American Experience: America and the Holocaust - Deceit and Indifference

Rating:
Summary: Another chilling episode in American History
Review: This is an excellent and very disturbing documentary about America's reaction to news about European Jews deportation and murder.

I had grown up with stories my parents told about how bad antisemitism was in the United States in the 1930's and 1940's but this documentary drove their stories home.

American antisemitism fuel Amerian apathy towards the plight of European Jews. Most shocking is that 53% of Americans polled, felt that Jews in the United States posed a national threat.

The US State Department was committed to NOT saving Jews. Breckinridge Long the Asssistant Scretary responsible for visa, actively plotted the creation of walls of paper and beaurocracy that aided the Nazis in sending Jews to their death. His was so determined in his efforts that he misrepresented numbers to congress, presenting that Jews were being admitted to the US, while quota numbers went unused, because of his active efforts in making it impossible for Jews to obtain visas. He effectively argued that by admitting Jews, they would also be admitting Nazi spys.

Pity that we did not treat Breckinridge Long as a war criminal.

American stubbornly and willfully refused to reexamine it's quota system. The state department willfully kept news of what was happening in Europe from being passed on

This is a must see documentary, about a not so proud moment in American history.