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The Abandonment of the Jews

The Abandonment of the Jews: America and the Holocaust 1941–1945 is a 1984 nonfiction book by David S. Wyman, former Josiah DuBois professor of history at the University of Massachusetts Amherst. Wyman was the chairman of the David S. Wyman Institute for Holocaust Studies. The Abandonment of the Jews has been well received by most historians, and has won numerous prizes and widespread recognition, including a National Jewish Book Award,[1] the Anisfield-Wolf Award, the Present Tense Literary Award, the Stuart Bernath Prize from the Society for Historians of American Foreign Relations, and the Theodore Saloutos Award of the Immigration History Society, and was nominated for the National Book Critics Circle Award."[2]

Argument Edit

In response to Nazi determination and concerted action to remove Jews from Europe by any means necessary, the non-Axis world closed many possibilities for emigration to other countries. For example, legal immigration to safety in Palestine, an area that had been assigned by the League of Nations as a Jewish homeland for Jews who were not safe in their original countries, was severely limited by the Mandate authorities in 1939; and many nations simply refused to allow European Jews entry to their countries. As Nazi Germany gained power and inherited larger Jewish populations in conquered territories (such as Poland) the policies in most nations were either to eliminate the Jewish presence (in the case of Axis countries) or to discourage Jewish immigration (in the case of non-Axis countries.) The closing of the immigration possibilities in America is covered by Wyman in his 1968 book Paper Walls: America and the Refugee Crisis, 1938-1941.[3] Wyman continues to document this aspect of World War II history in The Abandonment of the Jews, which covers the period of 1941–1945, when America and the Allies fought against Germany and the Final Solution Holocaust progressed to its most lethal stages.

Wyman summarizes his principal findings in the Preface (presented below in edited precis):

  1. The American State Department and the British Foreign Office had no intention of rescuing large number of European Jews. On the contrary, they continually feared that Germany or other Axis nations might release tens of thousands of Jews into Allied hands. Any such exodus would have placed intense pressure on Britain to open Palestine and the United States to take in more Jewish refugees... Consequently, their policies were aimed at obstructing rescue possibilities....
  2. Authenticated information that the Nazis were systematically exterminating European Jewry was made public... in November 1942. President Roosevelt did nothing... for fourteen months, then moved only because... political pressures....
  3. The War Refugee Board... received little power, almost no cooperation... and grossly inadequate funding. (Contributions from Jewish organizations.... covered 90 percent of the WRB's costs)... save approximately 200,000 Jews and at least 20,000 non-Jews.
  4. ... State Department... policies, only 21,000 refugees were allowed to enter... during... war with Germany... 10 percent of the number who could have been legally admitted....
  5. .... factors hampered (rescue)... anti-Semitism and anti-immigration attitudes,... entrenched in Congress; the mass media's failure... near silence of the Christian churches and almost all of their leadership (with notable exceptions, such as the Archbishop of Canterbury, or New York's Archbishop Francis Spellman); indifference... President's failure....
  6. American Jewish leaders... failure to assign top priority to the rescue issue.
  7. In 1944 the United States... rejected several appeals to bomb the Auschwitz gas chambers and railroads... in the very months that... numerous massive American bombing raids were taking place with fifty miles of Auschwitz. Twice... bombers struck... not five miles from the gas chambers.
  8. ... much more could have been done to rescue the Jews, if a real effort had been made.... the reasons repeatedly invoked by government official for not being able to rescue Jews could be put aside when it came to other Europeans who needed help.
  9. ... Roosevelt's indifference... the worst failure of his presidency.
  10. ... the American rescue record was better than that of Great Britain, Russia, or the other Allied nations... because of the work of the War Refugee Board... American Jewish organizations... provide most of the WRB's funding, and the overseas rescue operations of several Jewish organizations.[4]

The Abandonment of the Jews argues that American (and British) political leaders during the Holocaust, including President Roosevelt, turned down proposals that could have saved hundreds of thousands of European Jews from death in German concentration camps.[5] Wyman documents, for example, how Roosevelt repeatedly refused asylum to Jewish refugees[6] and failed to order the bombing of railway lines leading to Auschwitz.[7] At the same time, most Jewish leaders in America and in Palestine did little to pressure these governments to change their policy.[8] Some American newspapers, including the New York Times, are said to have underreported or buried reports off their front pages because of anti-Semitism. The Times was owned by Jews but may have wanted not to appear as Jewish advocates in their coverage.[9]

Wyman examines the documents suggesting that the US and British governments turned down numerous proposals to accept European Jews. The issue was raised at a White House conference on March 27, 1943, of top American and British wartime leaders, including Roosevelt, US Secretary of State Cordell Hull, British Foreign Secretary Anthony Eden, presidential advisor Harry Hopkins, and the British Ambassador to Washington, Lord Halifax. Hull raised the question of having the Allies offer to accept 60,000 to 70,000 Jews from Bulgaria, a German ally.[10] Eden reportedly objected, citing the risk that Hitler may take up similar offers for the Jews of Germany and Poland, and said that "there simply are not enough ships and means of transportation to handle them."[11]

Wyman writes that because of a combination of nativism, anti-Semitism and an unwillingness to act on any proposal not of direct strategic value, thousands and possibly millions of Jews died who might otherwise have been saved. He documents numerous cases where the Allies found resources, such as shipping, to give aid and rescue to tens of thousands of non-Jewish refugees, while at the same time denying similar aid or rescue efforts to Jews. For instance, he documents how the British government turned back endangered Jews from Mandatory Palestine, while at the same time they generously accepted between 9,000 and 12,000 non-Jewish Greek and 1,800 non-Jewish Polish refugees into Palestine.[12] He cites many cases where American and British authorities turned down offers by Nazis to exchange Jews for resources, often with documentation on how the Allies appeared to fear that there would be so many Jews that it could strain the Allies' war effort. He also documents the efforts of the US State Dept. to deny asylum to endangered Jews, and the failure of the American Jewish establishment to put sufficient pressure on US politicians, such as Roosevelt, to engage in effective rescue operations. Breckinridge Long, one of the four assistant secretaries of state, and a clique of other State Department executives, figure prominently in many episodes in this history. Wyman documents how Long and his colleagues repeatedly obstructed measures that would have effectively rescued Jews.[13]

