Beyond Belief (39 page)

BUDAPEST CHILDREN ORDERED EVACUATED

Clearing of All Industrial Areas Planned to Escape Bombs
²⁰

While the way the press handled the news did not change in the face of the Hungarian crisis, the editorial policy of many papers
did change somewhat during this period. Beginning in the summer of 1943 and throughout the Hungarian crisis, growing numbers of papers began to argue that the Allies were at least partially culpable for their failure to rescue. This changing editorial policy was partially the result of the activities of the Bergson group and the mainline American Jewish Conference. They proposed rescue programs which called for opening Palestine to all Jews who could reach it, encouraging neutral countries to aid Jewish refugees, strong warnings to the Axis and its satellites that they would be punished for crimes against Jews or for preventing the escape of Jews, and establishing an intergovernmental agency to expand the work of rescuing Jews.
²¹
The active editorial support of the
New York Herald Tribune
, all the Hearst papers, the
New York Post, The New Republic
and even
The Christian Century
, among others, for rescue programs was indicative of growing discomfort with the lack of an Allied response to the persecution of the Jews.
²²
The Bergson group was particularly successful in mobilizing this support. It placed full-page ads in various journals and papers, including the
New York Times, Los Angeles Times, Washington Post, New Republic
, and
Nation
, accusing the Allies of “cowardice” in failing to rescue the Jews. One ad carried this boldface headline:

HOW WELL

     ARE YOU

               SLEEPING?

Is There Something You Could Have Done to Save
Millions of Innocent People—Men, Women,
and Children—from Torture and Death?
²³

In mid-August, after meeting with Peter Bergson, Eleanor Roosevelt devoted her column “My Day” to the tragic plight of the Jews. Adhering to the official Allied line of “rescue through victory,” she did not recommend that anything specific be done to aid the victims. One of the most substantial publications on the question of rescue was a fifteen-page special section of
The New Republic
which appeared on August 30, 1943, and was entitled “The Jews of Europe: How to Help Them.”
The New Republic
argued that responsibility for the crimes against the Jews fell not only on the perpetrators but “on the whole of humanity . . . [including] the Allied States,” which had failed to take any “concrete
action for the purpose of curtailing this crime.”
²⁴
Bergson established ties with the publisher William Randolph Hearst. The Hearst chain became and remained active supporters of rescue activities, particularly those proposed by the Bergson group. On various occasions Hearst exhorted Americans to “Remember . . . THIS IS NOT A JEWISH PROBLEM. It is a HUMAN PROBLEM.” Though few Americans and even fewer publishers and editors of major American dailies ever perceived of the issue in these explicit terms, increasing numbers of dailies were slowly beginning to recognize that it was “up to the Allies” to do something.
²⁵
*

The burgeoning demand for action was intensified in November 1943 by a resolution introduced by Senator Guy M. Gillette and Representative Will Rogers, Jr., calling for the establishment of a commission to effect a plan to rescue European Jewry “from extinction.” Over twelve major dailies, including the
Washington Star, Washington Post, New York Herald Tribune
, and
Christian Science Monitor
, supported it.
²⁷
When Assistant Secretary of State Breckinridge Long testified in secret before the House Committee on Foreign Affairs, he argued that a commission was unnecessary and defended the State Department's record on rescue. He incorrectly told the assembled congressmen that 580,000 refugees had been admitted to the United States since 1933. He also claimed that the Intergovernmental Committee on Refugees established at Evian had been revitalized at Bermuda and given a mandate to take all action necessary for rescue. In truth it did not even have an office in the United States and, contrary to his claims, was not authorized to negotiate with the Axis countries, something that was mandatory in order to effect rescue plans. On December 17 the London headquarters of the Intergovernmental Committee
described Long's remarks as “absolutely incorrect.” But Congress and the press accepted his claims, particularly about the immigration figures, at face value just as they had accepted similar claims at the time of Bermuda. The
New York Times
was so impressed that it broke with its usual practice of placing news regarding Jews on inner pages and ran the story on Long's immigration figures in the upper half of the front page. The anti-immigration
Chicago Tribune
, a staunch foe of liberalizing immigration policies, charged that the quotas were being ignored.
²⁸

Long's claim that the United States had done everything possible to rescue Jews, which at first pacified the politicians and the press, ultimately evoked a storm of controversy. His figures were highly inflated, as Jewish and non-Jewish sources quickly demonstrated. Earl Harrison, United States Commissioner of Immigration and Naturalization, said his department had admitted about 279,000 persons as immigrant aliens and only a portion of those could be considered refugees. Jewish rescue organizations also countered Long's claims. Long was forced to amend his testimony. The figure of 580,000 included all the visas that
could have
been distributed to immigrants from all the countries under Hitler's control, he now said. Congressman Celler immediately accused Long of creating the bottleneck in the granting of visas and described him as shedding “crocodile tears” for the Jews. The liberal press now began to take Long to task.
²⁹
The New Republic
and
The Nation
, both of which had been advocates of a more liberal immigration policy for a long time, attacked Long for being duplicitous and accused him of acting in a “deceptive” and “hypocritical” fashion. On December 20
PM
published a feature article entitled “Justice Department's Immigration Figures Knock Long's Testimony into a Crocked Hat.” The
New York Post
described Long's testimony as “false and distorted.” Ten days after the release of Long's testimony eight prominent Christian clergymen sent Congress a statement strongly urging the creation of a special commission to rescue the Jews, the very action which Long so strongly opposed. The Hearst papers used the occasion to offer another editorial in favor of a rescue commission.
³⁰

