and widespread. Endorsements of FDR's
action came from major newspapers, from Christian and Jewish groups,
and from hundreds of individuals who sent messages to the White
House. Most expressions of support also called for many more American
havens. But Roosevelt had no intention of that, as he explained in
a personal reply to one of the letters: "We do not need any more free
ports at the present time because of the physical problems of transportation,
and we are taking care of thousands of others in North Africa
and Italy." [53]

On the other side, restrictionists and anti-Semites wrote angrily to
the President, members of Congress, and newspapers. None believed
that the refugees would go back; many saw the thousand as the entering
wedge for hundreds of thousands more, mostly Jews. The undercurrent
of anti-Semitism then running through American society surfaced in
several letters. A woman in New York asserted that America owed
nothing to the oppressed Jews; "they are the reason for Hitler!" A
Colorado man insisted that the refugees were obviously not going to be
repatriated: "What country would want a Jew back?" The editors of
Life magazine were shaken by the amount of bitterly nasty mail that
came in response to a photo story on the refugees' arrival at Fort
Ontario. [54]

Syndicated columnist Westbrook Pegler used the thousand refugees
as a club to attack Roosevelt. He warned that "many thousands" more
would be coming, including Communists and crooks. Later, he wrote
that "Mr. Roosevelt may admit 500,000." Promises to send them back
after the war, he insisted, were worthless. Patriotic organizations took
up the cry, fearful that the first thousand might form a precedent for
breaking down the immigration laws. Throughout the summer, arch-
restrictionist Senator Robert R. Reynolds (Dem., N.C.) kept the issue
boiling. Others in Congress were indignant at Roosevelt's use of executive
power to bring refugees in. After all, Congress had refused him
that prerogative when it choked off the Third War Powers Bill in
November 1942. [55]

The Fort Ontario Experience

The refugees first saw Fort Ontario on an August morning in 1944. A
returning Army troopship carried them from Italy to New York. and a
special overnight train brought them to Oswego. Help came too late
for one, a baby girl who died at sea of malnutrition and pneumonia.
Most of the 982 who arrived had endured years of persecution, flight,
and camp life; nearly a hundred had survived Dachau or Buchenwald.
They came from seventeen different nations; Yugoslavs, Austrians,
Poles, Germans, and Czechs were the most numerous. Their ages
ranged from three weeks to eighty years. but people in their twenties
were scarce, as were men of military age. The group was 89 percent
Jewish. Most of the rest were Catholic. [i] [56]

The refugees' arrival generated pages and pages of photographs and
human-interest stories. The American press for the first time had discovered
a Holocaust-related event worthy of featured coverage. [58]

Once at the Emergency Refugee Shelter, as the camp was officially
designated. the fugitives came under the jurisdiction of the War Relocation
Authority (WRA), then within the Department of the Interior.
The WRA received the job because it was experienced in operating the
camps where Japanese and Japanese-Americans were interned. Actually,
the WRA had earlier concluded that camp life was harmful and
to be avoided if possible. Before the refugees arrived, it tried unsuccessfully
to arrange for them to leave the shelter for a normal community
life after a limited reception period. [59]

The camp was located on the shore of Lake Ontario, thirty-five miles
northwest of Syracuse. Conditions were livable, but not conducive to
healthy family life; and three-fourths of the refugees belonged to family
units. Meals were eaten in mess halls. Families lived in barracks build
ings that had been partitioned into small apartments. The apartments
had only the barest furnishings and lacked individual bathroom facili
ties. More important, the thin walls allowed almost no privacy. Friction
among neighbors was chronic. [60]

Soon after the shelter opened, Army intelligence officials screened
the refugees for security purposes. After that, they were allowed to leave
the camp and go into the town of Oswego for up to six hours at a time,
but they had to be back by midnight. No one could travel beyond
Oswego, except for essential hospitalization. Nor could anyone take
employment outside the camp. Visitors could come into the shelter, but
not even close relatives could stay overnight. In an arrangement that
proved mutually rewarding, the Oswego public schools provided free
education for 190 refugee children. Another thirty attended the practice
school at Oswego State Teachers College free of charge. [61]

Dozens of Jewish organizations, and a few non-Jewish ones, came to
the shelter to offer help. Without them, camp life would have been
substantially more difficult. To avoid public criticism, the government
provided minimum subsistence only. For example, the medical policy
was to maintain the refugees in the same general condition in which
they arrived, despite the years of deprivation many had experienced.
No medical or. dental rehabilitation was to be performed except to
counter an immediate threat to health. The government did not even
furnish vitamins for babies and children. The private agencies met those
needs, supplying corrective medical treatment, dental care and den
tures, and even items as basic as eyeglasses. They also lent social workers
to the WRA for the initial adjustment period, equipped and funded
many cultural and recreational programs, and sponsored numerous
adult education courses. [62]

After several weeks of rest and adequate nourishment, the refugees'
anxieties about basic physical needs receded. Many then became restive
about the restrictions under which they lived. In Italy, after the Allied
occupation, most had moved about freely, held jobs if they wished, and
used the camps only as a home base. [63]

Before departing for the United States, the adult refugees had signed
a form in which they agreed to reside at Fort Ontario arid, after the
war, to return to their homelands. These stipulations were in line with
Roosevelt's pledges to Congress and had always been pan of the WRB's
havens plan. The point on postwar repatriation had been clearly con
veyed to the refugees before they left Italy, but the requirement that
they stay in the camp had not. The language in that pan of the form
was ambiguous. And none of the refugees had been confronted with
the form until they had made all the arrangements to leave and were
about to board the ship. [64]

