Philipson Warech Jewish Heritage Collection

Holocaust

Anti-Judaism in the United States During WWII

America was not without its own anti-Jewish sentiments leading up to and during WWII.

In the years leading up to and during World War II, anti-Judaism was not confined to Nazi Germany. Anti-Jewish prejudice had long existed in the United States and became increasingly visible during the 1930s as the country struggled through the Great Depression. Jews often faced discrimination in universities, housing, employment, and social institutions, while public opinion polls from the period show that many Americans held negative views of Jews and opposed increased Jewish immigration to the United States.

This climate was reinforced by influential public figures and organized movements that promoted antisemitic ideas. Popular radio priest Father Charles Coughlin broadcast rhetoric blaming Jews for economic and political problems to millions of listeners, while groups such as the German American Bund and the Christian Front openly expressed admiration for Nazi Germany. These voices contributed to an atmosphere in which anti-Jewish sentiment was normalized and policies limiting Jewish immigration remained widely supported even as Jews in Europe faced escalating persecution.

Important Moments

Early 1930s

Economic hardship during the Great Depression fueled conspiracy theories and anti-Jewish stereotypes in the United States. Discrimination against Jews appeared in universities, workplaces, housing, and social clubs.

1936–1939

Groups such as the German American Bund and the Christian Front organized rallies and distributed propaganda sympathetic to Nazi Germany and hostile to Jews.

Mid-1930s

Radio priest Father Charles Coughlin reached millions of listeners with broadcasts and publications that blamed Jews for economic problems and promoted conspiracy theories.

Late 1930s–early 1940s

Despite growing reports of persecution in Europe, strict immigration quotas and widespread public opposition limited the number of Jewish refugees admitted to the United States.

Highlights from the Collection

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(Interior) An American Nazi Party propaganda newsletter printed in the United States, April 10, 1941. This issue features an article by Nazi Germany’s minister of foreign affairs, Joachim von Ribbentrop, who would be hanged at Nuremburg after the war.

Titan of industry Henry Ford was loudly anti-Jewish, as evidenced by his 1926 editorial in The Dearborn Independent, “What About the Jewish Question?”

The German Bund was a pro-Nazi, anti-Jewish organization of Germans in the United States. Seen here is their leader, Fritz Kuhn, speaking in Milford, New Jersey. It is estimated that the Bund had 25,000 members, and they were active in spreading anti-Jewish propaganda through rallies, publications, and Hitler Youth-style camps for children, one of which, Camp Siegfried, was on Long Island.

Baltimore, 1939, a 14-year-old Jewish boy, Melvin Bridge, had an H (for “Hebrew”) carved into his neck by a group of students who had apparently created a “Junior Bund” patterned after Fritz Kuhn’s pro-Nazi group.

An American Nazi Party propaganda newsletter printed in the United States, April 10, 1941. This issue features an article by Nazi Germany’s minister of foreign affairs, Joachim von Ribbentrop, who would be hanged at Nuremburg after the war.

Charles Coughlin was a Catholic priest based in a suburb of Detroit. He was also vocally anti-Roosevelt (joining other leaders who nicknamed him “President Rosenfeld”), isolationist, and anti-Jewish. "Am I an Anti-Semite" is a collection of nine anti-Jewish addresses Coughlin had broadcast on his radio show between November 1938 and January 1939.

This “Boycott the Jew” sign could be found on a store window in Portland, Oregon in 1938, shortly before Kristallnacht. Referred to in English as “Night of the Broken Glass,” Kristallnacht took place on November 9 and 10, 1938 when the Nazis called for a series of pogroms (waves of organized violence) against the Jewish people throughout Germany, Austria, and the Sudetenland. The name, “Kristallnacht,” refers to the shattered glass lining the streets in the wake of the massacres, which targeted synagogues, Jewish homes, and Jewish-owned businesses, killing scores of German and Austrian Jews.

Anti-Jewish industry titan Henry Ford wrote two volumes of anti-Jewish essays, The International Jew: The World’s Foremost Problem and Jewish Activities in the United States, both also published by The Dearborn Independent. Ford’s essays were based in part on a fictional series called The Protocols of the Elders of Zion, published in Russia in 1903 and still used by radical Islamic groups today. The essays blame Jews for all that is wrong in society and accuse them of a conspiracy to take over the world. The Protocols were a cornerstone of the Nazis’ propaganda initiatives in the ’20s and ’30s — the party published more than twenty editions of the book, and many schools used it to indoctrinate students, as well.

(Reverse) Baltimore, 1939, a 14-year-old Jewish boy, Melvin Bridge, had an H (for “Hebrew”) carved into his neck by a group of students who had apparently created a “Junior Bund” patterned after Fritz Kuhn’s pro-Nazi group.