Wyman cites several organizations as comparatively effective in rescue efforts, particularly some Orthodox Jewish organizations, the American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee, and the Revisionist Zionist faction called the 'Bergsonites,' which took their name from their leader, the so-called "Peter H. Bergson," which was actually the English nom-de-guerre of Hillel Kook, a Palestinian Jew and nephew of Rav Abraham Isaac Kook who was associated with the radical armed underground group Irgun Zvai Leumi. "Bergson" came to the United States to form the 'American Friends of a Jewish Palestine,' the 'Committee for a Jewish Army,' and other efforts to rescue European Jewry.[14]

Wyman is particularly critical of the mainstream American Jewish and Zionist leadership, which was ineffective in its rescue efforts and often prioritized the fight against American anti-Semitism and strengthening the Zionist position for a postwar Jewish commonwealth in Palestine (Israel) above the need to rescue Jews from Nazi persecution.[15]

In the chapter on 'Responsibility', Wyman has a subsection, 'What Might Have Been Done', in which he acknowledges that the possibilities for rescue were "narrowed by the Nazis' determination to wipe out the Jews" and that "War conditions themselves made rescue difficult... most likely it would not have been possible to rescue millions." He contends, however, that "without impeding the war effort, additional tens of thousands--probably hundreds of thousands--could have been saved."[16] He then presents a selection of twelve programs that were proposed (among others) during the Holocaust that could have been effective if only they had been tried. His selection included (in edited precis):

(1) Most important, the War Refugee Board should have been established in 1942. And it should have received adequate government funding and much broader powers.
(2) The U.S. government, working through neutral governments or the Vatican, could have pressured Germany to release the Jews....
(3) The United States could have applied constant pressure on Axis satellites to release their Jews....
(4)... Strong pressure needed to be applied to neutral countries near the Axis... to take Jews in....havens of refuge outside of Europe were essential.... Thus the routes would have remained open and a continuing flow of refugees could have left Axis territory.
(5) Locating enough outside havens... presented difficulties.... a camp existence... was still preferable to... death.... other countries used American stinginess as an rebuttal when questioned for not accepting Jews. For instance, in Jerusalem on his 1942 trip around the world, Wendell Willkie confronted the British authorities with the need to admit large numbers of Jews into Palestine. The British High Commissioner replied that since the United States was not taking Jews in even up to the quota limits, Americans were hardly in a position to make such criticisms.
(6) Shipping was needed to transport Jews from neutral countries to outside havens.... Early in 1943 the United States turned its back on a Romanian proposal to release 70,000 Jews. It was a pivotal failure....
(7) A campaign to stimulate and assist escape would have led to a sizable outflow of Jews....
(8) Much larger amounts of money should have been transferred to Europe... facilitating escapes,... hiding Jews.... supplying food... strengthening Jewish undergrounds, and... non-Jewish forces.
(9) Much more effort should have gone into finding ways to send in food and medical supplies....
(10)... the United States could have applied much more pressure... on neutral governments, the Vatican, and the International Red Cross to induce them to take earlier and more vigorous action....
(11) Some military assistance was possible....

(12) Much more publicity about the extermination of the Jews should have been disseminated throughout Europe....[17]

Counterarguments Edit

The overwhelming majority of professional historians who specialize in World War II and/or the Holocaust have generally endorsed, supported, or have been influenced by Wyman's arguments. The primary criticisms target Wyman's criticisms of Roosevelt, defend the actions of establishment Jewish organizations, and/or challenge his contention that the Allies could have effectively mitigated the slaughter of Jews by bombing the Auschwitz extermination facilities, a topic often referred to as the Auschwitz bombing debate.

James H. Kitchens III, an archivist of the United States Air Force Historical Research Center, criticized Wyman for his neglect for the situation of total war in which the Allies were enveloped and for basing his book on sociopolitical sources, without quality references to military history, which he argues is crucial to the bombing debate. Kitchens argued that it would not have been practical to bomb Auschwitz. Kitchens' two principal points are 1) the Allies did not have sufficiently detailed intelligence about the location of these facilities to reasonably target them, and 2) the logistics of bombing would have been too difficult to reasonably expect a successful result.[18] Historian Richard Levy supports Kitchens' position.[19] Other historians have pointed out 1) there were opportunities for the Allies to acquire sufficient military intelligence on potential Auschwitz targets, though it appears that no concerted effort was made gather such information.[20][21] and 2) there were many successful Allied bombing missions that were just as difficult and were supported by comparably incomplete intelligence. The notion that the Auschwitz mission would have been particularly difficult is strongly challenged;[by whom?] some[who?] have speculated that Kitchens may have been influenced by the desire to defend his employer.[22][23]

There are very few historians who disagree with Wyman's position that more could have been done by the Allies and Neutrals to rescue endangered European Jews.[original research?] One exception is William D. Rubinstein, whose The Myth of Rescue: Why the Democracies Could Not Have Saved More Jews from the Nazis is explicitly a critical response to "The Abandonment of the Jews" and a host of other works that support Wyman's positions. Rubinstein argues that the Western powers had a creditable record of accepting immigrants, Palestine was not a potential refuge, and effective allied action against the extermination camps was not possible.[24]

Even Wyman's most strident critics, however, acknowledge that many of Wyman's contentions are valid. Rubinstein, for instance, appears to largely agree with Wyman (and many other historians) that the influence of Palestinian Arab political leadership, led by Grand Mufti of Jerusalem Haj Amin al-Husseini, and the 1936–1939 Arab revolt in Palestine were factors in causing the British government to abandon their temporary mandate over Palestine, which was primarily to establish a homeland for the Jewish people that would be available to facilitate rescue of endangered Jews in their time of need.[25] Both Wyman and his critics agree that their decision to abandon the mandate was embodied in the White Paper of 1939, which reduced Jewish immigration to Palestine to a yearly quota of only 10,000, with a maximum of 75,000 immigrants, and after a five-year period relegated all Jewish immigration to the approval of the Palestinian Arab polity. The long-lasting consequences to the European Jewry during the Holocaust of the abandonment of the mandate is generally recognized by Wyman's critics, though Wyman details the detrimental effects in greater detail than many of his detractors.[editorializing]

For instance, the differences of opinion between Rubinstein and Wyman on the issue rest principally on Rubinstein's argument that the Zionist Jews in Palestine (such as David Ben-Gurion) are primarily to blame for not giving refuge to European Jews in Palestine, rather than putting the responsibility on the British authorities or the Palestinian Arabs who violently opposed such rescue efforts.[26] Some[who?] historians have taken Rubinstein and other Wyman critics to task for such assertions, and have directly attacked these criticisms of Wyman's positions as unscholarly "polemic."[27]