Through the last months of 1944, the misunderstanding about confinement
to Fort Ontario led to increasing resentment within the camp.
By January 1945, that factor, combined with several others, had depressed
morale to the point where one suicide had occurred and many
internees were near mental breakdown. [ii] [65]

Another cause of the very poor morale was the constant tension
generated by the work situation in the shelter. The WRA expected able
refugees to perform basic camp services and maintenance, such as preparing
food, cleaning the mess hall, removing garbage, and distributing
coal. But many resisted this work, either by evasion or by open refusal.
A key reason for this was the widespread negative attitude in the group
toward physical labor, especially menial jobs. In addition, many who
worked believed they were taken advantage of because of the low compensation.
The WRA granted all refugees $8.50 per month for inciden
tal purchases. Regular workers received $18.00 per month, which
represented a real salary of only $9.50. The reluctance to work meant
that the camp administration, which was basically sympathetic, was
embroiled in an unending struggle to get the refugees to perform essential
services. Furthermore, much of the work was poorly done; kitchen
sanitation in particular posed a chronic threat to health. Camp morale
suffered another devastating blow in February 1945 when one of the
most cooperative workers died in a coal-unloading accident, leaving a
wife and four young children. [67]

Curt Bondy, a psychologist and an expert on camp life, visited Fort
Ontario at the start of 1945. His report emphasized the high level of
tension in the shelter, despite the almost complete absence of physical
violence. He pointed to the work situation as the worst problem, one
that was unsolvable, given the WRA's refusal to increase pay. No basis
for community cohesiveness existed in the camp; in fact, nationality
differences bred constant conflict. (In one instance, Austrians and Germans
had stalked out of a synagogue because the rabbi delivered his
sermon in a Yugoslav language.) Bondy concluded that the only real
solution was to phase out the shelter as soon as possible. [68]

Bondy was not alone in believing that the Fort Ontario refugees
needed a more normal existence. Many refugees, of course, held the
same view. Backed by relatives and friends outside the camp, they had
begun to press hard for release. By early 1945, they had several allies.
One was the camp director, Joseph Smart. Another was the WRA
leadership in Washington. It called for a furlough arrangement pat
terned on the system by which Japanese internees were being paroled
from camps into American communities. Secretary of the Interior Ickes
supported release wholeheartedly and pressed for it throughout 1945.
The private refugee-aid organizations lobbied steadily for it through a
special "Camp Committee" led by representatives of the National Refugee
Service, the HIAS, and the American Friends Service Committee. [69]

What emerged was a widely supported plan for "sponsored leave."
Under it, the private agencies would provide community and job placement
for the refugees and guarantee that they would not become public
charges. For supervisory purposes, the refugees would maintain
monthly contact with the WRA. Supporters pointed to the tax savings
that would result with the closing of the camp. [70]

But powerful opposition to sponsored leave came from Attorney
General Francis Biddle, President Roosevelt, and the War Refugee
Board. Biddle and Roosevelt maintained that release from the camp
would probably be illegal and certainly would constitute a breach of
faith with the Congress. Biddle noted that members of Congress had
challenged him several times to justify the entry of the refugees and he
had assured them that they were staying only temporarily and would
remain in detention while here. Release, he declared, would increase
the suspicion, already widespread in Congress, that the administration
was trying to get around the immigration laws, For some time, the WRB
also opposed sponsored leave as a violation of the pledges that it and
the President had made. In March 1945, though, William O'Dwyer,
who had recently replaced Pehle as WRB director, began to search for
a way around Biddle's ban on sponsored leave. He was not successful. [iii] [71]

Eleanor Roosevelt was caught between the President's position and
her personal concern about the refugees-a concern deepened by a
visit to the shelter. She publicly voiced her unhappiness that the refugees
could not be out building their futures. But because of the President's
pledge and the negative attitude in Congress, she saw no way it
could be done. "The whole thing seems perfectly silly to me," she wrote
to a clergyman in a city near Oswego, "but we have to realize that
people in war time are not logical and Congress acts in the way that
they think people at home want them to act." [73]

Until the shelter finally dosed, the government insisted that essential
hospitalization constituted the only grounds for leaving the camp, except
for the brief visits to Oswego. Thus, a refugee whose paralyzed
wife lived on Long Island could not visit her even for Christmas. An
older man, deafened and his health broken by beatings in a concentration
camp, had a wife and two grown daughters who had escaped from
Europe earlier. They lived in California and were now American citizens.
His wife, who operated a successful small business, was anxious
to care for him. Only in November 1945, after the man's health had
deteriorated to the point where he was almost fully paralyzed, did he
qualify for medical leave. His wife then took him to California. The
family was reunited briefly. The husband died two months later. [74]

During 1945, psychological deterioration continued in the camp. By
mid-March, four refugees had been removed to mental institutions.
Germany's surrender in May briefly raised spirits; but shortly afterward
even worse depression set in as rumors ran through the shelter that the
whole group would soon be shipped back to Europe. The great majority
dreaded repatriation. Many felt they could not face life in former homelands
that had disowned them, countries where they had passed
through terrible experiences and had lost loved ones. And they feared
renewed persecution in a Europe where the Nazis had cultivated anti-Semitism. [75]

In addition, more than half of the shelter's inhabitants had relatives
who lived in the United States outside the camp. For over a hundred of
them, repatriation would mean separation from immediate family members:
husband or wife in seven cases, brothers or sisters in seventy-three
others, and children in thirty-five more. Fourteen of the refugees had
sons in the American armed forces. [iv] [76]