The confusion regarding the entire American record was reflected in an article by David Anderson,
New York Times
staff correspondent in London. In it he analyzed how many refugees various countries had admitted. In relation to the United States he observed
that the precise number it had admitted was unknown, “or at least it [the number claimed] is not accepted as sufficiently reliable to stand up under close scrutiny.”
³¹

In mid-January the growing pressure on the White House for action was brought to a head by Secretary of the Treasury Henry Morgenthau's memorandum to Roosevelt on the State Department's dismal rescue record. Roosevelt, well aware of the rising demand for rescue, particularly in the Congress, which stood ready to pass a resolution calling for a rescue commission, established the War Refugee Board with the mandate to effect the “immediate rescue” from the Nazis of as many of Europe's persecuted “minorities” as possible.
³²

The establishment of the War Refugee Board was greeted by the press with kudos and with cynicism. A number of commentators castigated the Allied nations for not having done enough to assist Jews in escaping the Nazis.
The New Republic
was, as might have been expected, still quite dubious about the seriousness of the Allied commitment to rescue, since there was no sign that “either the United States or Great Britain is prepared to let down the bars and permit immigration.” Even more cynical was Edgar Ansel Mowrer, syndicated columnist with the Press Alliance, who had been one of the first American reporters expelled from Germany in 1933. His column in the
New York Post
questioned the President's sudden urgency in establishing the Board in light of the fact that during the past years “tens of thousands of Jews” who might have been rescued were not because “the President gave no lead, Congress was of two minds, [and] State Department officials ruthlessly ‘weeded out' applicants.” Even after Bermuda, a place chosen “for inaccessibility to the press,” where government officials promised to do something “nothing much happened.” Then “suddenly” on January 22 the President established a War Refugee Board to effect “immediate rescue.” Mowrer had no doubt why, after years of delay, “the President demanded almost feverish speed”—1944 was an election year.
³³

The Hearst papers were pleased that the Board had been established but believed its mandate was “too vague and too general.” Even papers such as the
Washington Post
began to show a change in editorial policy. In the past it had simply ignored news of the persecution of European Jewry and had vehemently charged the
Bergson group with engaging in fraudulent activities. Pleased that the Board had been set up, the
Post
nonetheless accused America of having been “laggard in this humanitarian duty.” Maybe it could not stop the massacres, but it could, the
Post
argued, “set up centers where the rescued can go.”
³⁴
*

But the War Refugee Board and its director, John Pehle, quickly began to quiet some of the critics. By mid-March a 190-line article in the
Washington Post
on the War Refugee Board's activities carried a boldface headline which proclaimed the new organization's success:

RESCUING REFUGEES AND IN TIME!

New Board Is Striving to Get

Victims Out of Europe ‘In Mass'

According to
Washington Post
reporter Emily Towe, Pehle did not speak “in generalities” when it came to rescuing Jews. He was convinced that the War Refugee Board had been formed to “act right now,” and that, Towe observed in amazement, was “just what the Board is doing.” Even
The New Republic
had abandoned much of its cynicism and described the War Refugee Board's work as marking the “first time” since the beginning of the war that the United States was making a “genuine effort” to rescue Jews.
³⁶
But just as the War Refugee Board was beginning to move into action, the news from Europe indicated that the situation in Hungary had taken a turn for the worse. Press demands for Allied action now became even more intense.

Within three days of the German occupation of Hungary in March 1944, Roosevelt issued a warning that those who took part in
the annihilation of European Jewry would not “go unpunished.” Describing the “wholesale systematic murder of the Jews” as one of the “blackest crimes of all history,” he promised that “all who knowingly take part in the deportation of Jews to their death . . . are equally guilty with the executioner.” Roosevelt's statement was prominently reported by many papers in the country. The
Los Angeles Times, New York Times, Christian Science Monitor
, and
New York Herald Tribune
were among those papers which placed it on the front page.
³⁷
But the cynicism about the American record which had been growing during the preceding months also greeted the President's remarks. While the
New York Times
approved of his statement, it reminded readers that the United States and its allies had to also bear part of the responsibility because they had not done all they could to provide “havens of refuge.” In an editorial on the refugee situation which was even stronger than the one it had published at the time of Bermuda, the paper declared that providing these havens and the “means for maintenance and support” for those facing death was
“as
important as the winning of a battle.” Another expression of discomfort with the American record appeared in the
Baltimore Sun
, which challenged Roosevelt to go “beyond exhortations and threats” and “a generalized sympathy” for persecuted Jews and be more specific regarding our rescue policy.
³⁸
*
The
New Republic
, one of the most fervent advocates of rescue, was also skeptical: “one hopes that the President's message may do some good, but it is hard to be optimistic about it.”
⁴⁰

But it was a proposal made in the beginning of April by Samuel Grafton, a syndicated columnist for the
New York Post
, which galvanized the press's discomfort with America's rescue record. Aroused by developments in Hungary, Grafton proposed the creation of “free ports for refugees” in which Jews could be temporarily placed until a decision was made about their future. A country could establish a free port without obligating itself to permanently
admit the people housed there. Grafton argued that the plan was necessary because of the strong opposition toward allowing refugees to immigrate. It was a proposal born out of desperation, one that treated refugees as unwanted guests at best and pariahs at worst.
⁴¹
This idea, which had been suggested earlier by German refugees, had been discussed previously by the War Refugee Board staff but opposed by the State Department and others in the administration.
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