Examples where Jews were rescued from the Axis countries Edit

Many historians, including Dr. David Kranzler, who specialize in documenting those who rescued Jews note that large number of Jews were saved and argue that even more could have been saved, often using the same historical examples that are covered by Wyman. In most cases, the rescue efforts were not initiated by large established free world Jewish and Zionist organizations, which often obstructed rescue activism; the Allied governments; or by institution like the Vatican nor the Red Cross. Most successful rescue operations were the result of work by non-establishment small maverick Jewish groups and non-Jews, who largely acted outside and often against instructions of their own umbrella groups. Examples include:

  • The Bratislava Working Group led by Gisi Fleischmann and Rabbi Chaim Michael Dov Weissmandl negotiated in early 1942 an about two year lull in transports from Slovakia for about $50,000 ransom to the SS via Dieter Wisliceny. In late 1942 they negotiated the so-called Europa Plan. Apparently, the Germans offered to stop transports from many areas for about two million dollars and demanded a 10% down payment. No one was willing to risk that sum, and the negotiations terminated. Yad Vashem states that it was only a German trick.[28]
  • Protection papers handed out from Switzerland by Orthodox Jewish rescuers George Mantello (Mandel - a Salvadorian diplomat from Transylvania) and Recha Sternbuch saved large numbers over the objections of a Swiss Jewish leader and US officials, particularly WRB's Roswell McClelland.[29]
  • Wilfrid Israel, originally from Berlin, was one of the key people who organized the Kindertransport to England, which saved large number of Jewish children.
  • Recha Sternbuch smuggled into Switzerland large number of Jews at the Swiss-Austria border until someone in Switzerland who should have helped informed on her. She conducted from late 1944 to early 1945 negotiations with Heinrich Himmler via Swiss politician Jean-Marie Musy who was Himmler's acquaintance. That led to the release of many Jews from the Theresienstadt concentration camp and prevented murder of large number of Jews in some camps as the Allies were approaching, based on a ransom agreement with the Nazis. She was again informed on by the same person as noted earlier.
  • Yitzchak Sternbuch, Recha Sternbuch's husband, raised and paid the ransom required to release the Jews in the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp who were on the so-called Kastner Train.
  • Rabbi Solomon Schonfeld arranged refuge for thousands of Jews in Britain, including hundreds of children in the Kindertransport. He also convinced many English Church leaders and Parliamentarians to pass a motion allowing those Jews who could get out from Axis ruled territories to settle at least temporarily in parts of the British Empire. A group successfully lobbied against the motion since it excluded Palestine.[30]
  • In the US, persistent pressure on the Roosevelt administration by Hillel Kook and his Bergonsonite rescue group[citation needed], despite considerable and prolonged obstruction by America's liberal Jewish leaders and mainstream Jewish organizations but with crucial support of many in Congress, the Senate, and Treasury Secretary Henry Morgenthau Jr. and his team at the Treasury, led to establishment of the War Refugee Board.[31] One if its actions was support of the Wallenberg mission to Budapest. David Wyman credits the War Refugee Board with the rescue of over 200,000 (including 120,000 in Hungary, in part because of the Wallenberg mission).[32]
  • Twenty four hours after receipt El Salvador embassy Jewish First Secretary George Mantello (Mandel) publicized what has now been called the Wetzler-Vrba Report included in the Auschwitz Protocol. Unfortunately, he received the report with much delay. Other Jews and Jewish/Zionist organizations that received it early did not make effective use of the information and some, like Rudolf Kastner tried to suppress the information. Mantello's action ignited significant large street protests in Switzerland, led to over 400 glaring headlines in Switzerland deploring Europe's barbarism and the sermons in many Swiss churches spoke about their "brothers and sisters": the Jews. Though the International Red Cross hesitated to intervene, others—including Pope Pius XII and King Gustav V of Sweden made personal appeals to Hungary's Regent Miklós Horthy. He received credible threats from Churchill and Roosevelt. Horthy then stopped the transports carrying about 12,000 Jews per day to Auschwitz. "By then, the Hungarian provinces had been cleared. Almost 440,000 Jews were gone, but most of Budapest's 230,000 Jews were still in the capital." Horthy then "offered to permit emigration of all Jewish children under ten who possessed visas to other countries, and all Jews of any age who possessed Palestine certificates."[33] Although Sweden, Switzerland, and the US State Department eventually agreed to issue visas for 28,000 children, none of them was ever brought out of Hungary because of the month-long delay in Allied and neutral negotiations, and in the end, the Nazis took control of the situation. The delay in responding to Horthy's offer proved fatal to the deal he offered and to many Hungarian Jews. Three months after Horthy stopped the deportation trains, he was deposed and replaced by the Nazi puppet regime of Ferenc Szalasi and his fascist and anti-Semitic Arrow Cross, which unleashed a reign of terror against Hungary's remaining Jews, killed tens of thousand in the four months of their reign, and ended only when the Russians army conquered Hungary.[34]
  • The lull in the Hungarian deportations and the offers made by Horthy enabled the Wallenberg mission and also rescue by many others in Budapest, such as Carl Lutz, Monsignor Angelo Rotta, Giorgio Perlasca, the Spanish legation, the Zionist Youth Underground in Budapest, and "put rescue in the air" empowering ordinary citizens to act on behalf of the remnant of Hungary's Jews. Raoul Wallenberg and Carl Lutz each rescued tens of thousands of Jews in Hungary and the Zionist Youth Underground rescued many thousands in not over 10,000[34]
  • Many diplomats often broke diplomatic protocol, acted against the directives of their country, and rescued large number of Jews with visas and protection papers. Besides Carl Lutz and Raoul Wallenberg best known among them are Japanese Chiune Sugihara, Chinese Ho Feng-Shan, Portuguese Aristides de Sousa Mendes and Swedish Count Folke Bernadotte.
  • A controversial proposal for rescue came from Adolf Eichmann, who offered Zionist rescuer Joel Brand in May, 1944, a deal to release 1,000,000 Jews in exchange for 10,000 trucks and commodities like coffee, tea, cocoa, and soap. Eichmann and other Nazis made similar offers to other Zionist rescuers (such as Saly Mayer, Sternbuch). Jean-Marie Musy, a former president of Switzerland and pro-Nazi enthusiast in the 1930s, took a prominent role in the negotiations. The Allies, however, rejected these 'ransom' arrangements even though Eichmann had made it very clear that the alternative entailed destroying the Jews. The Russians and Churchill agreed that ransoms should not be paid. The British held Brand as a prisoner to prevent such dealings and the pre-state Zionist leadership of Palestine did not seem overly interested.[35]
  • Yad Vashem states in its museum that the controversial Rudolf Kastner's activities led to the rescue of over 22,000 Jews
  • After controversial negotiations between Rudolf Kastner, Saly Mayer, and Adolf Eichmann, trains carrying some 1,700 Hungarian Jews were sent to Bergen-Belsen concentration camp, where they were kept relatively safely in return for money and gold and were freed at the end of 1944, when Yitzchak Sternbuch, in Switzerland, arranged for their rescue with a large ransom payment.[36][37][38]
  • There were many other successful rescue initiatives and also many more which some argue could have succeeded if Churchill and Roosevelt had received more public pressure.[39] With ships packed with refugees, such as the St. Louis and refugee ships headed for Palestine were turned back, it is difficult to make a case for the thesis that rescue was not possible.[40] Wyman's views are supported by numerous participants and scholars, such David Kranzler, Hillel Kook, Chaim Michael Dov Weissmandl, to name only a few.[41]