As spring and summer passed, the future of the Fort Ontario refugees
hung in the balance. But time made it increasingly dear that repatriation
was unlikely. The plight of the millions of displaced persons in
Europe was emerging as a problem of immense proportions. Food and
clothing were in short supply, and destruction was everywhere. If the
United States sent this thousand back, it might encourage Switzerland,
Sweden, and other countries to force out the much greater numbers of
refugees they had harbored, adding substantially to the chaos. [78]

By fall, compulsory repatriation had become a major issue in Europe.
President Truman and the U.S. Army lined up solidly against it; they
also began to press for moving DPs out of Europe. Truman specifically
called on Britain to permit 100,000 Jews to go to Palestine to help
relieve the situation. [79]

Against that background, it would have been ludicrous for America
to insist on returning 1,000 refugees to Europe. But they could not be
kept at the camp indefinitely either. Not until Christmas 1945 did the
answer emerge, when Truman ruled that they could enter the United
States under the barely touched immigration quotas.[80]

Truman's decision followed months of continuous pressure from several
sides. Interior Secretary Ickes had pushed steadily for implementation
of already existing administrative procedures that permitted the
Justice and State departments to admit the refugees under the immigration
quotas. At the same time, the WRA stalled moves within the administration
to deport the group. The private agencies and the Jewish
defense organizations pressured top State Department leaders and the
President, arguing that repatriation would not only be cruel to the
refugees but would also contradict American policy and worsen the DP
situation in Europe. Joseph Smart resigned as shelter director in May
1945 to launch a campaign for admitting the refugees as permanent
immigrants. He marshaled support from leading Oswego citizens and
many prominent Americans, including John Dewey, Albert Einstein,
and Eleanor Roosevelt. By June 1945, O'Dwyer and the WRB were also
fighting repatriation. [81]

Samuel Dickstein, chairman of the House Immigration Committee,
played a pivotal role in ending the impasse. To dramatize the difficulties
involved in sending the refugees back and to demonstrate the high
caliber of the group as prospective immigrants, he held hearings at the
shelter in June 1945. Careful planning and Dickstein's skillful management
of the sessions produced a very favorable impression on the con-
gressmen present as well as in the extensive press coverage that
resulted. [82]

In Washington a week later, Dickstein maneuvered a compromise
through the heavily restrictionist House Immigration Committee.
Tough in appearance, it called on the administration to send back
without delay all whose repatriation was practicable. The rest should
undergo deportation proceedings, and the camp should be closed, ending
a government expense of $600,000 per year. What Dickstein
counted on was the impracticability of repatriation, given the situation
in Europe. Nor was deportation feasible under the circumstances. Furthermore,
existing regulations permitted aliens under deportation proceedings
to petition to be examined for eligibility. for the immigration
quotas. The Immigration Committee's action thus threw the entire re
sponsibility into the hands of the Truman administration. Dickstein,
along with Ickes, then kept prodding Truman, emphasizing the terrible
conditions in Europe and reminding him that he had the power to let
the refugees stay. [83]

Truman's decision came on the night of December 22, 1945. It was
part of the "Truman Directive," an order issued to set an international
example by expediting admission of displaced persons to the United
States. For the first time since mid-1940, the U.S. immigration quotas
were open for full use. Concerning the refugees at Oswego, Truman
termed it "inhumane and wasteful" to make them go back to Europe,
where they would almost immediately be eligible for immigration visas
for the United States. [84]

The White House gave the National Refugee Service the responsibility
for relocating the Fort Ontario refugees and allowed one month -- January
1946-to clear the camp. Despite the short deadline, the NRS
and dozens of Jewish communities across the country successfully
placed the 834 Jewish refugees. The American Christian Committee for
Refugees and the Catholic Committee for Refugees made arrangements
for the non-Jews. Thus, eighteen months after its arrival, America's
"token shipment" of refugees officially entered the United States -- as
permanent quota immigrants. [vi] [85]

Truman's decision drew sharp fire from restrictionists. Hundreds of
letters to the White House demanded its reversal. Westbrook Pegler
sounded the alarm again: "The adults, men and women both, for all we
know may be Communists." These outbursts were only the last crash
of a hailstorm of restrictionist resentment that had lashed at the Fort
Ontario refugees since before their arrival. Beneath much of that restrictionism
was the widespread anti-Semitism then embedded in American
society. Because it had both local and national impact, the Fort
Ontario episode provided a gauge of American anti-Semitism in that
era. [87]

Many Oswego citizens welcomed the refugees, sympathized with
them, and recognized the advantages in associating with them. But they
were a minority. Within a month of the refugees' arrival, anti-Semitism
began to increase rapidly throughout the city. Oswego residents who
befriended refugees encountered social ostracism. Even the successful
public school experience was marred by name-calling ("you dirty
Jews"; "filthy refugee"). There was some ganging up on refugee children.
Malicious rumors circulated persistently, especially claims that
the government furnished luxury items for the refugees and drained the
area of such scarce commodities as rationed foods and cigarettes in
order to pamper them. These stories spread to neighboring localities
and even turned up as far away as Buffalo. A physician in Syracuse told
colleagues that the refugees had steak twice a week, despite the meat
shortage. (In reality, they had been served no steak at all.) [vi] [88]

