The African American Role in World War II
Black people have a great role in the Second World War. We live in a time where some in Florida, Texas, and in other places of America want to sugarcoat black history. Yet, we won't do this. The following facts outline the critical role of African Americans in the history of World War II. There are many people don't know about black people fighting in Normandy, the extensive history of The Tuskegee Airmen, and the role of the 6888th Battalion of black women soldiers who sent mail in Europe during WWII too. Now, it is time to show the full breadth of the contributions of African Americans in World War II indeed. African Americans wanted to defeat two enemies during WWII which was fascism (found in Nazi Germany and Japan) and racial oppression (found in America). The Pittsburgh Courier was one of the greatest and influential African American newspapers during WWII and beyond. It promoted the Double V Campaign to seek victory against the Axis Powers overseas and victory against racism and discrimination in America. The war against fascism and racial prejudice are legitimate. Many African American men and women were in the Armed Forces and in the domestic factories. There were a high enlistment rate of black people in the U.S. Army, but African American still experienced discrimination and racism in the Armed For example, at parades, church services, in transportation and canteens, they were kept separate. Many scholars and historians wanted the overseas residents to not interact with African American troops and punished African Americans for dealing with people overseas (like the Stuttgart incident when a thousand German men and girls were sexually assaulted by troops who were not African Americans, but discrimination against black U.S. troops existed). Early in the war, there was the executive order of FEPC that banned discrimination in federal employment on the basis of race, color, creed, or national origin. Racists like Senator James O. Eastland hated the FEPC. About 1 million African Americans had defense jobs at the time. The NAACP worked to fight peonage in the rural south, violations of due process rights in employment in the North, and seek employment rights. An increase of the enrollment in the NAACP existed by the coalition of black troops who hated racism in America. African American soldiers were discriminated against and in 1943, there were 240 violent racial incidents in forty seven cities around America. Many letters from black Americans soldiers sent to Judge William Hastie, the civilian aide for race relations in the war department found evidence of bad treatment of African American troops (one letter from a black soldiers said that even German Nazi prisoners were treated better than them. Another letter said that camp Livingston in Louisiana was terrible for black American soldiers).
Many black American soldiers were given blue discharges preventing them the benefits of the G.I. Bill by the Veterans Administration (VA). The blue discharge or blue ticket is an administrative discharge formed in 1916 to replace discharge without honor and the unclassified discharge. It was neither honorable nor dishonorable. During the WWII era, about 22.2 of all blue discharges were given to black people, but African American made up 6.5 percent of the Army back then. By October 1945, the Pittsburgh Courier opposed the discharge and its abuses. Congress banned the blue discharge system in 1947 after the House Committee on Military Affairs held hearings about it. Still, the VA continued its practice of denying G.I. Bill benefits to blue tickets.
There were tons of African American women soldiers in World War. There has been more popularity shown to the 6888th Central Postal Directory Battalion. They were stationed overseas in England and France. They served in the military in the Women's Army Corps or WAC. I wrote about the 6888th Central Postal Directory Battalion for almost 10 years now. Tyler Perry to his credit had produced a Netflix story about them called The Six Triple Eight. He directed the film. The film starred an ensemble, all-star cast who are Kerry Washington, Ebony Obsidian, Milauna Jackson, Kylie Jefferson, Shanice Shantay, Sarah Jeffery, Pepi Sonuga, Moriah Brown, Gregg Sulkin, Susan Sarandon, Dean Norris, Sam Waterson, and Oprah Winfrey. The 6888th were headed by the iconic military leader Major Charity Adams. There were about 855 women in the organization. Their motto was "No mail, no morale." The 688th worked as postal clerks, cooks, mechanics, and other positions. It had the companies of A, B, C, and D. By 1944, Mary McLeod Bethune worked to get First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt to allow black women to have a role in WWII overseas. Black newspapers also wanted black women in meaningful Army jobs. Many women were in the WAC before joining 6888th like Alyce Dixon. The 6888th left America to Glasgow, Scotland via the fast liner Ile de France on February 12, 1945. The battalion traveled to Birmingham, England. February 15 the unit was inspected and marched in review before Lt. Gen. John C. H. Lee, Commanding General, Communications Zone, European Theater of Operations (ETO), and Maj Gen. Robert McGowan Littlejohn, Chief Quartermaster, ETO, whose responsibilities included the mail. They improved U.S. Army moral by sending mail to places. The 6888th used a method to handle the backlog of 17 million items by using cards and military serial numbers to distinguish between them. They worked 7 days a week in three shifts. Each shift deals with ca. 65,000 pieces of mail. The unit handled mail for over 4 million military and civilian personnel and cleared backlogs in the UK and France.