See also Edit

References Edit

  • Wyman, David S. 'The Abandonment Of The Jews: America and the Holocaust. New York: Pantheon Books, 1984, 444pp.
  • Wyman, David S., Medoff, Rafael. A Race Against Death: Peter Bergson, America, and the Holocaust. New Press, 2004.

also

  • "Could The Allies Have Bombed Auschwitz", Jewish Virtual Library.
  • Abraham Fuch, The Unheeded Cry
  • Ben Hecht, Perfidy
  • David Kranzler, The Man Who Stopped the Trains to Auschwitz: George Mantello, El Salvador, and Switzerland's Finest Hour, Foreword by Senator Joseph I. Lieberman, Syracuse University Press (March 2001)
  • David Kranzler, Holocaust Hero: The Untold Story of Solomon Schonfeld, an Orthodox British Rabbi, Ktav Publishing House (December 2003)
  • David Kranzler, Thy Brothers' Blood: The Orthodox Jewish Response During the Holocaust, Artscroll (December 1987)
  • David Kranzler, Heroine of Rescue: The Incredible Story of Recha Sternbuch Who Saved Thousands from the Holocaust
  • Laurence Jarvik, Who Shall Live and Who Shall Die (video documentary, distributed by Kino International at: http://www.kino.com/video/item.php?film_id=349)
  • Rapaport, Louis. Shake Heaven & Earth: Peter Bergson and the Struggle to Rescue the Jews of Europe. Gefen Publishing House, Ltd., 1999.
  • VERAfilm, Among Blind Fools (documentary video)

Notes Edit

  1. ^ "Past Winners". Jewish Book Council. Retrieved 2020-01-21.
  2. ^ "The New Press".
  3. ^ Paper Walls: America and the Refugee Crisis, 1938-1941 (University of Massachusetts Press, 1968) ISBN 0-87023-040-9
  4. ^ Abandonment of the Jews, pp. x, xi
  5. ^ "Abandonment of the Jews", pp. 244, 24; 172, 173.
  6. ^ Abandonment of the Jews, pp. 47; 82; 115-118; 264-266.
  7. ^ "Abandonment of the Jews", p. 295.
  8. ^ Abandonment of the Jews, pp. 157-177; 328-330; 345-348.
  9. ^ Abandonment of the Jews, pp. 26, 38, 76, 299n, 321
  10. ^ Abandonment of the Jews, pp. 96-100.
  11. ^ Abandonment of the Jews, p. 97.
  12. ^ Abandonment of the Jews, pp. 338, 339.
  13. ^ Abandonment of the Jews, pp. 104-142.
  14. ^ Abandonment of the Jews, p. 85.
  15. ^ Abandonment of the Jews, pp. 3-18; 327-330.
  16. ^ Abandonment of the Jews, p. 331
  17. ^ Abandonment of the Jews, pp. 331-335
  18. ^ The Bombing of Auschwitz Re-Examined." by James H. Kitchens III, in The Journal of Military History. 58 (April 1994): 233-266.
  19. ^ "The Bombing of Auschwitz Revisited: A Critical Analysis" by Richard H. Levy, Holocaust and Genocide Studies, vol. 10, no. 3 (winter 1996), pp. 267--298
  20. ^ "Allied Knowledge of Auschwitz-Birkenau in 1943--1944" by Richard Breitman, in FDR and the Holocaust, ed. Verne W. Newton (New York, 1996) pp. 175--182.
  21. ^ Dino Brugioni, Auschwitz and Birkenau: Why the World War II photo interpreters failed to Identify the extermination complex, Military Intelligence, vol. 9, no. 1 (Jan.-Mar. 1983): pages 50-55.
  22. ^ "Could the Allies Have Bombed Auschwitz?" by Stuart G. Erdheim, Holocaust and Genocide Studies, vol 11., no. 2 (Fall 1997), pp. 129--170
  23. ^ "The Jewish Threat: Anti-semitic Politics Of The U.S.. Army" by Joseph W. Bendersky, (NY: Basic Books; 2000) pp. 343--344
  24. ^ "The Myth of Rescue: Why the Democracies Could Not Have Saved More Jews from the Nazis", by William D. Rubinstein, (NY: Routledge.; 1997)
  25. ^ "Myth, Rubinstein", pp 15, 30, 100, 123, 127, 138, 143, 198, 216, 218, 237, 250
  26. ^ "Myth, Rubinstein", pp. 14, 146, 233, 267
  27. ^ Book Review by David Cesarani, English Historical Review, Vol. 113, No. 454, Nov. 1998, pp. 1258–1260
  28. ^ Large display in the Yad Vashem museum
  29. ^ "Abandonment of the Jews", pp. 244-251.
  30. ^ "Holocaust Hero: The Untold Story of Solomon Schonfeld, an Orthodox British Rabbi", by David Kranzler, Ktav Publishing House (December 2003), ISBN 978-0-88125-730-4
  31. ^ "Abandonment of the Jews", pp. 178-191.
  32. ^ "Abandonment of the Jews", pp. 236-243.
  33. ^ "Abandonment of the Jews", p. 238.
  34. ^ a b "Abandonment of the Jews", p. 235-243.
  35. ^ "Abandonment of the Jews", p. 243-254.
  36. ^ "Abandonment of the Jews", p. 245-247.
  37. ^ "Desperate Mission; Joel Brand's Story As Told to Alex Weissberg", by Alex Weissberg (NY: Grove Press; 1958) B000FNH6EU
  38. ^ "Holocaust Years: The Nazi Destruction of European Jewry, 1933-1945", by Nora Levin (Malabar, FL: Krieger Publishing; 1990) ISBN 978-0894642234, p. 338
  39. ^ "Abandonment of the Jews", p. 311-317.
  40. ^ "Abandonment of the Jews", pp. 110-123.
  41. ^ "Holocaust Years, Levin", pp. 117--128, pp. 324--326, 331-333 pp. 338--340