Anti-Semitism also surfaced in numerous ugly anti-refugee letters to
the Oswego daily newspaper. Syracuse newspapers printed many similar
communications. A rash of particularly mean-spirited letters that
appeared in summer 1945 convinced the publisher of the Oswego newspaper
that a campaign was afoot, probably instigated from outside the
area. [90]

Anti-Semitism in Oswego, a typical small American city, was probably
little greater than in much of the rest of the nation. The difference
was the presence of the refugees; they drew Oswego's anti-Jewish feelings
to the surface. Correspondence in the Dickstein committee's files
furnishes convincing evidence that northern New York's anti-Semitism
was not unusual. Dickstein's efforts to find a solution for the thousand
refugees were nationally publicized. The extensive news coverage gen
erated by the hearings at Fort Ontario brought a deluge of restrictionist
protest on the congressman. Much of the outcry-and it came from
across the nation-was anti-Semitic. Often, the anti-Semitism was subtle;
but in numerous cases, illustrated by excerpts from three letters to
Dickstein, it was blatant.

Your attempt to keep that gang of refugees from Ft. Oswego in this
country is just an opening wedge to get all of that "trash" from Europe over
here. The result will be anti-Jewish race riots.

We have too much of that crap here now. I wonder why no country in
the world wants them?

To leave that bunch of refujews in this country ... was the game to start
with by Mr. F. D. Rosenblatt who fortunately died before his louzy plan
could be carried out with you and your tribe.... We don't propose to stand
idly by and have that bunch of parasite[s] pushed down our throats over
here. We fought to preserve America for Americans and our children and
not for a bunch of refujews.

You lousy sheeney, what do you mean by wanting to keep those Jews in
this country.... You kikes are the scum of the earth. [vii] [91]

Latin American Documents

While the WRB pressed ahead with its main projects, its staff searched
continually for other rescue possibilities. One plan was to exchange
German citizens living in the United States and Latin America for Jews
in Axis Europe. In December 1942, shortly after the news of extermi
nation surfaced, Jewish groups had urged this. The State Department
failed to respond openly, but secretly rejected the proposal on the
ground that European governments-in-exile would probably protest it
as favoring Jews over their non-Jewish citizens. [93]

Britain, on the other hand, had already completed two such exchanges
with Germany. Germans from Egypt, South Africa, and
Palestine went to Europe in return for Jews sent to Palestine. A
third exchange took place in July 1944. But only 463 Jews were in-
volved in the three transfers combined. The Nazis had 4,000 more
Jews cleared to go, but the British lacked exchangeable German
citizens. [94]

In spring 1944, under WRB pressure, the State Department opened
negotiations with Germany concerning inclusion of Jews in the next
general American-German exchange. Ultimately, in January 1945, 800
Germans interned in the United States and Latin America were exchanged
for 800 American and Latin American citizens. Among the
latter were 149 Jews from Bergen-Belsen who possessed Latin American
passports. A key obstacle to larger exchanges was that few Germans in
the Western Hemisphere would agree to repatriation. [95]

A problem related to exchanges arose shortly before the WRB was
established, and engaged its attention during much of 1944. The issue
centered on Latin American protective passports held by a few thousand
Jews in Nazi Europe. Originally, some stateless Jews with prospects
for overseas migration had procured Latin American passports to
remedy their lack of basic travel documentation. Many of them failed
in their emigration plans. But with time it became evident that the Nazis
considered Jews who held Latin American papers a potentially useful
commodity. They might be exchangeable for some of the tens of thousands
of German citizens resident in Latin America. So the Nazis put
these supposed Latin American Jews into special exchange camps
with other interned civilians of enemy nationalities. Conditions there
were livable, and, most important, the Jews seemed safe from deportation. [96]

As word spread, a sizable traffic developed in Latin American passports.
In Switzerland, Portugal, Sweden, and even Japan and the United
States, relatives and friends of Jews in Nazi territory obtained passports
from Latin American consulates and had them smuggled into occupied
Europe. Most consuls sold the documents for personal gain; a few acted
out of humanitarian motives. Most of these papers were of doubtful
validity. But the 5,000 to 10,000 Jews who held them enjoyed a precarious
safety in Nazi exchange camps. [97]

As 1943 ended, however, danger threatened. In September, Paraguay
dismissed its consul in Switzerland and annulled the unauthorized passports
he had issued. Two months later, at the internment camp at Vittel,
in northeastern France, the Germans took up all Paraguayan passports.
Word reached Washington within days that Jews there, as well as in
other exchange camps, faced deportation to Poland. The State Department
persuaded the Paraguayan government to honor the passports
until the war ended. Paraguay then informed the Germans that the
passports were still valid. At about the same time, the State Department
asked the Intergovernmental Committee on Refugees to try to stop the
deportations and see what could be done to protect all holders of the
dubious Latin American documents. [98]

The ICR considered the question for two months, then decided not
to act. Meanwhile, during January 1944, reports reached Washington
indicating that the Germans were confiscating the passports of several
Latin American nations from Jews in Vittel and other exchange camps.
When the newly formed WRB looked into the situation, it realized that
the Swiss government had failed to protest. (Switzerland represented
the interests of most belligerent Latin American nations in matters
concerning Germany.) The board drafted a telegram instructing the
American legation in Bern to press the Swiss to prevail upon Germany
to accept Latin American documents as valid unless they were actually
repudiated by the Latin American governments. [99]

