Anne Frank's family could not escape to US during Holocaust due to immigration roadblocks, new resea

[Judi Lynn]

Source: Independent


The family of the famous diarist attempted to migrate to the US several times, as well as Cuba, before going into hiding

Chris Riotta New York
@chrisriotta
3 hours ago

Anne Frank’s family ran into numerous roadblocks and exhaustive immigration procedures which prevented them from migrating to the US and Cuba during the Holocaust, newly-discovered records reveal.

Otto Frank, the father of the globally renowned writer and diarist, initially applied for visas to the US in 1938, the Anne Frank House in Amsterdam and the US Holocaust Museum said in a statement on Friday.

On July 6, 1942, nearly four years after the family reportedly began its immigration process, the Franks went into hiding.

“I am forced to look out for emigration and as far as I can see USA is the only country we could go to,” Mr Frank wrote to a friend in the US in 1941, a year prior to moving his family inside the upstairs attic of a close friend in Amsterdam.

Read more: https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/anne-frank-holocaust-us-immigration-migrants-hitler-germany-nazis-a8435641.html

[SunSeeker]

1. K & R for exposure.

[Solly Mack]

2. K&R

[mountain grammy]

3. Kick..

My mother was Jewish, born and raised in Brooklyn. She turned 21 in 1933 and spent the 30's working with various groups trying to get Jews out of Europe. She used to cry when she talked about it, how frustrating it was. In 1943 she turned 31 and, like half a million American Jews, signed up to fight Hitler. She joined the Marines.

[BigmanPigman]

4. Ships full of immigrants fleeing the Nazis

Last edited Fri Jul 6, 2018, 09:16 PM - Edit history (1)

were refused the ability to even get off of the damn ship! This happened often. Just like the Japanese internment camps, this is another part of our history that isn't addressed as much as it should be. And all of this occurred under FDR...the most liberal president in a long time. We are not a perfect country. We basically stole the US from indigenous people. We still have the attitude that allowed this to become part of the country 300 years ago. That is what you are seeing day in and day out on the news. Separate and NOT equal.

[TreasonousBastard]

6. Just for fun, check out the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882 which existed until 1943...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_Exclusion_Act

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Immigration_Act_of_1924 is another good one:

The Immigration Act of 1924, or Johnson–Reed Act, including the National Origins Act, and Asian Exclusion Act (Pub.L. 68–139, 43 Stat. 153, enacted May 26, 1924), was a United States federal law that set quotas on the number of immigrants from certain countries while providing funding and an enforcement mechanism to carry out the longstanding (but hitherto unenforced) ban on other non-white immigrants. The law was primarily aimed at further decreasing immigration of Southern Europeans, countries with Roman Catholic majorities, Eastern Europeans, Arabs, and Jews.[1][2][3][4] The law affirmed the longstanding ban on the immigration of other non-white persons, with the exception of black African immigrants (who had long been exempt from the ban). Thus, virtually all Asians were forbidden from immigrating to America under the Act (subsequent court rulings would determine that Indians were not white and could not immigrate).

<...>

[appalachiablue]

8. Appalling and tragic inaction on the part of the govt. for not aiding Jews

trying to leave Europe during Nazi aggression and persecution. A small number of private, sympathetic groups and organizations in the US managed to bring over some European Jews then, especially children. The US govt. should have helped more with Jewish refugees and others being persecuted, and the officials and agencies involved in decision making I need to study more.
How ironic since the election of FDR in 1932, plenty of arch conservatives, bigots and 'patriot groups' in America in the 1930s thought Roosevelt was Jewish, and so did Adolph Hitler. More bizarre is how there was an active American Nazi Party in the US in the 1930s, 'the Bund' very prominent in New York with chapters and youth camps in Long Island, NY, Penn., Wisc., Calif. and more.

