SOCIAL STUDIES – Students will learn about the ways in which the United States and other Western countries were unwilling to open their borders to Jewish refugees from Germany and other European countries with Hitler’s advances.
Learning Objectives
- Students will learn about the historical context of the Jewish refugee crisis and 1930s America
- Through oral history, students will learn the personal story of one boy’s journey escaping Czechoslovakia one day before the Nazi’s took over
- Using a lesson plan The Child Refugee Debate by Facing History and the Holocaust Museum, students will consider the Wagner-Rogers Bill and the competing ideas in the United States about national identity, priorities and values
Common Core Education Standards (9-12)
- RH2 – Students conduct inquiries that require analysis of documents to answer their questions and/or support a thesis (claim).
- RH6 – Evaluate authors’ differing points of view on the same historical event or issue by assessing the authors’ claims, reasoning, and evidence.
- RH7 – Integrate and evaluate multiple sources of information presented in diverse formats and media (e.g., visually, quantitatively, as well as in words) in order to address a question or solve a problem
- Find additional Common Core Standards for teaching the Holocaust here.
Materials Needed
- PowerPoint Presentation: Americans and the Holocaust – Immigration and Refugees, a Case Study on the Wagner-Rogers Bill
- Wagner-Rogers Debate Documents
- Essential Quote Worksheet
- Recommended: Guidelines for Teaching About the Holocaust
- Recommended: Frequently Asked Questions about the Holocaust for Educators
Background Context
World War II is a topic that many states require social studies educators to teach. In addition to conforming to education standards, understanding the past can help us make sense of the present moment. This period of history can inform students when they flip on the news of today. Our recent immigration film in SHIPS (Ships, History, Influence, and Power Series) focuses on a young boy who left Czechoslovakia with his mother and sister. His story of how they made it out demonstrates the need for nuance in opposition to the romanticized history that celebrates America’s role in ending World War II and putting an end to the Holocaust.
At the Steamship Historical Society of America, our vision is to be a truth-telling organization that does not shy away from the reality of our historical past. To do that, we must confront the ways in which the United States and other Western countries were unwilling to open their borders to Jewish refugees from Germany and other European countries with Hitler’s advances. By comparing two stories of evacuations on steamships, we can shed light on how difficult it was for refugees to make their way to freedom and safety and how anti-Semitic and nativist sentiments drove the resistance to accepting refugees at that time.
Many European Jews hoped to emigrate to the United States in the years leading up to America’s direct involvement in World War II. They were met with financial, societal, and governmental challenges like the 1924 Johnson-Reed Act that limited visas based on quotas aimed at keeping “racially undesirable” people out. This included southern and eastern European Jews. Delegates from 32 countries came together in France in 1938 to discuss the Jewish refugee crisis, but most countries refused to change their laws, leaving more than 300,000 people on an 11-year waiting list. After 1938, only 27,370 German and Austrian-born people were granted visas to immigrate to the United States each year. Most years, the government actually issued far fewer immigration visas than the maximum number allowed.
Although Americans at the time knew of the Nazi persecution of Jews and the events of World War II from newspapers, radio, and in newsreels, public opinion polls from the time show that most wanted to keep Jewish refugees from entering the country. Racism and antisemitism in the United States, economic hardship, and fear of communism kept Americans from pushing the government to take stronger action in admitting refugees.
The 1939 Wagner-Rogers Bill proposed admitting 20,000 German refugee children over two years to the United States in addition to the existing quotas. Although the bill died without ever coming to a vote, the public debate and the congressional hearings surrounding the bill can provide excellent opportunities for students to understand Americans’ various responses to the refugee crisis.
Our interviewee, who wishes to remain anonymous, was incredibly lucky. He wasn’t given a visa to enter the United States out of the goodness of someone’s heart. His mother was able to smuggle his uncle’s jewelry and wealth to him in France. Once he was settled in America, he was able to purchase visas for his family to join him. The interviewee left his homeland of Czechoslovakia with his mother and sister one day before the Nazis took over. They spent time in France before traveling by foot across the French/Spanish border on their way to Lisbon, Portugal, where they had visas to board the SS Nyassa headed for New York. His story, though ultimately ending in their survival, is reminiscent of another ship destined for America with Jewish refugees that was not as lucky.