Middle-level State Department officials, put off by the WRB's strident
approach to diplomacy, cited the impropriety of upholding fraudulent
passports and blocked the telegram for almost seven weeks. The
American government had, of course, not hesitated to use forged papers
for numerous purposes. What State Department officials mainly objected
to was the broad scope of the WRB order. They were willing, at
most, to ask the Swiss to help when the Germans raised questions in
specific cases. The board recognized the futility of such a piecemeal
approach-a futility magnified by the fact that the Nazis were not
inquiring about the passports but were simply preparing to ship the
Jews out.. In this dispute, the most adamant of the State Department
officials were Paul T. Culbertson, chief of the Western European Division,
and James H. Keeley, Jr., chief of the Special War Problems
Division. [100]

What finally shook the WRB telegram loose from the State Department
was a set of events in early April. The Union of Orthodox Rabbis
in New York received information that the Polish Jews in Vittel had
been isolated for deportation. Three rabbis hastened to Washington.
Though actively supported by the offices of Senator James Mead (Dem.,
N.Y.) and of House Majority Leader John McCormack, the rabbis got
nowhere with the State Department. They then went to Morgenthau.
Upset by the long delays, and shaken when the oldest rabbi "completely
broke down and ... wept, and wept, and wept," Morgenthau phoned
Hull and persuaded him to force the issue. The next day, the State
Department sent the telegram to Switzerland. In Bern, the first secretary
of the American legation, George Tait, echoed objections lately raised
in Washington:

I do not like this matter at all in any of its aspects, This group of persons
has obtained false papers to which they have no claim and has endeavored
to obtain special treatment which they would not otherwise have received.
We are being placed in the position of acting as nurse-maid to persons who
have no claim to our protection.

But Tait was quickly overruled. [101]

Pressing its breakthrough, the WRB succeeded in sending two important
follow-up telegrams. State Department opposition had not declined,
but ir had to bend before the impact of Morgenthau's pressure
on Hull and a new burst of heat kindled by journalist Drew Pearson.
One of the rabbis, angry about the protracted delay in sending the
previous telegram, carried the story to Pearson, who reported it on his
Sunday evening radio program. [102]

The first of the additional telegrams instructed the American legation
in Bern to inform the Germans, through the Swiss, that the United
States was working with Latin American nations on plans to exchange
German citizens in the Americas for people held by Germany, including
Jews with Latin American passports. Largely a bluff, this statement was
aimed at convincing the Germans that they had something to gain by
keeping those Jews alive. [103]

The other telegram initiated negotiations with fourteen Latin American
governments. It asked each to affirm the passports issued in its
name and to insist to the German government that holders of its documents
be protected. In return, the WRB agreed to find havens elsewhere
for any of the Jews who might come out. After prolonged
negotiations, which the Vatican seconded, thirteen Latin American
states consented. [104]

Meanwhile, the WRB and the American legation in Bern began dispatching
frequent and forceful reminders to the German authorities
that Jews with Latin American documents were entitled to protection
and were eligible for exchange. In May, the German Foreign Office
sent formal assurance that no one then in an exchange camp would be
deported. At least two violations of this pledge occurred, but for the
most part the agreement appears to have been upheld. No solid data
are available concerning the number of Jews thus saved, but the board's
own guess of about 2,000 is reasonable. [105]

The WRB's steps came too late, however, for the Polish Jews
in Vittel, whose impending deportation had first alarmed the Orthodox
rabbis. At least 214 of them were deported, almost certainly to
Auschwitz. If the State Department had not delayed the WRB's
plans for nearly seven weeks, those 214 would probably have survived. [106]

Another rescue project had virtually run its course before the WRB
was established. In March 1943, the Spanish government agreed to take
in 300 Sephardic Jews whom the Germans were willing to release. The
300 were part of the thousands of descendants of Jews who had been
expelled from Spain in the fifteenth century. Although Sephardic Jews
had settled in several lands, Spain had continued to view them as its
citizens and had claimed the right to intervene to protect them when
necessary. But before 1943 it had done virtually nothing to save them
from the Nazis. Even under the new policy, the Spanish authorities
consented to accept only a small number and then only with assurances
that they leave Spain within two months. [107]

The American ambassador, Carlton Hayes, encouraged the plan, and
David Blickenstaff, head of American private relief operations in Spain,
offered to work to arrange onward migration. In August, a group of
only 79 arrived from France. Although they carried valid Spanish passports
and citizenship certificates, the Spanish government insisted that
they move on promptly. The young men, however, were ordered to
remain in Spain to fulfill their military obligations. [108]

Later arrangements to bring in a few hundred Sephardic Jews from
Greece stretched out over many months because. Spain would not accept
them until the first group had departed. Meanwhile, the Germans
shipped them from Greece to Bergen-Belsen, where they were suspended
between deportation to Auschwitz and acceptance into Spain.
The August arrivals left Spain only in December. In February 1944,
trains finally brought 367 Sephardic Jews from Bergen-Belsen to
Spain. [109]

Including a few score more from "Prance, a little over 500 Sephardic
Jews escaped through the actions of the Spanish government, Hayes,
and Blickenstaff. Once on the scene, the WRB worked steadily to bring
out more, particularly another group of 155 held at Bergen-Belsen.
Hayes cooperated, but there were no results. [110]

Food and the Blockade

The WRB devoted considerable thought to plans to send food into the
ghettos and camps. The broader issue of supplying food to civilian
populations starving under Nazi occupation had been contested
throughout the war. Despite growing public pressure in Britain and the
United States, British blockade authorities, acting under the Ministry
of Economic Warfare, were virtually immovable. Food could go
through the blockade only for prisoners of war and certain interned
civilians. The United States adhered to British blockade policies,
though not without disagreements. [111]

