Persuasive Essay On The Holocaust

When World War 2 broke out in 1939, the United States of America was facing the dilemma of whether or not to intervene in the massacre known as the Holocaust. Some people believe that the United States did all they could to help the victims of the war. Some believe that America did hardly anything. But, there is stronger evidence pointing towards the fact that the United States did not do enough to stop the killing initiated by Adolf Hitler, the leader of the Nazi army.
When the Holocaust first started in 1933, America acted as if Hitler and his actions were nonexistent. America’s ignorance towards the war lasted for almost three years until finally, near the end of 1945, the news was finally spreading about the Holocaust and the mass execution

America during the years of war had many ideas float around of what to do and how to fix the issue present. But, not much action was effectively taken. The American Jewish Leaders Meeting with President Roosevelt on December 8, 1942 discussed political ideas given to President Roosevelt and his hesitation on taking action. During this meeting, several American Jewish representatives met with Roosevelt and told him the idea of the War Refugee Board. The War Refugee Board’s goal was to aid civilian victims of the Nazis and restrict the Nazi’s actions. Yes this board did save thousands of Jews ,but, it took President Roosevelt almost three years to establish this board even though he knew about the killings occurring. If Roosevelt took action just a little bit early, thousands of more lives could have been spared. This fact truly represents America’s hesitation as a whole by showing that even the President, an extremely powerful person, was uncertain on taking action. Continuing with this point, there were many bills that were presented during the time of war but congress rejected them which ended up hurting many Jews. For example, the Wagner-Rogers bill was created to take in 20,000 endangered Jewish children. The senate did not support this bill which could have saved thousands of Jewish children. Overall, both Roosevelt and America in general were very hesitant in doing anything

During the years of the war, America’s immigration policy and the restriction of Jewish immigrants was very apparent. The January 1943 Telegram Confirming Reports of Mass Executions of Jews in Poland talks about the Immigration Reform Act of 1924 and how it passed tight quotas on immigration. In 1924, the Unites States passed the Immigration Reform act. This act granted as little as two percent of the immigrating population a visa they needed to enter the U.S. Getting a visa could mean life or death for many immigrants. Instead of America helping the Jews escape Germany and Hitler, they blocked them out with more strict immigration policies. President Franklin D. Roosevelt and other officials warned that stricter controls on immigration were needed to prevent foreign threats from invading our nation. But innocent Jews trying to escape death don’t seem that harmful to most people. They also refused to, “ raise their immigration quotas in order to accept large numbers of refugees” (Lichtheim and Riegne 1). Because of this, many European Jews were not expected into America and in return harshly affected by Adolf Hitler and the Nazis. Some even died a horrible deaths in concentration camps just because America was afraid of giving out too many visas. Because of actions like these, the Jews were turned down in their time of need, especially when they