The SS St. Louis left Germany with 900 Jewish refugees on May 13, 1939. Passengers purchased Cuban visas at the embassy in Berlin because the island was seen as a temporary transit point to enter the United States. Children on board recalled their experience on the ship, which mirrored that of our interviewee. There was a sense of hope again, although the adults at first felt stress and fear. Once the ship was safely at sea, the children played games and enjoyed their time on the St. Louis.
But that sunny disposition changed when the passengers weren’t allowed to disembark when they reached Havana on May 27. For seven days, Captain Gustav Schröder pleaded with officials, but Cuba had decided to revoke many of the visas for fear of an influx of refugees from Europe. The captain set off for Florida in hopes that U.S. President Franklin Roosevelt would allow the ship to dock. Their prayers went unanswered in the U.S. and in Canada, and the ship was forced to return to Europe. The joy and hope were gone, and one passenger even slit his wrists and threw himself overboard in sheer desperation. The ship reached the port of Antwerp in Belgium on June 17, more than a month after setting sail from Hamburg. Twenty-nine percent of passengers that hoped to escape on board the SS St. Louis were killed during the war as the Nazi forces swept through Western Europe.
Lesson Plan:
- Tell students that in the next activity, they will be exploring both sides of the debate surrounding the Wagner-Rogers Bill, a bill to admit 20,000 German refugee children under the age of 14 over a two-year period. The bill specified that 10,000 children each fiscal year (1939 and 1940) would enter the United States and not be counted against the existing immigration quota laws. The bill also specified that when the refugee children reached the age of 18, they would either be counted against that year’s German immigration quota or would return to Europe.
- Write on the board or project the following guiding question:
How did the Wagner-Rogers debate reveal competing ideas about American identity, priorities, and values?
- Pass out documents to students. Everyone should receive the document “Joint Resolution 64 (the Wagner-Rogers Bill)” for reference and to understand the wording of the bill that sparked such debate. Each student should also receive one of the following sources from the Wagner-Rogers Debate Documents handout:
- Con:
- Letter to the Editor of the Washington Post
- Remarks from Senator Robert Reynolds
- Statement from Frances H. Kinnicutt
- Statement from Mr. John B. Trevor
- Pro:
- Statement from Clarence E. Pickett
- Letter from an “American Girl”
- Statement from John Brophy
- Non-Sectarian Committee for Refugee Children
- Con:
- Distribute the handout Essential Quote Worksheet. Prompt students to read their assigned documents. You might choose to have students read together with others who have the same handout. After reading, each student will independently choose one “essential quote” from their document that helps to answer the guiding question: How did the Wagner-Rogers debate reveal competing ideas about American identity, priorities, and values?
- After choosing quotations, students can complete boxes 1 to 3 on the worksheet.
- Next, students will find a partner who has a different handout, share their quotations, and discuss how their quotations are related to each other. Do their ideas corroborate, complement, or contradict each other? After their partner discussions, students can complete boxes 4 to 6 on their worksheets. End the activity by asking students to share some of their findings with the class.
Questions For Further Thought:
- How did competing ideas about national identity, priorities, and values surface during the debate over the 1939 Wagner-Rogers Bill?
- To what extent did these ideas reflect a gap between Americans’ willingness to sympathize with refugees and willingness to act on their behalf?
Extension:
Take a deeper dive into the material from Facing History with new sources from the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum’s special exhibition Americans and the Holocaust. This unit designed for grades 9-12 takes one week to complete and shifts the study of World War II and Nazism to the other side of the Atlantic. explores the motives, pressures, and fears that shaped Americans’ responses to Nazism and the humanitarian refugee crisis it provoked during the 1930s and 1940s. By examining primary sources that range from public opinion polls to personal narratives to radio plays, students will explore why widespread American sympathy for the plight of Jewish refugees never translated into widespread support for prioritizing their rescue. The unit also highlights the stories of individual Americans who did take tremendous risks to rescue Jews, as well as the questions this history raises for taking action in the context of contemporary refugee crises.
Additional Resources:
Learn more about Immigration to the United States 1933-41 from the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum
You can view the rest of the SHIPS Immigration videos here.
For more information on the St. Louis, visit this virtual exhibit courtesy of the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum.
You can view primary source material about the voyage of the SS St. Louis at the JDC Archives.
Check out these educational resources from PBS on Ken Burn’s The U.S. and the Holocaust.