abandonment, jews, america, holocaust, 1941, 1945, 1984, nonfiction, book, david, wyman, former, josiah, dubois, professor, history, university, massachusetts, amherst, wyman, chairman, david, wyman, institute, holocaust, studies, been, well, received, most, h. The Abandonment of the Jews America and the Holocaust 1941 1945 is a 1984 nonfiction book by David S Wyman former Josiah DuBois professor of history at the University of Massachusetts Amherst Wyman was the chairman of the David S Wyman Institute for Holocaust Studies The Abandonment of the Jews has been well received by most historians and has won numerous prizes and widespread recognition including a National Jewish Book Award 1 the Anisfield Wolf Award the Present Tense Literary Award the Stuart Bernath Prize from the Society for Historians of American Foreign Relations and the Theodore Saloutos Award of the Immigration History Society and was nominated for the National Book Critics Circle Award 2 Contents 1 Argument 2 Counterarguments 3 Examples where Jews were rescued from the Axis countries 4 See also 5 References 6 NotesArgument EditIn response to Nazi determination and concerted action to remove Jews from Europe by any means necessary the non Axis world closed many possibilities for emigration to other countries For example legal immigration to safety in Palestine an area that had been assigned by the League of Nations as a Jewish homeland for Jews who were not safe in their original countries was severely limited by the Mandate authorities in 1939 and many nations simply refused to allow European Jews entry to their countries As Nazi Germany gained power and inherited larger Jewish populations in conquered territories such as Poland the policies in most nations were either to eliminate the Jewish presence in the case of Axis countries or to discourage Jewish immigration in the case of non Axis countries The closing of the immigration possibilities in America is covered by Wyman in his 1968 book Paper Walls America and the Refugee Crisis 1938 1941 3 Wyman continues to document this aspect of World War II history in The Abandonment of the Jews which covers the period of 1941 1945 when America and the Allies fought against Germany and the Final Solution Holocaust progressed to its most lethal stages Wyman summarizes his principal findings in the Preface presented below in edited precis The American State Department and the British Foreign Office had no intention of rescuing large number of European Jews On the contrary they continually feared that Germany or other Axis nations might release tens of thousands of Jews into Allied hands Any such exodus would have placed intense pressure on Britain to open Palestine and the United States to take in more Jewish refugees Consequently their policies were aimed at obstructing rescue possibilities Authenticated information that the Nazis were systematically exterminating European Jewry was made public in November 1942 President Roosevelt did nothing for fourteen months then moved only because political pressures The War Refugee Board received little power almost no cooperation and grossly inadequate funding Contributions from Jewish organizations covered 90 percent of the WRB s costs save approximately 200 000 Jews and at least 20 000 non Jews State Department policies only 21 000 refugees were allowed to enter during war with Germany 10 percent of the number who could have been legally admitted factors hampered rescue anti Semitism and anti immigration attitudes entrenched in Congress the mass media s failure near silence of the Christian churches and almost all of their leadership with notable exceptions such as the Archbishop of Canterbury or New York s Archbishop Francis Spellman indifference President s failure American Jewish leaders failure to assign top priority to the rescue issue In 1944 the United States rejected several appeals to bomb the Auschwitz gas chambers and railroads in the very months that numerous massive American bombing raids were taking place with fifty miles of Auschwitz Twice bombers struck not five miles from the gas chambers much more could have been done to rescue the Jews if a real effort had been made the reasons repeatedly invoked by government official for not being able to rescue Jews could be put aside when it came to other Europeans who needed help Roosevelt s indifference the worst failure of his presidency the American rescue record was better than that of Great Britain Russia or the other Allied nations because of the work of the War Refugee Board American Jewish organizations provide most of the WRB s funding and the overseas rescue operations of several Jewish organizations 4 The Abandonment of the Jews argues that American and British political leaders during the Holocaust including President Roosevelt turned down proposals that could have saved hundreds of thousands of European Jews from death in German concentration camps 5 Wyman documents for example how Roosevelt repeatedly refused asylum to Jewish refugees 6 and failed to order the bombing of railway lines leading to Auschwitz 7 At the same time most Jewish leaders in America and in Palestine did little to pressure these governments to change their policy 8 Some American newspapers including the New York Times are said to have underreported or buried reports off their front pages because of anti Semitism The Times was owned by Jews but may have wanted not to appear as Jewish advocates in their coverage 9 Wyman examines the documents suggesting that the US and British governments turned down numerous proposals to accept European Jews The issue was raised at a White House conference on March 27 1943 of top American and British wartime leaders including Roosevelt US Secretary of State Cordell Hull British Foreign Secretary Anthony Eden presidential advisor Harry Hopkins and the British Ambassador to Washington Lord Halifax Hull raised the question of having the Allies offer to accept 60 000 to 70 000 Jews from Bulgaria a German ally 10 Eden reportedly objected citing the risk that Hitler may take up similar offers for the Jews of Germany and Poland and said that there simply are not enough ships and means of transportation to handle them 11 Wyman writes that because of a combination of nativism anti Semitism and an unwillingness to act on any proposal not of direct strategic value thousands and possibly millions of Jews died who might otherwise have been saved He documents numerous cases where the Allies found resources such as shipping to give aid and rescue to tens of thousands of non Jewish refugees while at the same time denying similar aid or rescue efforts to Jews For instance he documents how the British government turned back endangered Jews from Mandatory Palestine while at the same time they generously accepted between 9 000 and 12 000 non Jewish Greek and 1 800 non Jewish Polish refugees into Palestine 12 He cites many cases where American and British authorities turned down offers by Nazis to exchange Jews for resources often with documentation on how the Allies appeared to fear that there would be so many Jews that it could strain the Allies war effort He