Early in the operation, a general attempted to send an officer to "tell them how to do it right", but Major Adams responded, "Sir, over my dead body, sir!" By the time the same general visited the unit in France, his attitude had changed and he appreciated the 6888th's accomplishments. The battalion finished what was supposed to be a six-month task in three months in May 1945. They lived in segregated locations. They experienced cold weather, so women had to wear coats and extra clothes when working in unheated temporary buildings. There was sexist and racist treatment by male soldiers, but they fought back. Many women felt that the European local people treated them better than people did in the United States. A male chaplain working at Birmingham caused problems for Adams, ordering her soldiers to report to his office to help him and be counseled instead of reporting to work, causing them to be considered absent without leave (AWOL). Adams had to 'counsel' him to let the women alone, "reminding him that she was in charge of the women's assignments." After the backlog in Birmingham was finished, the 688th crossed the England Channel to Le Havre, France on June 8, 1945 (after VE Day of May 8). They went on train to Rouen , France. They handled another backlog of mail, some letters being three years old. The military police in the WAC unit were not allowed to have weapons, so they used unarmed Brazilian jiu-jitsu combat methods to keep out "unwanted visitors." The 6888th participated in a parade ceremony at the place where Joan of Arc was executed.
By October 1945, the mail in Rouen had been cleared and the 6888th was sent to Paris. They marched through the city and were housed in a luxurious hotel, where they received first-class treatment. During this time, because the war was over, the battalion was reduced by 300 women, with a further 200 to be discharged in January 1946. In February 1946, the unit returned to the United States where it was disbanded at Fort Dix, New Jersey. There was no public recognition for their service at the time.
Members of the 6888th Central Postal Directory Battalion were awarded the European African Middle Eastern Campaign Medal, the Good Conduct Medal, and the World War II Victory Medal during their service. In 2019, the U.S. Army awarded the 6888th a Meritorious Unit Commendation. On February 25, 2009, the battalion was honored at the Women in Military Service for America Memorial at Arlington National Cemetery. The event was attended by three former unit members of the 6888th, Alyce Dixon, Mary Ragland, and Gladys Shuster Carter. Dixon and Ragland were also honored by President Barack Obama and First Lady Michelle Obama in 2009. On March 15, 2016, the 6888th Central Postal Directory Battalion was inducted into the U.S. Army Women's Foundation Hall of Fame. Battalion veteran Elsie Garris attended the induction ceremony. On November 30, 2018, Fort Leavenworth dedicated a monument to the women of the 6888th Central Postal Directory Battalion. Five women from the battalion—Maybeel Campbell, Elizabeth Johnson, Lena King, Anna Robertson, and Deloris Ruddock—were present at the dedication. On May 13, 2019, US Ambassador to the UK Woody Johnson presented a blue plaque to King Edward's School to commemorate the 6888th's achievements while in Birmingham. The plaque is now on the itinerary of guided tours organised by Birmingham's Black Heritage Walks Network.
On February 12, 2021, U.S. Senators Jerry Moran (R-Kan.) and Jacky Rosen (D-Nevada) introduced bipartisan legislation to award the Congressional Gold Medal to the members of the Women's Army Corps, who were assigned to the 6888th Central Postal Directory Battalion during World War II. U.S. Representative Gwen Moore (D-Wis.) introduced the companion legislation in the House, where it passed unanimously. On March 14, 2022, President Biden signed a bipartisan bill to award the battalion the Congressional Gold Medal. Three women from the battalion who were killed in a Jeep accident—Mary H. Bankston, Mary Jewel Barlow and Dolores Mercedes Browne—were buried at the Normandy American Cemetery, three of only four women to be interred there alongside more than 9,000 men. (The fourth, Elizabeth Ann Richardson, was a Red Cross volunteer killed in a Piper Cub plane crash near Rouen in July 1945). Only three members survived until 2022: Fannie McClendon, Lena King, and Anna Mae Robertson.
Tons of black American soldiers served America with distinction during World War II. There were 125,000 African Americans who were overseas in World War II (or 6.25 percent of all abroad soldiers). Famous segregated units, such as the Tuskegee Airmen and 761st Tank Battalion and the lesser-known but equally distinguished 452nd Anti-Aircraft Artillery Battalion, proved their value in combat, and 2800 black troops who volunteered as replacements in the winter of 1944 not only served their country, but also their people in the fight desegregation of all U.S. armed forces, done by order of President Harry S. Truman in July 1948 via Executive Order 9981 in the middle of the Korean War. The Navy has hardcore racism problems back then. America banned African Americans from joining in the Navy since 1919. When WWII happened, black men could not be sailors, not serve in combat units, not serve overseas, nor step one foot onto a fleet capital ship unless they had a separate "Stewards" rating. "The Navy was firm, and mostly successful" notes the naval curator for National World War Museum, "in its efforts to keep African Americans in menial roles." For many, enlisting in the Navy was a rude awakening to an even more segregated and demeaning life than they'd had as civilians. They slept in separate quarters, were treated poorly and their "Steward" branch gave limited opportunity for advancement - known as the "Messman" Branch. Serving in the Navy for a black man meant literally serving: they waited on tables, did the cooking and cleaned up after white officers. In fact, white sailors weren't allowed to join the Messman Branch, which might also contain Chinese or Filipinos. This would change.