The US Congress had enacted laws in 1921 and 1924 limiting immigration to basically people of North European ancestry. That meant barring Asians, particularly Chinese people and eastern and southern Europeans and Jews who were feared to be possible followers of dangerous leftist, anarchist and communist ideology, especially after the 1917 Bolshevik Russian Revolution.
Canada in 1914 turned back a ship of 375 immigrants from British-ruled India who were under the belief that they would be accepted in the Empire's realm, not so. In the first half of the 20th c., Canada also largely excluded Asians and Jews from immigrating. Following Wall Street's crash of 1929 and the Great Depression, the US restricted new immigrants into the country at a time of great hardship, joblessness and poverty.

Racism and bigotry was intense in the early decades of the 20th c. and the 'Christian' KKK had a large revival in the 1920s, known for it's radical anti black, immigrant, Catholic and Jewish beliefs; Jim Crow was also widespread. Eugenics racial theory and policies were mainstream in the US and Europe since the late 19th c. into the 20th c.. Many Americans had long believed Protestant whites were superior and the US was a very racist, bigoted society against blacks, Catholics, Mexicans and Jews for the most part. A growing number of progressives since the later 19th century were an exception.
https://www.thestar.com/news/immigration/2013/02/15/canadas_immigration_history_one_of_discrimination_and_exclusion.html

[bobbieinok]

5. Highly recommend PBS program 'America and the Holocaust,' part of---

part of PBS series The American Experience

Great amount of detail about anti-semitism in US in the 30s.

Also shows the strong anti Jewish sentiment that dominated the US State Department in the 30s and during WWII. Many obstacles were placed in the way of European Jews trying to escape the Holocaust. The program goes into detail about the hurdles used by the US Consulate in Lisbon.

[appalachiablue]

9. Thanks, I'll watch online. The PBS program came out in 1994,

Last edited Mon Jul 9, 2018, 12:21 AM - Edit history (2)

don't know how I missed it. Henry Morgenthau at the time tried to push for action to help Jews in Europe as I knew, also that those in the in the State Dept., Long & others were aware of the atrocities yet info. & visas were restricted. Terrible.
https://variety.com/1994/tv/reviews/the-american-experience-america-and-the-holocaust-deceit-and-indifference-1200436816/
Another recent *July article on Anne Frank: "Anne Frank's Family Tried to Escape to the U.S.," TIME, July 5, 2018
https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/anne-franks-family-tried-to-escape-to-the-us-research-suggests/ar-AAzEuPo

[appalachiablue]

16. "American and the Holocaust' PBS Amer. Experience, 1994

Last edited Sun Jul 8, 2018, 10:09 PM - Edit history (1)

- Watch the full PBS program.

[onecaliberal]

7. If you live in California the Museum of Tolleramce in Beverly Hills lays this history out well.

In particular the Anne Frank, and Holocaust exhibits. It depicts the rise of Hitler, it’s frightening that we’re seeing those same things occur now, in the United States.
Currently the government is gunning for brown immigrants, if no one stands with these souls, eventually it will come for us all.

[MicaelS]

10. "You know this is a Protestant country'

"And the Catholics and Jews are here under sufferance." He bluntly told them it was "up to you" to "go along with anything I want."

https://www.google.com/amp/www.newsweek.com/fdrs-auschwitz-secret-146819%3famp=1

[PoindexterOglethorpe]

11. My (now ex) husband's family are Jews who

came from Eastern Europe in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Not all of them left. Two cousins wound up as part of a kindertransport to England. Their parents disappeared into the camps, the girls grew up in England and have had decent lives. Another, somewhat more distant cousin, her family was on vacation in Switzerland when Kristallnacht happened. Her father owned some sort of business, and his employees told him not to even consider returning to Germany. They stayed in Switzerland for about a year and were then able to go to South America, I no longer recall which country. Possibly Argentina. The one time I met this cousin she was living in Canada.

Anne Frank. I have often wondered what might have become of her had not the Holocaust happened, or if she'd survived it. Clearly she'd have become a writer, and chances are we'd be reading her books. And she might still be alive, as she would have just turned 89 last month. Her own father lived to be 91, and that included surviving Auschwitz when he was in his 50s.

