In the first and second lessons of the unit, students examined sources like public opinion polling, editorials, newsreels, and the debate over the Wagner-Rogers legislation, exploring the many factors that influenced Americans’ will and ability to respond to the Jewish refugee crisis. In the third and final lesson of the unit, students will explore the intertwined personal stories of Jewish refugees who attempted to flee to the United States and the American rescuers who intervened on their behalf. Using a Jigsaw strategy that will allow students to delve deeply into the story of one refugee, students will come to understand how circumstances of time, place, and opportunity in many cases limited the ability of Americans to help and refugees’ ability to escape. Students will also recognize the crucial role that individual Americans and organizations played in helping Jewish refugees. By challenging students to think about both the missed opportunities to intervene and the impact of those few individuals who did, this lesson will prompt students to reflect on the role of civic participation in confronting today’s similarly complex social and political problems. They will continue this reflection in the Assessment of the unit, as they participate in a Socratic seminar or create a writing product using the role-audience-format-topic (RAFT) strategy.
Immigrating to the United States was not a simple process in the 1930s. It required clearing many bureaucratic hurdles as well as having personal connections, good timing, and a certain amount of luck. Potential immigrants to the United States had to collect many types of documents, including proof of identity, police certificates, medical clearances, tax documents, a ship ticket, and exit permits, prior to obtaining a visa. Most also had to find an American financial sponsor who had the resources to guarantee that they would never become a burden on the United States. This was often the most difficult obstacle to overcome, since the German government established severe taxes—in effect, taking the majority of an emigrant’s net worth—prior to granting permission to leave the country. The financial sponsor had to submit tax returns, bank statements, and employer letters to prove they could support an immigrant so that immigrant would never become a “public charge” (immigration officials used this term to refer to a person who was considered primarily dependent on public or private welfare).
The US government made no exceptions for refugees escaping persecution, and it did not adjust the immigration laws during the refugee crisis of the 1930s and 1940s. As a result, the waiting lists for US immigrant visas grew as hundreds of thousands of Jews attempted to flee Europe. When the United States entered World War II, it became more challenging for Jews to escape. The State Department instituted additional restrictions on immigration in 1941, citing national security concerns. Among these was the announcement that any refugee with close family still in enemy territory would be ineligible for a US immigration visa. American consulates in Nazi-occupied territory closed in July 1941, cutting off many applicants from the US diplomats who could issue visas. At the same time, the State Department announced that all visa applicants had to be approved by an interdepartmental visa review committee in Washington, DC. This decision lengthened the delays for refugees who had managed to make it to southern France or Lisbon, Portugal, the only places in Europe from which they could still sail to the United States. In addition, the United States and other Allied forces prioritized military victory over humanitarian aid during World War II. Although the United States could have done more to aid the victims of Nazi Germany and its collaborators, large-scale rescue by Americans was impossible by the time the United States entered the war.
Despite the lack of support for wide-scale governmental intervention on behalf of Jewish refugees, American individuals from many religious backgrounds risked their lives to help Jews. Rescue efforts ranged from the isolated actions of individuals to organized networks both small and large. A variety of US-based organizations (both religious and secular, Jewish and non-Jewish) engaged in rescue efforts. The Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society, the National Refugee Service, the Emergency Rescue Committee, the American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee (JDC), the American Friends Service Committee (Quakers), the Unitarian Service Committee, and other groups coordinated relief activities for Jewish refugees in France, Portugal, Spain, and elsewhere throughout the war.
These private relief agencies helped refugees navigate the US immigration system, explained the required paperwork, located potential financial sponsors, and purchased ship tickets. For those fortunate enough to enter the United States, the agencies assisted with explaining American cultural norms to immigrants and securing employment and housing for them. These agencies, both Jewish and non-Jewish (though many of the non-Jewish agencies were funded through Jewish philanthropy), also provided food, clothing, and medicine for those still in Europe; some relief workers even worked directly in French internment camps. These relief agencies and the individuals who acted for them operated under tremendous strain. Often, their endeavors involved significant risk. Some of the organizations toiled strenuously in public and private to raise money and provide assistance for refugees. Others advocated within the existing government bureaucracy to keep the country’s doors open in the face of public antagonism toward immigrants.