However, in a world war being fought on a planet of two-thirds water, the Navy was bound to change. By June, 1942, enlisted black men were given sailor rates, if not sailor status and by June, 1945, as the Navy hopped from island to bloody island, 165,000 black men (and some women) were serving overseas. Of these, 72,000 were still in Steward class, but others were put on some construction jobs or work in shore stations. The first African Americans to serve in the modern Navy at any general rank were the members of the Navy B-1 Band, which was the Navy's first African American band, formed during World War II. Before the intervention of President Franklin Roosevelt in 1941, black Americans were only allowed in the Navy as kitchen help. The formation of this band marked a pivotal moment in Navy history, as it was the first time African Americans served at any general rank outside of kitchen duties. The band, composed initially of 45 members, served as a beacon of change and left a lasting legacy both within the Navy and the Chapel Hill community, where they were stationed. Their story, though not widely known, reflects a significant stride towards racial integration in the U.S. military.
The Port Chicago disaster on July 17, 1944, was an explosion of about 2,000 tons of ammunition as it was being loaded onto ships by black Navy stevedores under pressure from their white officers who were having a contest to see how quickly the men could load the ammo by hand, rather than using the lift. This obvious violation of safety regulations, instigated entirely by white officers, led to a massive explosion that killed 320 military and civilian workers, most of them black. The blatant disregard for the black Navy men's safety led to the Port Chicago Mutiny, the only case of a full military trial for mutiny in the history of the U.S. Navy. This was against 50 black stevedores who refused to continue loading ammunition under the same dangerous conditions. The trial was observed by the then-young lawyer and future Supreme Court Justice Thurgood Marshall and ended in conviction of all of the defendants. But the trial was immediately criticized for not abiding by the applicable laws on mutiny, and became influential in the discussion of desegregation.
Even Doris Miller, the valiant Navy mess attendant, who, with no military training at all, grabbed an anti-aircraft weapon and started blasting away at Japanese aircraft bombing Pearl Harbor until he ran out of ammunition, felt the sting of racial injustice despite his instant fame. Miller was not acknowledged for this act of service for 6 months by navy officials, with black journalists having to campaign for his recognition until he became the first African-American recipient of the Navy Cross, awarded for his actions during the attack on Pearl Harbor. Nonetheless, the Navy still refused to identify Miller for another 3 months and rebuffed calls for Miller to come to shore and receive the award from President Roosevelt in person. The story of Miller is one that was often repeated time and time again with other African-American sailors whose awarding of the Navy Cross were delayed until decades after the conflict ceased. Alonzo Swann and Eugene Smith were given Navy Crosses decades after the men enlisted in the Navy for their quick action as anti-aircraft gunners aboard the USS Intrepid. The teenaged Swann and Smith, manning Gun Tub No. 10, shot down an incoming Kamikaze pilot as the ship coasted through the Leyte Gulf. All but twenty of his fellow sailors bailed from their posts. Even as the remaining gunmen were successful in shooting down the pilot, the resulting crash killed 9 men and injured 6. Official Naval news releases were sent out announcing the award of the Navy Cross but the high honor was crossed out and replaced by the words, "Bronze Star metals." This was then rectified in 1993 and 1994 respectively. African Americans served in the submarines, in the U.S. Coast Guard, and part of the Naval Reserve (like Paul Richmond).
World War Two began with the individual branches having their own air corps, as they were known and these were as segregated as everything else in the army. Benjamin O. Davis Jr. served as commander of the Tuskegee Airmen, whose story of determination to fly in an army air corps that wouldn't hear of it. He later went on to become the first African American general in the United States Air Force. His father, Benjamin O. Davis Sr. was the first African-American brigadier general in the Army (by October 25, 1940). On March 19, 1941, the Tuskegee Air Squadron, also known as the Tuskegee Airmen, is established by the U.S. Army. The squadron is led by Benjamin O. Davis Jr., who goes on to be the first four-star general in the U.S. Air Force. By the time of World War II, the Second Migration is here as black Americans from the South travel into the North, the Midwest, and the West Coast from 1940 to 1970. They wanted to escape racism, Jim Crow apartheid, and economic exploitation. By June 1942, there were the The Montford Point Marines are established by the U.S. Marine Corps as the first Black men accepted into a segregated training camp. On September 29, 1942, Hugh Mulzac (1886–1971) is the first Black captain in the U.S. Merchant Marines when he is made captain of the SS Booker T. Washington after he insisted it should include an integrated crew.
