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The Politics of Silence
We have to face the fact that either all of us are going to die together or we are going to learn to live together, and if we are to live together, we have to talk.
– Eleanor Roosevelt
Who Knew? The Media and Public Awareness
While the world press did not ignore the plight of Europe's Jewish population, many early reports of the abuse and persecution were cloaked in qualifying phrases such as "unverifiable," "exaggerated," and "cannot be verified." Without a strong public outcry, there was little chance of changing the policies of many of the world's democracies.The press may not determine what the public thinks, but it does determine what the public thinks about.By 1938, one in four German Jews -- about 150,000 people -- had fled Germany. With the annexation of Austria in March 1938, another 185,000 Jews were brought under Nazi rule.
- Deborah E. Lipstadt, Beyond Belief
Throughout the period of the Holocaust, while innocent people were being persecuted and murdered, a majority of the American public favored inaction over action. By 1942 the U.S. government had full knowledge of Nazi atrocities, specifically those committed against the Jews of Europe. The general public also had access to this information, but it was not always presented in the most accessible or understandable fashion. Also influencing the press was the public's sentiment regarding immigration in general, and Jewish immigration in particular.
The Nazi government realized how effective a "friendly" American press could be in downplaying the terrible actions that they were about to undertake. American correspondents were generally treated with courtesy so that they would write about the kindness that they were shown.
The extensive press coverage of the Olympic games of 1936 gave little indication of the persecution that was taking place outside the choreographed environment in Berlin. The Olympics presented the Nazis with a perfect opportunity to spread their propaganda around the world.
There were, however, almost daily reports detailing the growing concern about the treatment of Jews and other minorities in Germany. Sometimes these stories would make the front page. Mostly they were relegated to the interior of the newspaper, or handled as sidebars.
Some noteworthy published reports:
1920
Henry Ford publishes a version of The Protocols of the Elders of Zion in his newspaper, the Dearborn Independent.
November 14, 1938
The Philadelphia Inquirer runs a front-page story about how Jews are being forced to pay for the damage caused by Kristallnacht.
November 1941
London and New York newspapers report on the murders of more than 52,000 Jews in Kiev.
May 18, 1942
The New York Times reports that more than four hundred thousand Jews have been machine-gunned to death in the Baltics, Poland, and western Russia.
June 25, 1942
The London Daily Telegraph reports on the murder of more than 700,000 Polish Jews.
September 5-14, 1942
The Times of London reports on the deportation of French Jews.
February 16, 1943
The "Bergson Boys," a small group of Palestinian Jews, place an advertisement in The New York Times offering "For Sale to Humanity/70,000 Jews/Guaranteed Human Beings at $50 a Piece." The ad is in response to the Romanian government's offer to transport that many Jews anywhere in the world upon payment of a transport tax. The United States and Britain rejected the offer.
August-October 1944
The New York Times publishes multiple accounts of the Warsaw ghetto uprising.
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