The blockade authorities permitted one major exception. By early
1942, starvation was claiming a terrible toll in Axis-occupied Greece.
After receiving assurance from Germany that it would not confiscate
Greek food, the American and British governments began in August
1942 to move large amounts of food to that country from the Western
Hemisphere in ships chartered from Sweden. The Swedish government,
the International Red Cross, and a commission of Swedish and Swiss
citizens monitored the project. At first, eight ships were delivering
wheat and some medicines. By April 1944, a fleet of fourteen was
carrying cargoes that also included dried vegetables, canned milk, soup
powder, cured fish, baby food, rice, sugar, and clothing. After the early
months, the American Lend-Lease Administration took over most of
the costs. Lend-Lease provided $11.5 million in 1943 and increased the
amount to about $30.0 million for 1944. The program did not end the
famine in Greece, but it substantially improved conditions for the 2.5
million Greeks it reached. [112]

During 1942, Jewish groups and other organizations speaking for
various conquered European populations began to press the State Department
to apply the Greek arrangement to other subject peoples. The
Jews emphasized that Jewish nutritional levels were the lowest in Europe
and were especially devastating in the Polish ghettos, where inhabitants
were allowed about two-thirds the food that the starving Greeks
had been receiving before the food shipments started. [113]

The Ministry of Economic Warfare and the State Department insisted
that Greece was a special case. The food situation was unusually
bad there. Since the country had few industries of value to the Germans,
they had no incentive to feed the Greeks. Food sent to other
countries, blockade authorities argued, would only free food for German
use. [114]

In late 1942, despite British objections, the State Department modified
the ban slightly. It permitted American relief agencies to send
$12,000 worth of food parcels per month to specific addressees in Axis
Europe. The plan required assurances, by returned postcards or other
means, that the packages reached the intended recipients. And the food
had to come from the small surpluses produced in neutral European
nations. Problems in obtaining current addresses and the inflexibility
of the entire arrangement kept the trickle of parcels far below the tiny
limit set by the State Department. [115]

During 1943, a national campaign for feeding the starving populations
of occupied Europe gained momentum in the United States. In
the forefront was Howard Kershner, formerly a relief worker for the
Quakers in Vichy France. Kershner's Temporary Council on Food for
Europe's Children cooperated with Herbert Hoover and several humanitarian
groups to publicize the issue. They were especially disturbed
by the high death rate among children in occupied Europe. Along with
the obvious humane concern, the advocates of feeding emphasized the
practical consequences of allowing children to starve: tomorrow's democratic
leaders were dying or suffering irreparable damage. Kershner
and others urged the establishment of at least a small experimental
program focused on children and based on the Greek example. [116]

The British government turned a deaf ear to all such proposals. But
shortly before Christmas 1943, the Senate Foreign Relations Committee
-- spurred by Elbert Thomas, Guy Gillette, and Robert Taft -- unanimously
approved a resolution calling on the administration to extend
the Greek feeding plan to other populations in occupied Europe. As
1944 opened, a ground swell of support arose in the press, the labor
movement, and the churches. A Gallup poll in February reported 65
percent support for feeding children in Nazi-occupied Europe. Four
days later, the Senate passed the food resolution unanimously. In mid-April.
the House did the same. But the campaign to send food to
occupied Europe failed. The outcome was decided in London, by Winston
Churchill and the Ministry of Economic Warfare. [117]

Responding to public and congressional pressure, the State Department
sought British agreement to a limited program of feeding children
and pregnant and nursing women in Belgium, France, Holland, and
Norway. The Joint Chiefs of Staff approved it. The President supported
the plan wholeheartedly and sent a personal note to Churchill asking
his "most earnest consideration" of it. The response was polite but
adamant. Churchill and the Ministry of Economic Warfare maintained
that the blockade must not be violated. [viii] The State Department, hoping
to relieve the political pressure in America, continued for almost a year
to press the British to accept at least "some proposal." Nothing re
sulted. [118]

President Roosevelt had suggested feeding programs before. But
whenever he had brought the question up, Churchill had imposed an
absolute objection, insisting that nothing must hamper the war effort
and that moving food through the blockade would help Germany. Yet
the British made exceptions when it suited their purposes. They sup
plied food to the children on the German-occupied Channel Islands
(British territory near the French coast). And during 1942, sensing
diplomatic advantage, they unilaterally decided to permit temporary
shipments of food to Norway and Belgium. [120]

The Treasury Department had been ready by the end of 1943 to drop
its previous policy against permitting food to pass through the blockade.
At a staff meeting soon after the WRB was set up, Pehle summa
rized the new position. "We have long since passed the time," he
said, when we should have begun shipping food to children. "It no
longer can, in any way, interfere with the war effort,... the war is go
ing to be decided on the military side and this won't make any difference." [121]

In its attempts to develop relief programs, the WRB moved on several
fronts simultaneously. It had the crippling restrictions removed from
the State Department's 1942 agreement permitting American private
agencies to send $12,000 worth of food parcels per month to people
trapped in Axis Europe. And to encourage neutral European nations to
accept larger numbers of refugees, the board prevailed on the British
to let enough food through the blockade to cover their needs. [122]

The most effective means of getting food to the ghettos and camps
would have been to obtain prisoner-of-war status for the Jews in Nazi
Europe. A precedent of sorts existed. The United States, Britain, and
the Axis powers had an informal agreement under which their citizens
who were interned in enemy countries were treated practically the same
as prisoners of war were under the Geneva Convention of 1929. The
arrangement included the right to receive food parcels and regular
camp visitations by International Red Cross personnel. The visits and
the resulting reports on camp conditions provided an important measure
of protection. This arrangement was called "assimilation," for the
internees wire partially assimilated to the Geneva Convention. [123]