One area of focus for relief agencies was the immigration of child refugees. Numerous organizations and individuals attempted to bring unaccompanied children, mostly German Jewish children, to the United States between 1933 and 1945. Two organizations, the German Jewish Children’s Aid (GJCA) and the US Committee for the Care of European Children (USCOM), coordinated the largest efforts to bring children to the United States. As explored in Lesson 2, the US government proposed a few large-scale child immigration plans, including the Wagner-Rogers Bill and a 1942 attempt to bring thousands of children from France, but neither was successful. Nevertheless, as a result of the organized efforts, more than 1,000 unaccompanied children escaped Nazi persecution by immigrating to the United States as part of these organized efforts.
Two years after the United States entered into World War II, the US government became officially involved in refugee rescue efforts through the establishment of the War Refugee Board in 1944. Though the board's first director, John Pehle, later called their work “little and late” in comparison with the enormity of the Holocaust, it nevertheless played a crucial role in the rescue of tens of thousands of Jews.
Roosevelt tasked this organization, nominally headed by the secretaries of state, war, and the treasury, with carrying out an official American policy of rescue and relief. The War Refugee Board staff worked with Jewish organizations, diplomats from neutral countries, and resistance groups in Europe to rescue Jews from occupied territories and provide relief to Jews in hiding and in concentration camps. They organized a psychological warfare campaign to deter potential perpetrators, opened a refugee camp in upstate New York, and released the first details of mass murder at Auschwitz to the American people.
The War Refugee Board, along with the American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee (JDC), also sponsored the work of Raoul Wallenberg, a Swedish businessman sent to Budapest as a diplomat to assist Hungarian Jews. Wallenberg helped save thousands of Hungarian Jews by distributing protective Swedish documents. Because Sweden was a neutral country, Germany could not easily harm those under Swedish protection. Wallenberg also set up homes, hospitals, nurseries, and soup kitchens for the Jews of Budapest.
As the war came to a close, Allied forces discovered and liberated concentration camps, freeing hundreds of thousands of Holocaust survivors, many of whom had no homes or families to return to. More than two million Europeans were displaced, including 250,000 Jews. American, Soviet, British, and French occupying forces set up displaced persons (DP) camps to house them. In 1948, Congress passed the Displaced Persons Act, authorizing 200,000 displaced persons to enter the United States without being counted against the immigration quotas. The act did not include any special provisions for Jewish DPs.
Between the establishment of the DP camps in 1945 and the closure of the last camp in 1957, approximately 140,000 Jewish Holocaust survivors immigrated to the United States.
The suggested activities below provide guidance on how to implement two different forms of summative assessment: a Socratic seminar discussion or a role-audience-format-topic writing assignment (RAFT).
Assessment Option 1: Socratic Seminar
In this Socratic Seminar activity, students help one another understand the ideas, issues, and values of the unit through a group discussion format; it is collaborative in nature rather than a debate in which participants must take sides. Refer to the Socratic Seminar teaching strategy for guidance on implementing the Socratic Seminar in your classroom. During the seminar, you can root the discussion in the questions below or use them as a jumping-off point. Ask students to prepare answers to these discussion questions in advance of the seminar:
- In this unit, you explored how competing definitions of American identity, priorities, and values shaped American responses to the refugee crisis of the 1930s and 1940s. What does America mean to you? What parts of the unit reinforced your vision of America? What parts diverged from your vision? Where do you see these competing ideas about the meaning of America reflected in today’s public debates?
- This unit demonstrates that immigrating to the United States was not a simple or inexpensive process; it required securing many documents, including proof of identity, police certificates, medical clearances, tax documents, a ship ticket, and exit permits. What effect did that have on Americans’ motivation and willingness to help? How might it have shielded a wide range of people—from government officials to average citizens—from a sense of moral accountability?
- Based on his study of rescuers during the Holocaust, Professor Ervin Staub writes, “Goodness, like evil, often begins in small steps. Heroes evolve; they aren’t born.” What “small steps” did you notice in the actions of American rescuers? What resources, conditions, and qualities assist someone in taking moral action, sometimes at great personal risk?
- One of the key lessons of this unit is that multiple factors, including antisemitism, xenophobia, isolationism, and the Great Depression, limited American responses to the refugee crisis. Why is it necessary to confront this chapter in American history? How can it inform our understanding of contemporary debates about responsibilities to refugees?