[FakeNoose]

12. I believe that wartime immigration was possible for refugees who had sponsors

If the Frank family had known someone - a family member or close friend - in the USA who could have sponsored them, I believe it would have been easier to get in. The "discrimination" if you want to call it that, wasn't to keep Jews out. It was to prevent accepting people who didn't know the language and would presumbly be unable to work and support themselves once they came here.

When a US citizen sponsors a family member or close friend, they are saying that the person or family will be their responsibility. The relative will help the immigrants find a place to live, help them get a job, get the kids into school, learn the language and culture, and how to fit into American life. When there's no sponsor then it's the government's responsibility and they didn't want more families on welfare. That was the big fear in the 1930's because our economy was already stretched thin as it was.

The celebrity immigrants like Albert Einstein, Marlene Dietrich, Thomas Mann and many others, didn't have the employment problem so the standards were different for them. It was understood that these celebrities would have no problem finding employment and they wouldn't resort to welfare. There was no quota of Jews in this group, and not much delay in processing their immigration papers either.

I'm pointing this out because it bothers me when people assume that immigration quotas before and during WWII were the result of anti-semitism. Not true, and the proof is that American Jews (who were already citizens) were successful in sponsoring family members and friends to come in, even when the doors were closed to other non-Jews who had no sponsor. There were also many cases of churches and religious groups becoming sponsors for refugee families who couldn't get in otherwise, but that's a different story. Unfortunately no church in the US was aware of the plight of the Frank family in the Netherlands, so no opportunity came forward for them.

[appalachiablue]

13. The Phila. couple who risked bringing 50 Austrian Jewish children to the US in late 1930s

Last edited Mon Jul 9, 2018, 12:44 AM - Edit history (1)

The efforts of Gilbert and Eleanor Kraus of Philadelphia to rescue fifty Jewish children from Vienna and bring them to the US in the late 1930s is the subject of the book, "50 Children" by Steven Pressman. The author is married to the granddaughter of the Kraus couple. ~ I read about the story and saw Pressman's moving book talk on CSPAN in 2014. The daring mission by a determined, brave couple rescued 50 Jewish children in Europe. If only so many more could have been helped during that horrible time.

*"50 Children: One Ordinary American Couple's Extraordinary Rescue Mission into the Heart of Nazi Germany" By Steven Pressman*

In this highly readable, carefully researched book, Steven Pressman presents a sobering account of the tremendous obstacles faced by Gilbert and Eleanor Kraus of Philadelphia, who set out to bring fifty Jewish children from Vienna to the United States in the late 1930s. The Krauses were undeterred despite stiff immigration quotas, innumerable bureaucratic obstacles, anti-Semitic State Department officials, and opposition by Jewish organizations as well as ordinary Americans.

The plan took shape when an official of an organization called Brith Sholom asked one of its members, successful lawyer Gibert Kraus, to assist in rescuing fifty Jewish children from Nazi Germany. While he tried to figure out how to bring the children into the United States within America’s restrictive immigration quotas, Kraus noticed a discrepancy between the number of visas issued and the number of Jews who actually entered the United States. His ingenious plan was to reserve fifty of these unused visas for the rescue effort.

The reluctance of America to open its door to Jews before and during the Holocaust is well-known, but Pressman delves into the details of the almost insurmountable obstacles facing Jews who were desperate to escape Vienna and Berlin as their lives grew more harrowing by the day. He depicts wrenching scenes of parents who were eager to send their children away with the Krauses, despite the likelihood that they would never see them again. The parents could not even wave goodbye to their children as the train pulled out, since a wave resembled the Nazi salute, forbidden to Jews. “Juden Verboten” signs were everywhere, barring Jews from restaurants, movies, and parks. The Krauses themselves were in danger; they traveled to Vienna and Berlin without any assurance that they would be safe (they had to deal directly with the Gestapo), leaving two young children of their own back home in Philadelphia...
More, https://www.jewishbookcouncil.org/book/50-children-one-ordinary-american-couples-extraordinary-rescue-mission-into-the-heart-of-nazi-german

