At the very least, in what is likely the Allies biggest failure in responding to the Holocaust, visa quotas for entry into Britain and the United States should have been filled. The United States, traditionally isolationist in policy, had imposed tight limits to immigration with its 1924 Immigration and Nationality Act. These limits were not loosened, despite a multitude of applications and the growing awareness throughout the 1930s of Germany’s systematic discrimination and state-sponsored violence against Jews. In fact, further barriers to immigration were erected in 1940 by the State Department, citing security concerns. Breckinridge Long, in charge of the United States’ refugee policy, circulated the following internal State Department
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The Einsatzgruppen, the roaming killing squads which followed German lines into Eastern Europe, killed Jews far more quickly and in greater numbers than any of the camps did. Hypothetically, if the camps were in fact rendered unusable, the Einsatzgruppen could easily be employed to make up for any loss in killing power. The Allies also had no way of accurately knowing which rail lines and which carriages carried deportees to the camps, and regardless, the Germans were well noted for their efficiency in repairing rail lines and bridges. The Allies largely held air superiority in 1944, with Germany having taken heavy aircraft losses and a crippled production output. The Allies could have struck here as the risk of aerial engagement was minimal. But what would be the purpose? The role extermination camps played in the Holocaust had virtually come to a close by this time. All camps except Auschwitz-Birkenau had been closed by 1944, and Auschwitz-Birkenau was ordered by Reichsführer Heinrich Himmler to cease gassing and begin clean-up operations in light of the approaching Red Army in 1944. But not even this stopped the extermination, as the Germans simply switched from gassing to starvation, exhaustion, death marches and mass executions. The camps, designed to quietly run in the background, under the fog of war, had completed their purpose by the time the Allies had any real opportunity to
The Einsatzgruppen, the roaming killing squads which followed German lines into Eastern Europe, killed Jews far more quickly and in greater numbers than any of the camps did. Hypothetically, if the camps were in fact rendered unusable, the Einsatzgruppen could easily be employed to make up for any loss in killing power. The Allies also had no way of accurately knowing which rail lines and which carriages carried deportees to the camps, and regardless, the Germans were well noted for their efficiency in repairing rail lines and bridges. The Allies largely held air superiority in 1944, with Germany having taken heavy aircraft losses and a crippled production output. The Allies could have struck here as the risk of aerial engagement was minimal. But what would be the purpose? The role extermination camps played in the Holocaust had virtually come to a close by this time. All camps except Auschwitz-Birkenau had been closed by 1944, and Auschwitz-Birkenau was ordered by Reichsführer Heinrich Himmler to cease gassing and begin clean-up operations in light of the approaching Red Army in 1944. But not even this stopped the extermination, as the Germans simply switched from gassing to starvation, exhaustion, death marches and mass executions. The camps, designed to quietly run in the background, under the fog of war, had completed their purpose by the time the Allies had any real opportunity to