also documents the efforts of the US State Dept to deny asylum to endangered Jews and the failure of the American Jewish establishment to put sufficient pressure on US politicians such as Roosevelt to engage in effective rescue operations Breckinridge Long one of the four assistant secretaries of state and a clique of other State Department executives figure prominently in many episodes in this history Wyman documents how Long and his colleagues repeatedly obstructed measures that would have effectively rescued Jews 13 Wyman cites several organizations as comparatively effective in rescue efforts particularly some Orthodox Jewish organizations the American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee and the Revisionist Zionist faction called the Bergsonites which took their name from their leader the so called Peter H Bergson which was actually the English nom de guerre of Hillel Kook a Palestinian Jew and nephew of Rav Abraham Isaac Kook who was associated with the radical armed underground group Irgun Zvai Leumi Bergson came to the United States to form the American Friends of a Jewish Palestine the Committee for a Jewish Army and other efforts to rescue European Jewry 14 Wyman is particularly critical of the mainstream American Jewish and Zionist leadership which was ineffective in its rescue efforts and often prioritized the fight against American anti Semitism and strengthening the Zionist position for a postwar Jewish commonwealth in Palestine Israel above the need to rescue Jews from Nazi persecution 15 In the chapter on Responsibility Wyman has a subsection What Might Have Been Done in which he acknowledges that the possibilities for rescue were narrowed by the Nazis determination to wipe out the Jews and that War conditions themselves made rescue difficult most likely it would not have been possible to rescue millions He contends however that without impeding the war effort additional tens of thousands probably hundreds of thousands could have been saved 16 He then presents a selection of twelve programs that were proposed among others during the Holocaust that could have been effective if only they had been tried His selection included in edited precis 1 Most important the War Refugee Board should have been established in 1942 And it should have received adequate government funding and much broader powers 2 The U S government working through neutral governments or the Vatican could have pressured Germany to release the Jews 3 The United States could have applied constant pressure on Axis satellites to release their Jews 4 Strong pressure needed to be applied to neutral countries near the Axis to take Jews in havens of refuge outside of Europe were essential Thus the routes would have remained open and a continuing flow of refugees could have left Axis territory 5 Locating enough outside havens presented difficulties a camp existence was still preferable to death other countries used American stinginess as an rebuttal when questioned for not accepting Jews For instance in Jerusalem on his 1942 trip around the world Wendell Willkie confronted the British authorities with the need to admit large numbers of Jews into Palestine The British High Commissioner replied that since the United States was not taking Jews in even up to the quota limits Americans were hardly in a position to make such criticisms 6 Shipping was needed to transport Jews from neutral countries to outside havens Early in 1943 the United States turned its back on a Romanian proposal to release 70 000 Jews It was a pivotal failure 7 A campaign to stimulate and assist escape would have led to a sizable outflow of Jews 8 Much larger amounts of money should have been transferred to Europe facilitating escapes hiding Jews supplying food strengthening Jewish undergrounds and non Jewish forces 9 Much more effort should have gone into finding ways to send in food and medical supplies 10 the United States could have applied much more pressure on neutral governments the Vatican and the International Red Cross to induce them to take earlier and more vigorous action 11 Some military assistance was possible 12 Much more publicity about the extermination of the Jews should have been disseminated throughout Europe 17 Counterarguments EditThis article needs additional citations for verification Please help improve this article by adding citations to reliable sources Unsourced material may be challenged and removed Find sources The Abandonment of the Jews news newspapers books scholar JSTOR November 2018 Learn how and when to remove this template message The overwhelming majority of professional historians who specialize in World War II and or the Holocaust have generally endorsed supported or have been influenced by Wyman s arguments The primary criticisms target Wyman s criticisms of Roosevelt defend the actions of establishment Jewish organizations and or challenge his contention that the Allies could have effectively mitigated the slaughter of Jews by bombing the Auschwitz extermination facilities a topic often referred to as the Auschwitz bombing debate James H Kitchens III an archivist of the United States Air Force Historical Research Center criticized Wyman for his neglect for the situation of total war in which the Allies were enveloped and for basing his book on sociopolitical sources without quality references to military history which he argues is crucial to the bombing debate Kitchens argued that it would not have been practical to bomb Auschwitz Kitchens two principal points are 1 the Allies did not have sufficiently detailed intelligence about the location of these facilities to reasonably target them and 2 the logistics of bombing would have been too difficult to reasonably expect a successful result 18 Historian Richard Levy supports Kitchens position 19 Other historians have pointed out 1 there were opportunities for the Allies to acquire sufficient military intelligence on potential Auschwitz targets though it appears that no concerted effort was made gather such information 20 21 and 2 there were many successful Allied bombing missions that were just as difficult and were supported by comparably incomplete intelligence The notion that the Auschwitz mission would have been particularly difficult is strongly challenged by whom some who have speculated that Kitchens may have been influenced by the desire to defend his employer 22 23 There are very few historians who disagree with Wyman s position that more could have been done by the Allies and Neutrals to rescue endangered European Jews original research One exception is William D Rubinstein whose The Myth of Rescue Why the Democracies Could Not Have Saved More Jews from the Nazis is explicitly a critical response to The Abandonment of the Jews and a host of other works that support Wyman s positions Rubinstein argues that the Western powers had a creditable record of accepting immigrants Palestine was not a potential refuge and effective allied action against the extermination camps was not possible 24 Even Wyman s most strident critics however acknowledge that many of Wyman s contentions are valid Rubinstein for instance appears