In the Shadow of Hitler: Alabama's Jews, the Second World War, and the Holocaust

4. The Alabama Press, Nazi Antisemitism, and the Holocaust

4 The Ala­ bama Press, Nazi Antisemitism, and the Holocaust Alabamians, whether Jewish or non-­ Jewish, black or white, received most of their information about Nazism, Nazi antisemitism, and the Holocaust in roughly the same fashion: through the press, most commonly from newspapers . Newspapers in the state had no dedicated correspondents abroad; like many others around the country, they relied on Associated Press (AP) and United Press (UP) reports and of­ ten took their cue from influential national newspapers such as the New York Times. But Ala­ bama newspaper editors and journalists did not rely solely on these reports. Instead, they interpreted these events for their readers through editorials and commentary. In doing so, the press in Ala­ bama—in Birmingham, Montgomery, and Mobile particularly—covered the persecution of the Jews extensively and exhibited greater sympathy for the plight of the European Jews than did the national press. For instance, many of Birmingham’s Jews believed they had “a friendly press” in the city, an attitude confirmed after close examination of Birmingham’s newspapers. Such an attitude can be found in Montgomery ’s and Mobile’s newspapers as well, the cities that had the largest and most significant Jewish populations in the state.1 Birmingham’s Jews, additionally , may have influenced the friendly attitude of the press by virtue of the fact that they held positions of prominence in civic affairs greater than their numbers would suggest. Similarly, historian Robert Drake argues that North Carolina newspapers, when compared to papers from other states through­ out the nation, were more sympathetic to the plight of European Jews during Kristallnacht. Drake’s conclusions, in conjunction with the attitude of the Ala­ bama press, suggest that the south­ ern press generally was more sympathetic to the Jews suffering under Nazi persecution than the press outside of the South.2 Because of this friendly attitude, in Ala­ bama at least, the press’s sympathetic coverage of Nazi persecution of Jews and the Holocaust frequently translated into advocacy for greater measures to be taken on behalf of the suffering European Jews. Despite this apparent sympathy, 106 / Chapter 4 however, Ala­bama’s editors and journalists, like other editors and journalists through­ out the United States, failed to comprehend the extent or to grasp the ramifications of the mass murder of the Jews. Two significant and influential studies, Deborah Lipstadt’s Beyond Belief : The Ameri­ can Press and the Coming of the Holocaust, 1933–1945, and Laurel Leff’s Buried by the Times, have explored the Ameri­ can press’s crucial role in shaping Ameri­ cans’ perception of the Nazi persecution of the Jews. Both scholars note the tendency of the press to downplay or bury reports of antisemitic brutality and Nazi atrocities.3 As Lipstadt and Leff have shown, the press played a crucial role in shaping how the pub­ lic understood the events that transpired in Europe during the 1930s and 1940s. Lipstadt has argued that “the press became part of the his­ tori­ cal process by virtue of the role it played as conduit of information.”4 Indeed, the way the press tells a story helps to shape pub­ lic opinion and reaction. While the most read section of a newspaper typically is the front page, emphasizing what is immediately essential or important, editorial content is vital in shaping a newspaper’s “voice,” a criti­ cal component in how the press tells the story. The editorial page has been referred to as “the soul of the paper,” where the editor can comment on the ideals, problems, and lives that affect the community. As Neil O. Davis, the editor of the Lee County Bulletin , pointed out, it is the only way that “the real opinions and thoughts of the editor reach the reader.”5 In a series of 1943 articles on the vari­ ous functions of the press, the Birmingham News observed that the editor is central to the operation of a newspaper because he “decides what is fit to print and what is not fit to print. It is he who differentiates between news and propaganda. It is he who can if he will, give the leadership that every energetic community must have.”6 Such a position carries with it power, influence, and no small measure of responsibility. But editors do not function in a vacuum; the press is less a “neutral or passive observer” of contemporary history than it is a his­ tori­cal actor. Editorial opinion frequently influenced what the pub...