US and the Holocaust

I’ve just watched the Ken Burns documentary of this name, and it was harrowing. I wonder how well know is the systemic anti-semitism of certain US leaders and bureaucrats before and during WWII.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_U...._the_Holocaust

Quote:

As isolationism kept the U.S. out of the war for years, many Jews who sought to escape from Europe were excluded because of immigration quotas enshrined by the infamous Johnson-Reed Act of 1924, enforced by officials such as Breckenridge Long, and supported by public figures such as Father Charles Coughlin, Henry Ford and Charles Lindbergh.[6][3] The documentary dispels the myth that many Americans didn’t know the extent of Hitler’s murderous vision.[10] A radio dispatch by Edward R. Murrow, from December 1942, describes it in plain language: “Millions of human beings, most of them Jews, are being gathered up with ruthless efficiency and murdered.

I think Ken Burns is a credible historian. Based on the documentary (which has a massive amount of eyewitness testimony and other evidence) the unwillingness of FDR to address this issue casts a pall on his presidency. Yeah, probably a minor one in the scheme of things, but still.

Yes, the belated entry of the US in WWII was decisive, but a bit more humanity and less anti-semitism would have made it a finer victory.

via International Skeptics Forum https://ift.tt/CNTzm0W