to largely agree with Wyman and many other historians that the influence of Palestinian Arab political leadership led by Grand Mufti of Jerusalem Haj Amin al Husseini and the 1936 1939 Arab revolt in Palestine were factors in causing the British government to abandon their temporary mandate over Palestine which was primarily to establish a homeland for the Jewish people that would be available to facilitate rescue of endangered Jews in their time of need 25 Both Wyman and his critics agree that their decision to abandon the mandate was embodied in the White Paper of 1939 which reduced Jewish immigration to Palestine to a yearly quota of only 10 000 with a maximum of 75 000 immigrants and after a five year period relegated all Jewish immigration to the approval of the Palestinian Arab polity The long lasting consequences to the European Jewry during the Holocaust of the abandonment of the mandate is generally recognized by Wyman s critics though Wyman details the detrimental effects in greater detail than many of his detractors editorializing For instance the differences of opinion between Rubinstein and Wyman on the issue rest principally on Rubinstein s argument that the Zionist Jews in Palestine such as David Ben Gurion are primarily to blame for not giving refuge to European Jews in Palestine rather than putting the responsibility on the British authorities or the Palestinian Arabs who violently opposed such rescue efforts 26 Some who historians have taken Rubinstein and other Wyman critics to task for such assertions and have directly attacked these criticisms of Wyman s positions as unscholarly polemic 27 Examples where Jews were rescued from the Axis countries EditThis section may contain material unrelated or insufficiently related to the topic of the article Please help improve this section or discuss this issue on the talk page October 2010 Learn how and when to remove this template message Many historians including Dr David Kranzler who specialize in documenting those who rescued Jews note that large number of Jews were saved and argue that even more could have been saved often using the same historical examples that are covered by Wyman In most cases the rescue efforts were not initiated by large established free world Jewish and Zionist organizations which often obstructed rescue activism the Allied governments or by institution like the Vatican nor the Red Cross Most successful rescue operations were the result of work by non establishment small maverick Jewish groups and non Jews who largely acted outside and often against instructions of their own umbrella groups Examples include The Bratislava Working Group led by Gisi Fleischmann and Rabbi Chaim Michael Dov Weissmandl negotiated in early 1942 an about two year lull in transports from Slovakia for about 50 000 ransom to the SS via Dieter Wisliceny In late 1942 they negotiated the so called Europa Plan Apparently the Germans offered to stop transports from many areas for about two million dollars and demanded a 10 down payment No one was willing to risk that sum and the negotiations terminated Yad Vashem states that it was only a German trick 28 Protection papers handed out from Switzerland by Orthodox Jewish rescuers George Mantello Mandel a Salvadorian diplomat from Transylvania and Recha Sternbuch saved large numbers over the objections of a Swiss Jewish leader and US officials particularly WRB s Roswell McClelland 29 Wilfrid Israel originally from Berlin was one of the key people who organized the Kindertransport to England which saved large number of Jewish children Recha Sternbuch smuggled into Switzerland large number of Jews at the Swiss Austria border until someone in Switzerland who should have helped informed on her She conducted from late 1944 to early 1945 negotiations with Heinrich Himmler via Swiss politician Jean Marie Musy who was Himmler s acquaintance That led to the release of many Jews from the Theresienstadt concentration camp and prevented murder of large number of Jews in some camps as the Allies were approaching based on a ransom agreement with the Nazis She was again informed on by the same person as noted earlier Yitzchak Sternbuch Recha Sternbuch s husband raised and paid the ransom required to release the Jews in the Bergen Belsen concentration camp who were on the so called Kastner Train Rabbi Solomon Schonfeld arranged refuge for thousands of Jews in Britain including hundreds of children in the Kindertransport He also convinced many English Church leaders and Parliamentarians to pass a motion allowing those Jews who could get out from Axis ruled territories to settle at least temporarily in parts of the British Empire A group successfully lobbied against the motion since it excluded Palestine 30 In the US persistent pressure on the Roosevelt administration by Hillel Kook and his Bergonsonite rescue group citation needed despite considerable and prolonged obstruction by America s liberal Jewish leaders and mainstream Jewish organizations but with crucial support of many in Congress the Senate and Treasury Secretary Henry Morgenthau Jr and his team at the Treasury led to establishment of the War Refugee Board 31 One if its actions was support of the Wallenberg mission to Budapest David Wyman credits the War Refugee Board with the rescue of over 200 000 including 120 000 in Hungary in part because of the Wallenberg mission 32 Twenty four hours after receipt El Salvador embassy Jewish First Secretary George Mantello Mandel publicized what has now been called the Wetzler Vrba Report included in the Auschwitz Protocol Unfortunately he received the report with much delay Other Jews and Jewish Zionist organizations that received it early did not make effective use of the information and some like Rudolf Kastner tried to suppress the information Mantello s action ignited significant large street protests in Switzerland led to over 400 glaring headlines in Switzerland deploring Europe s barbarism and the sermons in many Swiss churches spoke about their brothers and sisters the Jews Though the International Red Cross hesitated to intervene others including Pope Pius XII and King Gustav V of Sweden made personal appeals to Hungary s Regent Miklos Horthy He received credible threats from Churchill and Roosevelt Horthy then stopped the transports carrying about 12 000 Jews per day to Auschwitz By then the Hungarian provinces had been cleared Almost 440 000 Jews were gone but most of Budapest s 230 000 Jews were still in the capital Horthy then offered to permit emigration of all Jewish children under ten who possessed visas to other countries and all Jews of any age who possessed Palestine certificates 33 Although Sweden Switzerland and the US State Department eventually agreed to issue visas for 28 000 children none of them was ever brought out of Hungary because of the month long delay in Allied and neutral negotiations and in the end the Nazis took control of the situation The delay in responding to Horthy s offer proved fatal to the deal he offered and to many Hungarian Jews Three months after Horthy stopped the deportation trains he was deposed and replaced by the Nazi puppet