The WRB asked the Red Cross to approach Germany concerning a
similar status for the Jews. The IRC refused, explaining that such a
move would "go far beyond the limits" of its traditional work and
expose it to charges of intervening in Germany's internal affairs. Any
loss of German goodwill, the IRC maintained, would threaten the "slen
der basis" for its war-related activities and thereby endanger them.
Furthermore, the proposal had "no prospect of success" with the Ger
mans. [124]

For similar reasons, the IRC was also unwilling to seek Germany's
permission to distribute food to the unassimilated concentration-camp
inmates. But in March 1944, it did obtain informal guarantees from
individual camp commanders that they would relay food parcels to
unassimilated internees and permit IRC representatives to visit the
camps unofficially to verify their delivery. The IRC was satisfied that
the arrangement, though unconventional, was safe. The WRB view was
that "the amount of food which might fall into enemy hands could not
affect the outcome of the war nor prolong it." But the British were
dubious and delayed the project for months. [125]

In August, blockade authorities finally authorized, as a trial, the ship
ment of 300,000 food parcels. Roosevelt allotted $1,068,750 for the
program from funds already appropriated by Congress for foreign war
relief. Using supplies available in Switzerland, the WRB sent advance
shipments of 25,000 parcels into concentration camps during August
and September. Otherwise, the project continued at a snail's pace.
Packaging, done in the United States, began only in October. The
300,000 parcels arrived in Europe in December. By then, the disruption
of German rail systems made delivery to the camps extremely difficult. [126]

By February 1945, only 40,000 parcels had been sent into Axis territory,
so the WRB decided to furnish its own transportation. William
O'Dwyer, who replaced Pehle as director in January, pushed ahead
with a plan to procure trucks in Switzerland to deliver the parcels to
the camps and evacuate sick and old inmates on the return trips. Mc
Clelland located twenty-four trucks but could not find gasoline or tires.
Intense pressure by O'Dwyer and Morgenthau persuaded the War De
partment to allocate fuel and tires from Army stocks in France. [127]

Meanwhile, the 5S made three concessions to the International Red
Cross. It was permitted to deliver food to all internees, to station dele
gates in all major camps to supervise the distribution, and to evacuate
women, children, elderly, and ill persons from the camps. In early April,
then, IRC personnel began driving WRB relief trucks from Switzerland
to the concentration camps. Before Germany's surrender, the trucks
carried 1,400 women, mostly French non-Jews, out to Switzerland. The
presence of Red Cross representatives in the camps during the closing
weeks of the war also helped prevent last-minute atrocities against inmates. [128]

Assessment of the WRB

By the end of the war, the WRB had played a crucial role in saving
approximately 200,000 Jews. About 15,000 were evacuated from Axis
territory (as were more than 20,000 non-Jews). At least 10,000, and
probably thousands more, were protected within Axis Europe by WRB-financed
underground activities and by the board's steps to safeguard
holders of Latin American passports. WRB diplomatic pressures,
backed by its program of psychological warfare, were instrumental in
seeing the 48,000 Jews in Transnistria moved to safe areas of Rumania.
Similar pressures helped end the Hungarian deportations. Ultimately,
120,000 Jews survived in Budapest. [129]

The results of other WRB programs, though they unquestionably
contributed to the survival of thousands more, can never be quantified,
even roughly. These actions include the war-crimes warnings and the
shipment of thousands of food parcels into concentration camps in
the last months of the war. Furthermore, news that the United States
had at last embarked upon rescue must have encouraged many Jews
and reinforced their determination to outlast the Nazis if at all possible. [130]

On the other hand, numerous WRB plans that might have succeeded
collapsed because the rest of the government did not provide the cooperation
legally required of it by Executive Order 9417. Nor could the
board wield the diplomatic influence that was needed; its approaches
to foreign governments and international organizations always had to
be filtered through the basically negative State Department. Moreover,
the President took little interest in the board and never moved to
strengthen it. And it was always hobbled by the government's failure to
fund it properly.

The shortcomings in the WRB's record must not, however, be allowed
to overshadow the significance of its achievements. Despite many
difficulties and Germany's determination to exterminate the Jews, the
board helped save tens of thousands of lives. As leaders of the private
agencies remarked, the WRB staff acted with "enormous drive and
energy" and "a fervent sense of desire to get something accomplished."
Their dedication broke America's indifference to the destruction of
European Jewry, thereby helping to salvage, in some degree, the
nation's conscience. After considerable reflection, Roswell McClelland
concluded that the board's successes, though limited, had
added "a measure of particularly precious strength" to the Allied
cause. [ix] [131]

In one respect, through a miscalculation, the WRB hampered its own
work. The rapid Allied advance across France in summer 1944 set off a
chain of predictions by responsible military and civilian leaders that the
war with Germany would end very soon, probably by October and
almost certainly by Christmas. Accordingly, in September the board
began making plans to wind down its affairs. In late November, at
Morgenthau's suggestion, Pehle took over the Treasury's Procurement
Division, the unit responsible for disposing of surplus military property. [133]

Pehle continued to work part-time with the board, but by early January
1945 negative public reaction was building and Jewish organizations
were complaining that he was not giving enough time to the WRB.
It was evident that a full-time director was needed. Morgenthau and
Pehle arranged through McCloy for the Army to release Brigadier General
William O'Dwyer for the post. On January 27, O'Dwyer stepped
in. [134]

