World War Two is commonly portrayed in US and British popular culture as an all consuming struggle against fascism. While this was a salient motivation for Allied participation in W.W.II, this notion potentially gives rise to a variety of misleading ideas.
Chief among these, for our purposes, is that anti- Semitism prevailed only among Hitler's Germans.
The Nazi power elite, and some of their supporters in Germany and elsewhere in Europe were unique in coming to decide, in 1942, to exterminate European Jewry.
However, they were far from unique in holding pernicious, unfounded beliefs, often in the form of prefabricated stereotypes, about the 'essential nature' of Jewish people that led to them being seen and treated by many non Jews as a lesser form of humanity, if a part of humanity at all.
Anti- Semitism was alive and well in America during the 1930s and 40s.
As Hitler was gaining a hold on the throats of Germany's Jewish people, public opinion polling was emerging as an influential force in American political life.
Accounts of the Roosevelt Presidency commonly speak of the influence of public opinion on government policy and practice.
With this feedback loop between the beliefs of the public and their supposed representatives came hundreds of polls on all manner of matters, including attitudes to Jewish people and possible initiatives to ease the plight of European refugees.
Examining some of these polls it is important to bear in mind not only that polls often also reflect what people believe to be socially acceptable, but also the influence these polls and the attitudes they reveal had on the government more generally and the matters raised in Randolf Paul's report specifically.
Even the questions and their underlying assumptions are very telling about US society at the time.
A September 1939 survey by the Opinion Research Corporation (ORC) asked
a random sample of 3140 Americans:
"Do you think Jewish businessmen are more or less honest than other
businessmen?" 49% said 'less';
2%
'more';
43% 'same';
6%
had
no opinion.
The stereotype of the deceptive, greedy, miserly Jew has long featured
in European cultural history. Shylock of Shakespeare's Merchant of Venice
is just one very obvious example.
In April 1940 the ORC asked a random sample of 3,219 people across the
US:
"Are there any objectionable qualities which you think Jews have
to a greater extent than other people?" 63% answered yes
(If "yes": ) "What qualities do you object to in Jews?" Unscrupulousness
51%,
Aggressiveness
19%,
Clannishness
17%,
Lack
of culture or good breeding 16%,
Selfishness
6%,
Appearance
6%,
Lack
of respect for others' religions 1%,
Other
6%.
An ORC survey of 2759 randomly sampled across America in October 1941
asked:
"Do you think that Jews in the United States are generally more
or less willing than other Americans to be drafted for military service?"
4% said 'more',
37%
'less',
28%
'same',
31%
'no
opinion'. In a March 1945 repeat of this poll 2%
said
'more',
42%'less',
34%'
same',
22% 'no
opinion'.
Although German Jews fought in proportionate numbers for Germany in World War I, Jews were scapegoated for Germany's loss in that conflict. Even before the war had ended stereotypes of Jews getting rich from the war rather than fighting in it circulated in German society. Following the war this myth became 'common knowledge' among most in Germany and Hitler employed it to propagate anti - semitism in Germany. How and why it also found fertile ground in the US are matters worth considering.
Numerous times the ORC asked nationwide
random samples of about 3000 people across America:
"Do you think the Jews have too much power
in the United States?" In March 1938 41%
said yes, and
46%no;
in August 1940 42%'yes'
and
42%
'no';
in December 1942 51% 'yes'
and 33% 'no';
and in June 1945 58% 'yes'
and 29% 'no'.
The image of the quintessentially all powerful
Jew and implicitly malevolent Jew has also had a centuries long life
in Europe.
In May 1938 a Gallup Poll asked 3,330 randomly
selected Americans:
"Do you think the persecution of Jews in Europe
has been their own fault?" 10%
said 'entirely',
48%'partly',
and
31% 'not
at all'.
In March 1938 an ORC survey asked an unspecified number of Americans:
"Should we allow a larger number of Jewish exiles from Germany to
come to the United States to live?" 17%
said yes; and 75%no.
A July 1938 Elmo Roper (Fortune) poll asked about
5, 000 randomly selected Americans:
"What is your attitude toward allowing German,
Austrian, and other political refugees to come into the US?" They responded:
We should encourage them to come even if we have
to raise our immigration quotas 5%
We should allow them to come but not raise our
immigration quotas
18%
With conditions as they are, we should try to
keep them out
67%
Don't know
10%
In December 1938 Elmo Roper asked a further 5,
000 randomly selected Americans:
"If you were a member of Congress, would you
vote yes or no on a bill to open the doors of the US to a larger number
of European refugees than are now admitted under our immigration quotas?"
'Yes'9%;
'No'
83%;
'Don't
Know'8%.
The National Opinion Research Centre of the University
of Chicago (NORC) asked of 1071 randomly selected Americans in January
1943:
"Do you think it would be a good idea or a
bad idea to let more immigrants come into this country after the war?"
Responses:
Good
Idea13%;
Bad
idea 78%
Having asked a question about whether respondents believed there would
be a campaign against the Jews in the United States, a series of ORC polls
between March 1938 and March 1945 polled various groups of 2, 000 - 3,
000 randomly selected Americans asking:
"Would you support such a campaign?" In March 1938 19%
said yes; in March 1945 17%
said yes and a further 30%
indicated that they would 'sympathise'.
In fact a variety of anti- Jewish actions did take
place in the US during this period.
In September 1944 a NORC survey asked 2,549 randomly
selected Americans:
"Here is a list of different groups of people.
Do you think we should let a certain number of each of these groups come
to the United States to live after the war, or do you think we should stop
some of the groups from coming at all?"
They responded:
"Let come" "Stop from coming" "Don't Know"
English
68%
25%
7%
Swedes 62%
27%
11%
Russians
57%
33%
10%
Chinese 56%
36%
8%
Mexicans 48%
42%
10%
Jews
46%
46%
9%
Germans
36%
59%
5%
Japanese 20%
75%
5%
Detailed discussion of these and other polls can be found in Charles
Herbert Stember, Jews in the Mind of America, Basic Books, New York,
1966.