The involvement the United States had with the Holocaust, and more specifically with the Jewish refugees, has been a very controversial subject throughout the years. This is due to the fact that very few Americans wish to acknowledge and take responsibility for the part the US played in the atrocities that occurred. World War II began in 1939, but the oppression of Jews, gypsies, homosexuals, communists, and other political enemies to the Nazis had begun quite some time before war broke out. In the beginning of 1935, Nazi Germany passed laws the deprived German Jews of their citizenship, leaving them utterly defenseless legally and without their jobs or property. From this time, when the Jews first started becoming the subjects of Nazi cruelty,
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For starters, many people felt that America 's best interest lay in avoiding foreign conflicts because they were discouraged by the amount of lives lost during the US intervention in World War I. But most importantly, Roosevelt may have been influenced by the fact that he was considering running for an unprecedented third term and because he believed that the United States was not yet prepared for war making him reluctant to help the refugees any further, and thus antagonize the Nazi regime. In addition many people also feared that the refugees were enemy spies and saboteurs in disguise. Because the United States refused to take in these needy passengers, the governments of Great Britain, France, the Netherlands, and Belgium each agreed to accept some of the refugees into their countries. Unfortunately, because of the Nazi invasions all across Europe, nearly 28 percent of the passengers of the St. Louis are known to have died in the Holocaust. To think how many of those 254 people could have survived had they been accepted into the United States is a true testament to the incredible difference the US could have had on World War II had they gotten involved
For starters, many people felt that America 's best interest lay in avoiding foreign conflicts because they were discouraged by the amount of lives lost during the US intervention in World War I. But most importantly, Roosevelt may have been influenced by the fact that he was considering running for an unprecedented third term and because he believed that the United States was not yet prepared for war making him reluctant to help the refugees any further, and thus antagonize the Nazi regime. In addition many people also feared that the refugees were enemy spies and saboteurs in disguise. Because the United States refused to take in these needy passengers, the governments of Great Britain, France, the Netherlands, and Belgium each agreed to accept some of the refugees into their countries. Unfortunately, because of the Nazi invasions all across Europe, nearly 28 percent of the passengers of the St. Louis are known to have died in the Holocaust. To think how many of those 254 people could have survived had they been accepted into the United States is a true testament to the incredible difference the US could have had on World War II had they gotten involved