regime of Ferenc Szalasi and his fascist and anti Semitic Arrow Cross which unleashed a reign of terror against Hungary s remaining Jews killed tens of thousand in the four months of their reign and ended only when the Russians army conquered Hungary 34 The lull in the Hungarian deportations and the offers made by Horthy enabled the Wallenberg mission and also rescue by many others in Budapest such as Carl Lutz Monsignor Angelo Rotta Giorgio Perlasca the Spanish legation the Zionist Youth Underground in Budapest and put rescue in the air empowering ordinary citizens to act on behalf of the remnant of Hungary s Jews Raoul Wallenberg and Carl Lutz each rescued tens of thousands of Jews in Hungary and the Zionist Youth Underground rescued many thousands in not over 10 000 34 Many diplomats often broke diplomatic protocol acted against the directives of their country and rescued large number of Jews with visas and protection papers Besides Carl Lutz and Raoul Wallenberg best known among them are Japanese Chiune Sugihara Chinese Ho Feng Shan Portuguese Aristides de Sousa Mendes and Swedish Count Folke Bernadotte A controversial proposal for rescue came from Adolf Eichmann who offered Zionist rescuer Joel Brand in May 1944 a deal to release 1 000 000 Jews in exchange for 10 000 trucks and commodities like coffee tea cocoa and soap Eichmann and other Nazis made similar offers to other Zionist rescuers such as Saly Mayer Sternbuch Jean Marie Musy a former president of Switzerland and pro Nazi enthusiast in the 1930s took a prominent role in the negotiations The Allies however rejected these ransom arrangements even though Eichmann had made it very clear that the alternative entailed destroying the Jews The Russians and Churchill agreed that ransoms should not be paid The British held Brand as a prisoner to prevent such dealings and the pre state Zionist leadership of Palestine did not seem overly interested 35 Yad Vashem states in its museum that the controversial Rudolf Kastner s activities led to the rescue of over 22 000 Jews After controversial negotiations between Rudolf Kastner Saly Mayer and Adolf Eichmann trains carrying some 1 700 Hungarian Jews were sent to Bergen Belsen concentration camp where they were kept relatively safely in return for money and gold and were freed at the end of 1944 when Yitzchak Sternbuch in Switzerland arranged for their rescue with a large ransom payment 36 37 38 There were many other successful rescue initiatives and also many more which some argue could have succeeded if Churchill and Roosevelt had received more public pressure 39 With ships packed with refugees such as the St Louis and refugee ships headed for Palestine were turned back it is difficult to make a case for the thesis that rescue was not possible 40 Wyman s views are supported by numerous participants and scholars such David Kranzler Hillel Kook Chaim Michael Dov Weissmandl to name only a few 41 See also EditBermuda conference Evian Conference Kindertransport Auschwitz bombing debate Jan Karski Witold Pilecki Report to the Secretary on the Acquiescence of This Government in the Murder of the JewsReferences EditWyman David S The Abandonment Of The Jews America and the Holocaust New York Pantheon Books 1984 444pp Wyman David S Medoff Rafael A Race Against Death Peter Bergson America and the Holocaust New Press 2004 also Could The Allies Have Bombed Auschwitz Jewish Virtual Library Abraham Fuch The Unheeded Cry Ben Hecht Perfidy David Kranzler The Man Who Stopped the Trains to Auschwitz George Mantello El Salvador and Switzerland s Finest Hour Foreword by Senator Joseph I Lieberman Syracuse University Press March 2001 David Kranzler Holocaust Hero The Untold Story of Solomon Schonfeld an Orthodox British Rabbi Ktav Publishing House December 2003 David Kranzler Thy Brothers Blood The Orthodox Jewish Response During the Holocaust Artscroll December 1987 David Kranzler Heroine of Rescue The Incredible Story of Recha Sternbuch Who Saved Thousands from the Holocaust Laurence Jarvik Who Shall Live and Who Shall Die video documentary distributed by Kino International at http www kino com video item php film id 349 Rapaport Louis Shake Heaven amp Earth Peter Bergson and the Struggle to Rescue the Jews of Europe Gefen Publishing House Ltd 1999 VERAfilm Among Blind Fools documentary video Notes Edit Past Winners Jewish Book Council Retrieved 2020 01 21 The New Press Paper Walls America and the Refugee Crisis 1938 1941 University of Massachusetts Press 1968 ISBN 0 87023 040 9 Abandonment of the Jews pp x xi Abandonment of the Jews pp 244 24 172 173 Abandonment of the Jews pp 47 82 115 118 264 266 Abandonment of the Jews p 295 Abandonment of the Jews pp 157 177 328 330 345 348 Abandonment of the Jews pp 26 38 76 299n 321 Abandonment of the Jews pp 96 100 Abandonment of the Jews p 97 Abandonment of the Jews pp 338 339 Abandonment of the Jews pp 104 142 Abandonment of the Jews p 85 Abandonment of the Jews pp 3 18 327 330 Abandonment of the Jews p 331 Abandonment of the Jews pp 331 335 The Bombing of Auschwitz Re Examined by James H Kitchens III in The Journal of Military History 58 April 1994 233 266 The Bombing of Auschwitz Revisited A Critical Analysis by Richard H Levy Holocaust and Genocide Studies vol 10 no 3 winter 1996 pp 267 298 Allied Knowledge of Auschwitz Birkenau in 1943 1944 by Richard Breitman in FDR and the Holocaust ed Verne W Newton New York 1996 pp 175 182 Dino Brugioni Auschwitz and Birkenau Why the World War II photo interpreters failed to Identify the extermination complex Military Intelligence vol 9 no 1 Jan Mar 1983 pages 50 55 Could the Allies Have Bombed Auschwitz by Stuart G Erdheim Holocaust and Genocide Studies vol 11 no 2 Fall 1997 pp 129 170 The Jewish Threat Anti semitic Politics Of The U S Army by Joseph W Bendersky NY Basic Books 2000 pp 343 344 The Myth of Rescue Why the Democracies Could Not Have Saved More Jews from the Nazis by William D Rubinstein NY Routledge 1997 Myth Rubinstein pp 15 30 100 123 127 138 143 198 216 218 237 250 Myth Rubinstein pp 14 146 233 267 Book Review by David Cesarani English Historical Review Vol 113 No 454 Nov 1998 pp 1258 1260 Large display in the Yad Vashem museum Abandonment of the Jews pp 244 251 Holocaust Hero The Untold Story of Solomon Schonfeld an Orthodox British Rabbi by David Kranzler Ktav Publishing House December 2003 ISBN 978 0 88125 730 4 Abandonment of the Jews pp 178 191 Abandonment of the Jews pp 236 243 Abandonment of the Jews p 238 a b Abandonment of the Jews p 235 243 Abandonment of the Jews p 243 254 Abandonment of the Jews p 245 247 Desperate Mission Joel Brand s Story As Told to Alex Weissberg by Alex Weissberg NY Grove Press 1958 B000FNH6EU Holocaust Years The Nazi Destruction of European Jewry 1933 1945 by Nora Levin Malabar FL Krieger Publishing 1990 ISBN 978 0894642234 p 338 Abandonment of the Jews p 311 317 Abandonment of the Jews pp 110 123 Holocaust Years Levin pp 117 128 pp 324 326 331 333 pp 338 340 Retrieved from https en wikipedia org w index php title The Abandonment of the Jews amp oldid 1177347298, wikipedia, wiki, book, books, library,

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