*VIDEO, CSPAN BOOK TALK, Steven Pressman, author of "50 Children," April 29, 2014.
https://www.c-span.org/video/?319218-1/50-children

Steven Pressman talked about his book, 50 Children: One Ordinary American Couple’s Extraordinary Rescue Mission into the Heart of Nazi Germany, in which he recounts the efforts of Gilbert and Eleanor Kraus to rescue fifty Jewish children from Nazi-controlled Vienna in 1939. The couple, from Philadelphia, had become exasperated with U.S. immigration laws and was determined to allow entry to the children. The author, whose wife is the granddaughter of the Kraus', utilized personal papers and archival information to report on the rescue. Steven Pressman spoke at Book Passage Bookstore in Corte Madera, California. https://www.c-span.org/video/?319218-1/50-children

[Raine]

14. "Forgotten Ellis Island" on PBS is interesting

about the hospital and medical care on the island and how some people were deported if they were physically ill or "feebleminded". The separation of families when some members were sent back home and some stayed.

[appalachiablue]

15. That's an excellent program, I watched it and learned so much.

- Preview, PBS "FORGOTTEN ELLIS ISLAND"; watch the full 1 hr. program at the PBS link below.

http://www.pbs.org/program/forgotten-ellis-island/
PBS "Forgotten Ellis Island," Re-Aired June 2017.

"To those who went through it, it was one of the most precious gifts you were given, because when you were sick you couldn't do anything about it. But here was a place that rescued you." — John Henry Wilberding, immigrant from Germany, who was hospitalized on Ellis Island in 1928 with the measles.

Forgotten Ellis Island is the first film (and companion book) to be produced about the immigrant hospital on Ellis Island. Opened in 1902, the hospital grew to 22 medical buildings which sprawled across two islands adjacent to Ellis Island, the largest port of entry in the United States. Massive and modern, the hospital was America's first line of defense against contagious, often virulent disease. In the era before antibiotics, tens of thousands of immigrant patients were separated from family, detained in the hospital and healed from illness before becoming citizens. 350 babies were born in the hospital, and many were named after the doctors and nurses that helped deliver them. Ten times that many immigrants died on Ellis Island — 3,500 were buried in paupers graves around New York City.

The medical record of nineteen year old, Ormond Joseph McDermott, who died in the hospital from scarlet fever, reveals the limitations of early 20th century medicine. Lucy Simpson, Ormond's Public Health nurse, wrote in his medical record, "He is restless and wants to see his friend. Mind wandering." Without antibiotics to fight his infection, she could offer little more than to swab his throat with antiseptic and give him doses of camphor in oil. Ormond's medical record is one of the few to be found in immigration archives. National Park Service officials believe the hospital records have either been destroyed or are stored in some unknown federal facility. Ormond McDermott's niece, Anne, who appears in the film, was located in Sydney, Australia through the help of two genealogists. Anne provided photographs and letters written by Ormond before he died.

For two years, the National Park Service gave independent producer Lorie Conway and her company, Boston Film and Video Productions, exclusive access to film the Ellis Island hospital buildings before restoration efforts began. Former patients were also interviewed at the location and elsewhere. "They didn't leave where they came from because life was so good for them. Whatever they had here was better," said Leah Shain, whose aunt, Pearl Yablonski, was diagnosed as "feebleminded" and deported from Ellis Island.
For over five years, original research was conducted in the archives at Ellis Island, the National Archives, the New York Public Library, the Library of Congress, and other institutions and personal collections. Many never-before-published photographs are featured in the film and companion book (Harper Collins, 2007) as well as excerpts from oral histories with medical staff, ward matrons and patients...MORE at the Link, and watch the full program.