Anne Frank’s Family Denied US Visa

[PhilipShore]

Truthdig

http://www.truthdig.com/eartotheground/item/20070214_anne_franks_family_denied_us_visa/

Feb 14, 2007

Newly released documents show that Anne Frank’s father attempted to move the family to the United States, but was not granted a visa. Otto Frank was granted a Cuban visa, but the order was cancelled after Germany declared war on the U.S.

Reuters:

The letters, telegrams and government documents date from April to December 1941 and show efforts by Otto Frank to get to the United States and Cuba before going into hiding in 1942, a period Anne Frank described in her diary before she eventually died aged 15 in a German concentration camp in 1945.

“It is for the sake of the children mainly that we have to care for. Our own fate is of less importance,” Otto Frank wrote in a letter to Strauss, who was the head of the U.S. Housing Authority. “You are the only person I know that I can ask.”

Frank asked for $5,000 to cover a deposit related to getting a U.S. visa, but the money was ultimately not needed because the visa was not granted.

[Sequoia]

1. Well, that's just awful.

[redwitch]

2. we could have saved them and thousands more.

incredible that.

[ikojo]

3. This was not an unusual event...at the time

antisemitism in the US was part of the fabric of white christian america. Father Coughlin was on the radio preaching the antisemitic gospel.

During the 1920s anti immigration legislation was introduced that capped the number of people allowed in from various countries to a percentage of that ethnic group's population in the mid 1800s. Needless to say there weren't many Jews in the US in the mid 1800s (large scale Jewish immigration to the US took place from around 1880 to 1920).


http://www.holocaust-history.org/short-essays/us-response.shtml

There are many reasons why no attempt was made to aid the Jews of Europe. Part of the reason is anti-Semitism in the United States. Anti-semitism was much more prevalent than it is today. Congressman such as Senator Bilbo of Mississippi and bureaucrats such as Breckinridge Long who was in charge of refugees at the U.S. Department of State, did not help because they did not want to help. This anti-Semitism also impeded Jewish groups who were afraid of provoking their enemies if they protested too much.

[JPZenger]

9. Anti-Semites in the State Dept.

The anti-Semites in the US State Dept. ACTIVELY obstructed efforts by Jewish refugees to escape from Germany to US. They had intentional policies to make it difficult for Jews to qualify for visas. They purposefully kept changing the rules to delay approvals of visas.

A very large percentage of Jewish persons were able to leave Germany before WWII. Unfortunately, most went to nations that were then conquered or controlled by the Nazis. A huge number of Jewish persons living in eastern Europe in particular were killed, with the worst occurring in Poland. The only large Jewish populations to survive were in Denmark (thanks to the work of many ordinary Dans who helped them escape to Sweden) and in Hungary (thanks to the work of diplomat Raoul Wallenberg and his allies). Wallenberg personally challenged Adolf Eichman, the Nazi exterminator. 97,000 Jewish people survived in Budapest, largely because of Wallenberg's efforts.

http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/biography/wallenberg.html

[moose65]

4. Wow. Just WOW

That is a kick in the stomach. Just think of all the people we could have saved. It boggles the mind. :-(

[Raine]

5. Very sad

to think that it didn't have to turn out the way it did if they could have only gotten the VISA. :-(

[Catfight]

6. I'm more upset about today and Dufar, Iraq and the chrisitain right

killing in the name of religion. Although this was very sad and a horrible atrocity in the world, it's still going on today.

[ikojo]

10. Yes, it is.

I remember hearing about the Ethiopian famine on the news in the 1980s, but little is said in the corporate media about Darfur.

If the US had the will there would be a way to assist those in Darfur. I am ashamed that we as a country do not do more for those who are suffering.

Obviously we have learned nothing from history.

[Lisa]

7. and the Canadian government turned back boatloads of Jewish refugees

The immigration minister back then loudly claimed that "one is too many!". Ironically, a country which did accept Jews fleeing Europe was ... Iran.

[Matilda]

8. Really?

Do you have some more info?

[Lisa]

11. I've heard that there are still thousands of Jewish people living in Iran

The community was much larger than that, until the 1970s (many of them left after the revolution that toppled the Shah (as did many secular Iranians, and those active in leftist political parties). A Persian friend told me that he recalled having many friends and business contacts who were Jewish, and some of them had moved there from Europe in the 1930s -- others had lived in the country for generations.

He mentioned a rather bizarre incident that happened back before the Revolution. The topic came up because the trailers for the "Borat" movie had been playing, and when I said something along the lines of "of course they are totally exaggerating how prejudiced some people can be", he said that I hadn't seen the half of it. He and his (British) wife had decided to visit Bahrain on the way back to Iran from their college in the UK, and the Customs officials in that country decided to interrogate them both (in separate rooms). The ordeal lasted for several hours, and when they were finally released, they were so rattled that they decided to skip their visit and go home to Tehran. His wife told me that the officials accused her of being an Israeli spy (based on the fact that her middle name is "Sarah") -- in vain, she tried to explain that names from the Bible are quite common in European countries and colonies. The husband said that the officials were openly contemptuous of his Iranian passport: "You're Iranian! All Iranians are Jew-lovers ... you even let Jews out in the street, in Tehran!" So even back then, there was tension between Iran and some of the Gulf countries.


An article re: Iran during WWII

"As early signs of the murderous Final Solution became visible in Europe, the Iranian government of the time convinced the Nazi race experts in Germany that Iranian Jews had lived in Iran for over 2,500 years, and were thus fully assimilated citizens of the Iran and must be afforded all the rights of such citizens. The Nazis accepted this argument and the lives of all Iranian Jews living under the Nazi yoke were saved. An account of this episode can be found in the "History of Contemporary Iranian Jews," published by Center for Iranian Jewish Oral History.

Moreover, as I have recounted in my book "Persian Sphinx," Iranian diplomats in Europe and elsewhere offered hundreds of Iranian passports to European Jews, thus saving their lives. And when the Nazi killing machines began their slaughter of innocent Polish Jews, 1,388 Jews, including 871 children were moved to Tehran where they lived in relative safety till they moved to Israel. Again the "History of Contemporary Iranian Jews" has provided an account of what are called "Tehran Children.""

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/chronicle/archive/2006/02/19/INGMQH9TVM1.DTL

[Matilda]

12. Thanks for the info,

it's very interesting.

I must see what else I can find on this subject.