O'Dwyer had risen to fame in 1941 when, as district attorney for
Kings County, New York, he had rooted out "Murder, Inc.," a kill-for-hire
gang. That same year, he challenged Fiorello La Guardia in the
New York mayoralty race, but lost. He entered the Army in 1942 and
two years later, as head of the economic section of the Allied military
government in Italy, dealt effectively with problems of high mortality,
hunger, and bad public-health conditions. While in the Army, he won
uncontested reelection as Kings County district attorney. [135]

With his drive, his connections in the military, and his concern for
suffering people, O'Dwyer was ideal for the WRB job. But, to the
dismay of Morgenthau and Pehle, he spent only three days a week in
Washington. His main base, and the source of his income, was the
Kings County district attorney's office. (He accepted no salary from the
WRB.) When he was available, O'Dwyer showed a quick, sure grasp of
rescue problems and a capacity for forceful action. But his potential for
rescue work was not realized, because he applied only a fraction of his
time and talents to it. [136]

By early March, Morgenthau and Peble had concluded that O'Dwyer
had taken the WRB post as a route out of the Army and into the race
for mayor of New York. Soon afterward, O'Dwyer asked Morgenthau
to let him get away for a time. The board's work was under control, he
explained, and constant hounding by political reporters "is getting me
down." At Roosevelt's request, O'Dwyer gave up that plan, but he
contributed little more to the WRB. At the end of May, with the war
over in Europe, he left the board. [137]

In the last analysis, the WRB's greatest weakness was that it came
into existence so late. Virtually everyone close to the rescue issue
thought the board could have achieved far more if it had been formed
a year, or even several months, earlier. Looking back at the board's
work decades afterward, the two people who were most closely involved
with it stressed the costliness of the late start. Josiah DuBois
believed that the WRB "did a fair amount," but he emphasized that
"by that time it was too damned late to do too much." In John Pehle's
view, "What we did was little enough. It was late.... Late and little, I
would say." [138]

_______________

Notes:

[i] Forty-one of the refugees (including twelve women) asked to join the American armed forces, but the War Department ruled them ineligible because of the arrangements under which they were in the United States. [57]

[ii] Other problems included an unusually severe and snowy winter (even for that area), worsened by uneven heating; the tension of being surrounded by freedom, close enough to touch it, yet not free; uncertainty about the future; eagerness to obtain employment, become self-supporting, and begin to rebuild interrupted lives; emotional damage caused by recent European experiences, including, for many, the deaths of close relatives; and too much time available to dwell on anxieties and brood over past tragedies. [66]

[iii] In a discussion with Morgenthau, O'Dwyer assessed the Fort Ontario situation in this way:

Well, anybody that would be satisfied to spend six hours in the town of Oswego in the middle of winter hasn't had much fun out of life. They are strange people; it is a strange town; it is in the middle of winter. They are looking at a fence all day long, worrying about what is going to happen. They have no hope. Naturally you are going to have some of them go insane. It has actually occurred and it is expected to increase. [72]

[iv]  A sixty-year-old woman from Vienna and her husband, who died in Italy in 1942, had sent their two sons to the United States in 1938. Both were now overseas with the American Army. Their wives, who lived in California, wanted to take their mother-in-law in. Would she instead be sent back to Austria? Another refugee, in flight from the Nazis, had been separated from his wife and lost track of her. He managed to reach the United States. In 1944, he learned that she had come with the group at Fort Ontario. Now she faced return to Europe. Many others at the shelter confronted similarly anguishing prospects."

[v] During the preparations for departure, several refugees went through a final rush of insecurities, some connected with relocation assignments. A few who were headed for Chicago worried about stories that gangsters roamed the city. An older person bound for relatives in Kansas City considered backing out. Others in the camp had warned that the streets were full of cowboys and frontier violence. One man agreed to relocate his family in Providence, R.I.  The next day his wife appeared at the placement worker's desk to complain: "My husband, the Shlemiel, he had to be the one to choose the smallest state in America." [86]

[vi] Many in Oswego resented the way the fort had been used since its well-liked peace- time garrison had departed after the outbreak of the war, First came black troops, then illiterate soldiers sent for training. A few months after they left, the refugees arrived. Many townspeople angrily felt that Fort Ontario had become "a dumping ground for  the unwanted." They had endured the "niggers and the morons," they complained, only to be afflicted with the Jews."

[vii] The Fort Ontario experience also brought out, time and again, the strong anti-immigration  attitudes prevalent in Congress. Most members of Congress refrained from openly voicing anti-Semitic views. But it was well understood that congressional concern centered chiefly on Jewish immigration."

[viii] At almost the same time, curiously enough, Eleanor Roosevelt defended the blockade policy in her "My Day" column. Commenting on the issue of feeding European children, she wrote, "This is a war question and one which the Allied Military Committee must decide.... Only the military authorities can determine whether feeding them today will mean a longer war.... War is a ruthless business. It cannot be conducted along humanitarian lines." [119]

[ix] Most who were in touch with the rescue situation acknowledged the importance of  the WRB's achievements. But not everyone agreed. Bruce Mohler, a leader of the National Catholic Welfare Conference's Bureau of Immigration, wrote to his associate, T. F. Mulholland: "We have never seen any worthwhile results from that operation and in fact felt that it was not necessary when established in January 1944. No doubt plenty of money was wasted in the operation." Mulholland agreed, pronouncing the board's performance "wholly non-productive." [132]

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