The purpose of this research is to examine the oppression of the Jews during the Holocaust and its effects on the U.S. The plan of the research will be to set forth the historical context in which issues surrounding the impact of the Holocaust on the U.S. emerged and then to discuss the extent of knowledge and be lief of the events of the Holocaust in the U.S., reactions from and behavior of various sectors of society when they learned what was happening to Jews in Europe, and in what ways the American response to the Holocaust had an impact on American society during the years of the Third Reich and afterward.
Any judgment of the impact that oppression of the Jews had on the U.S. must begin with a look at the oppression in Europe. The evidence of Europe is that the apparatus of oppression was built systematically and the very "thinkability" of the methods Nazis used to accomplish what became called the Final Solution found resonance in both Europe and the U.S. In the scholarly community, controversy surrounds the issue of whether the Holo caust was sui generis, just one more instance of racism and genocide in human history, or something in between (Lipstadt 27; Dawidowicz, "How" 30). What does seem undisputed about the ear liest Nazi measures is that--ominous and odious as they were, and whatever the Holocaust became eventually--they appeared to be more a throwback to earlier periods of European history than a programmatic departure from oppression patterns. As Wistrich (passim) explains, both Church and state in Europe, from the Christian era through the Middle Ages had placed, then lifted, then replaced, similar restrictions on Jews.
But of course the Nazis were different. One measure led to another, until the logic of the Holocaust, became concrete. Hilberg describes the progressive alienation of Jews: through a systematic definition of what constitutes a Jew; expropriation (of rights, property, food, and other necessities); ...