For students who have not participated in a Socratic Seminar or find it difficult to phrase responses, you may want to allow them to use the Socratic Seminar Stems handout. This handout has response and questions stems which will allow them to respond to comments and questions from classmates in an authentic, appropriate manner and may increase participation.
Assessment Option 2: RAFT Assessment
The RAFT (Role, Audient, Format, Topic) writing assignment gives students the opportunity to choose the role and format that most appeals to them, while also providing teachers with uniform evaluation criteria: the use of primary and secondary historical evidence. The RAFT structure enables students to think about the major themes and lessons from the unit as a whole while also empowering them to apply their knowledge to a practical, contemporary context. When implementing the RAFT assessment in your class, be sure that you give students adequate time to read and understand their assignment and that you also explain the Rubric for RAFT Assessment and evaluation criteria.
Share with students the following instructions for each role:
Artist-in-residence: You’ve been commissioned to create a work of art for the entrance of a museum’s new exhibition on Americans and the Jewish refugee crisis of 1938–1941. The topic is completely unfamiliar to most museumgoers. To clarify your task, the museum has shared with you the following quote by Rabbi Jonathan Sacks:
History is information. Memory, by contrast, is part of identity. . . . Memory is the past as present, as it lives on in me. Survivors, witnesses, the descendants of those who lived this history, and all those who learn about it today face the question of how to remember the past and how that memory might shape our understanding of ourselves and our present world.1
Your artwork can take many forms (e.g., drawing, painting, graffiti stencil, Photoshop image), but it should inspire museumgoers to think about this history as more than mere “information.” The piece should prompt viewers to think about what it might look like to make this history (unknown to most Americans) part of their own identities as individuals and communities. As such, it should creatively represent what you believe are the key themes and contemporary lessons of this history, while also sparking museumgoers’ interest in the topic. The piece will be accompanied by a 300- to 500-word artist’s statement that describes the overall message and the artistic choices you made. Because many people will not know this history, the statement should provide some insight into how your artistic choices connect to important themes from the history of the refugee crisis of 1938–1941. You should also include at least one primary source or reference to a primary source, either in the artist’s statement or in the piece itself.
Vlogger: You are a vlogger with a large following of young people. You’ve recently studied the history of American action during the refugee crisis of 1938–1941, and you’ve been inspired to create a video explaining the topic to your followers. In a five- to seven-minute video, you’ll highlight some of the actions of American rescuers during this period and describe the lessons your followers can learn about taking action in their own lives. You should also be sure to spend time describing what motivated these individuals and organizations, as well as their most effective strategies. At the end of the video, you should spend some time discussing what young people can learn from these stories. For example, you might want to relate the many issues on Americans’ minds during this period to the challenges presented by social media and the 24-hour news cycle, and explain how young people can cut through the noise to inspire each other to act. Your video should reference what you learned by investigating primary sources from the period, and it should also provide some historical background information for people who are completely unfamiliar with the topic.
Media critic: You are an expert on American involvement in the Jewish refugee crisis of 1938–1941. You’ve seen many echoes of this history in the news lately, and you would like to write a letter to the editor of the New York Times introducing readers to this history while also connecting its lessons to contemporary events. You’ll select two to three major stories from the newspaper and write an 800- to 1,000-word letter to the editor explaining why the history of the refugee crisis sheds light on these news stories and why this history still matters today. When selecting your articles, you can choose stories that show direct similarities to the refugee crisis (e.g., coverage of a contemporary refugee crisis or persecution of a marginalized group), or you can think more abstractly (e.g., stories about divisions in American society or the persistence of “us” vs. “them” rhetoric). Your letter to the editor should also provide historical background on the refugee crisis of 1938–1941 and include primary source evidence to support your argument.
College activist: You are a student on a large university campus and belong to a group that is interested in humanitarian causes. Recently, you learned about universities in the late 1930s that were offering scholarships to refugee students in order to help them leave Europe. In many cases, the scholarships, such as Tom Doeppner’s at McPherson College, were completely funded by students. Your group has been trying to think of ways to help those in need, and you think that funding a scholarship for a refugee might be appealing to your peers. In your speech to the group, you will be asking them to contribute to and fundraise for a student-funded scholarship for a contemporary refugee. You should draw on historical precedent to make your argument, citing past debates over immigration, challenges faced by refugees seeking to immigrate, and the benefits of bringing refugees into the community. Be sure to include primary source evidence to support your argument.