Roosevelt knew about holocaust and did nothing?

[wm]

The quotas were based on the number of people living in the US already, so the Germans got much more than the French.

"including Jews, Asians, and Africans" is manipulation, the Jews were able to emigrate to the US by hundreds of thousands. The Africans, the Asians (including the Japanese!) weren't allowed at all.
And I think it can't be denied that in the thirties the Africans and the Asians were more in need of help than the German Jews.
The Rape of Nanjing and the Kristallnacht weren't even comparable.

[steve248]

wm's post is rubbish.

[wm]

The German Jews enjoyed two distinct privileges, of being white and of being German.
The Immigration Act of 1924 highly privileged white people from Germany:

from: Statistical atlas of the United States, based upon the results of the eleventh census

[OpanaPointer]

wm's post is rubbish.

Refutation requires substantiation of your premise. Otherwise it's just flinging poo.

[steve248]

That is because there is one major difference between what happened in 1924 (the date of wm's chart) and what happened in 1939, viz:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MS_St._Louis

No immigration permit - no entry. As the voyage of the St Louis shows, it was not only the US and the Britain who had immigration quotas.

As regards the 'white supremacy' rules of US immigration that is beyond the remit of this forum.

[Sid Guttridge]

Hi wm,

I can't see a quota for Jews on your chart.

If there wasn't one, then they had no right of entry by virtue of being Jewish.

And being Jewish was the main reason why so many of them needed refuge.

Cheers,

Sid.

[wm]

The quotas were per COUNTRY, not per race. Really, that's elementary knowledge.

[wm]

The MS St. Louis legend is a popular anti-American conspiracy theory.
It usually goes like this: Roosevelt sent back German Jews to their deaths in Nazi Germany.

But in fact, the top Nazi ocean-liner MS St. Louis (MS = Motorschiff) returned "its" Jews not to Nazi Germany but to Britain, France, Belgium at their own insistence - after they refused to land in Cuba, Dominicana, Honduras (who wouldn't.)

Even more, earlier, Roosevelt made a deal with Batista - Jews for lower sugar tariffs. The deal allowed Jews to emigrate to Cuba at the expense of the American taxpayers.
But the passengers of the Motorschiff St. Louis tried to land in Cuba on fake visas and the Cubans reasonably refused - but were willing to reconsider the matter for a reasonable bribe ($500 per person.) The money was ready but the passengers changed their minds.
In fact, thanks to the Jews-for-sugar deal German Jews were able to emigrate to Cuba pre- and post St. Louis.

[wm]

Who said that Roosevelt did nothing?

[Sid Guttridge]

Hi wm,

You post, "The quotas were per COUNTRY, not per race. Really, that's elementary knowledge."

Exactly my point. They were therefore unsuitable for addressing persecution of minorities, which was the problem Jews were facing.

I am not sure "passing the buck" onto Cuba is the best example of Roosevelt doing something. The article you post comes before the St. Louis was rejected in the Western Hemisphere, including by Roosevelt's own administration because the Jews were excess to quota.

The quota system was understandably designed to fulfil US immigration requirements relative to other countries. However, it appears not to have been sufficiently flexible to adequately help persecuted minorities from those countries.

Cheers,

Sid.

[wm]

I suppose European Jews lived in countries, not in crevices between them. Some of them even lived in a country with the highest possible immigration quota.

In the US, a country with 20 percent unemployment, where millions went hungry everyday nobody cared about immigrants who made the situation worse.

"addressing persecution of minorities" - nobody used such language at that time and such thinking was quite alien to everybody.

Which persecuted people do you have in mind anyway?
The subjected to genocide Russians?
The burned alive and drenched in mustard gas Ethiopians?
The subjected to massacre contests Chinese?

[Sid Guttridge]

Hi wm,

You post, ".....nobody used such language at that time and such thinking was quite alien to everybody." Not entirely. However, they clearly were alien to the creators of the US quota system, which was not flexible enough to cope with the particular problem of persecuted minorities.

You ask, "Which persecuted people do you have in mind anyway?" None in particular, but this thread is about the Jews and Roosevelt, so that is where our focus should be.

Cheers,

Sid.

[wm]

Well, then please propose a suitable amendment to the Act covering the particular problem of persecuted minorities.
I suppose you will be so kind and include the persecuted African and Asian minorities, or will it be strictly a white-privilege thing?

Will you find a place for the living in debilitating poverty or dying from hunger minorities?
I suppose the living in debilitating poverty or dying from hunger majorities no need to bother and will be excluded?

[Sid Guttridge]

Hi wm,

It is not my obligation to revise hundred-year-old US legislation.

My point is simply that this legislation seems to have lacked the flexibility to cater for persecuted minorities because it appears to have been based on quota purely by country.

If it had had the necessary flexibility, presumably the approximately 1,000 Jews on the St. Louis wouldn't have been turned away almost literally on the shores of the USA.

Cheers,

Sid.

[Larry D.]

Oh wm, really, get off it, PLEASE!! Life is a crap shoot. It's Darwin: survival of the fittest. Some make it and some don't. This "I'm a victim" crap that we hear so much of today has become so loud and annoying that most people ignore it. People are responsible for themselves, not society and government. If they don't like what's on the plate they've been handed in life, then change it. Go get a job, or a better job, or get a new government; whatever it takes. Life is tough. Man up and suck it up, as the military says. You will get no tears and violin music from me. If you want everyone to live to be 500 while tip-toeing through the daisies, then good luck - you've got a long wait ahead of you. It's been an arduous and grueling road, but somehow I made it to 83.

L.