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

Introduction

Introduction In 1982 the Orthodox congregation Ahavas Chesed in Mobile reconsecrated a Torah scroll from the Altneuschule in Prague, Czechoslovakia, that the Nazis had seized in the midst of the Holocaust. The Nazis, over the course of their occupation of Czechoslovakia, confiscated 1,564 Torah scrolls from Jewish communities through­ out Bohemia and Moravia, among numerous other Judaic ceremonial objects, cataloged them, and planned to exhibit them after the war in a museum to the extinct Jewish race. Ahavas Chesed acquired the scroll from the Czech Memorial Scrolls Trust to honor the members of those communities who had perished in the camps, and “in order to remind us all that we are the lucky (the living) ones, that ours is the ‘awesome obligation’ and wondrous privilege to live as Jews—for the sake of the Six Million, and for our own.”1 We have a Holocaust Scroll in order to remind us: of each Jewish­ individual, in the Six Million, whose life was ended solely because he was a Jew; of the failure of education, law, and science; of the near-­ complete failure of Christianity in Nazi Europe; of where anti-­ Semitism can sometimes lead. We must be reminded, by this scroll, to be prodded to speak up against injustice done to any group; to remember that civilized nations cannot always be counted on to do what is right; to do more to aid Jews anywhere than Ameri­ can Jews did in the Hitler years for European Jewry; to recall how final restraints on human behavior were, and can be, abolished—but also how, despite the cruelty and indifference of most other people, compassion can be shown and assistance rendered if a person truly wills it. We need a Holocaust Scroll to recall Jewish heroism in fighting back in living human beings. We need this scroll to remember.2 The impact of the Holocaust went far beyond the Orthodox community. Adolf Hitler’s persecution of European Jewry and the subsequent Final So- 2 / Introduction lution profoundly affected Jews everywhere, in­ clud­ ing the German Reform Jews in the United States who emphasized adaptation and acculturation to Christian-­ dominated Ameri­ can culture. This study examines the response of Ala­ bama’s Jews to Nazism and the effect that war and the mass murder of approximately six million European Jews had on them and the Jewish communities through­ out the state. In many ways, the response of Ala­ bama’s Jews to Hitler and Nazism mirrored the experience of Jews elsewhere in the United States. They recognized the dangers that Nazism posed for Germany’s Jews and loudly protested the Nazis’ increasing antisemitic persecutions through­ out the 1930s. They organized themselves locally and at the state level to support persecuted European Jews and became po­ liti­ cally and socially active in advocating for their relief and rescue. Indeed, Ala­ bama’s Jews were not silent. A number of them assumed leadership roles at both the regional and national levels, and local groups coordinated their actions and campaigns with national organizations . Yet their raised voices—part of a cacophony of voices nationwide, both Jewish and Christian—were not heeded by those in a position to assist the persecuted Jews of Europe, ultimately resulting in the death of hundreds of thousands more Jews in the Holocaust. Moreover, like other Jews nationally, Ala­ bama’s Jews refused to criticize President Franklin D. Roosevelt and his administration for inaction in regard to saving European Jewry. Ala­ bama’s Jews also vigorously supported the Ameri­ can war effort, although most of their attention naturally focused on the war against Nazi Germany. This is not surprising given their concern for German Jewry and their attention on the antisemitic Nazi regime. Even journalists and editors of the Ala­ bama press, based on newspaper accounts during the war years, focused much more on the European theater of war than on the Pacific. As a result, Alabamians, whether Jewish or non-­ Jewish, were well informed of European events, in­clud­ing the Nazi persecution of the Jews. While the press in Ala­ bama placed greater emphasis on Europe than on the Pacific, it also covered the events of the Holocaust extensively and generally supported local Jewish efforts to aid persecuted Jews in Europe, showing greater sympathy for European Jewry than has been generally perceived in the national press. Jews supported the war both as members of the armed forces and on the home front. They served in the military in numbers...