By March 1943, the first Black cadets graduate from the Army Flight School at Tuskegee University. The cadets at the facility—which is segregated—have completed rigorous training in subjects such as meteorology, navigation, and instruments, says the National Park Service, which operates the Tuskegee Airmen National Historic Site, at Moton Field in Tuskegee, Alabama. By April 1943, the Tuskegee Airmen fly their first combat mission in Italy. World War II had tons of racial riots. From July 23-28, 1943, an estimated 34 Black people are killed during the Detroit Race Riots. The violent confrontations between residents of Black neighborhoods and the city's police department last five days. On October 15, 1943, there was the largest concentration of Black military personnel is stationed at Fort Huachuca in Arizona. In total, there are 14,000 Black soldiers from the 92nd Infantry as well as 300 women from the 32nd and 33rd companies of the Women's Army Auxiliary Corps. In June 1945, Benjamin O. Davis Jr. (1912–2002) was named commander of Goodman Field in Kentucky, becoming the first Black person to command a military base. The U.S. Air Force Academy would later name its airfield in Colorado Springs, Colorado, after Davis, who received the Silver Star for a strafing run into Austria and the Distinguished Flying Cross for a bomber escort mission to Munich on June 9, 1944. November 1, 1945, was when there was the first issue of Ebony magazine is published, founded by John H. Johnson (1918–2005), and developed by his Chicago-based Johnson Publishing Company. The magazine, which focuses on news, culture, and entertainment, would grow to a circulation of more than 1.3 million.
Black people fought in combat. During the Battle of the Bulge, many black and white American men were fighting the Nazis side by aide for the first time in World War II.
And May, 1944, George Patton, charging across France, and desperate for more tanks for his Third Army, was told by the War Dept. the only tank unit left in the entire country was the 761st, who were "Negro,' "Who the h___ asked for color?" Patton snapped, "I asked for tankers." And he got them." The 800 men of the 761st tank group consisted of 54 M4 Sherman tanks in three companies and called themselves the "Black Panthers," a panther as their insignia. Patton welcomed them with typical bluntness: "Men, you are the first Negro tankers ever to fight in the American army. I would never have asked for you if you were not good. I have nothing but the best in my army. I don't care what color you are as long as you go up there and kill those Kr____." By the end of the war, the 761st were known as Patton's Panthers; they had been in combat for 183 continuous days, fought in four major Allied campaigns in six different countries, starting with the Battle of the Bulge, and had inflicted more than 130,000 casualties on the enemy. Eight black enlisted men received battlefield commissions (meaning they were given a higher rank on the battlefield) while 391 received decorations for heroism, including one Medal of Honor awarded posthumously to Sergeant Ruben Rivers, who threw himself in front of a burning tank to save the other tankers; there were seven Silver Stars, 56 Bronze Stars, 246 Purple Hearts. Three officers and 31 enlisted men had been killed in action, and 22 officers and 180 enlisted men had been wounded. In 1998, the 761st Tank Battalion received a much delayed Presidential Unit Citation. Eisenhower allowed many black and white units to fight side by side. An Army survey of 256 found what white officiers in the summer of 1945 mentioned that almost 100 percent of them were positive about black people fighting side by side with white people. Black infantry volunteers fought with the First Army into Germany through VE Day. Many were sent to North Africa, Italy, Europe, and the Pacific. The Black Quartermaster Corps helped with the success of the Normandy invasion by handler trucks and supplies involved in the invasion. They handled burying the dead too.
In 1945, Frederick C. Branch became the first African-American United States Marine Corps officer. However, in the still-segregated military, African-American officers were not allowed to command white troops until Truman integrated the troops in 1948. A blue plaque commemorating the contribution of African-American soldiers based in Wales during World War II was installed by the Nubian Jak Community Trust at RAF Carew Cheriton on the 75th anniversary of the D-Day landings, June 6, 2019. Many African American soldiers in the UK had experienced less racism than in America. There were many African Americans in Army units like the 92nd Infantry Division, Army Air Corps, the U.S. Marine, the U.S Navy, etc. Many African American soldiers received Medal of Honor awards posthumously.
The Holocaust
The Holocaust lasted from 1941 to 1945. It was one of the worst genocides in human history. Nazi Germany and its collaborators systematically murdered six million Jewish people in Europe (or about 2/3s of the European Jewish population). The murders were done by mass shootings, poison gas in extermination camps (like Auschwitz-Birkenau, Treblinka, Belzec, Sobibor and Chelmno in Poland including other places). Nazi persecutions in other forms of the Holocaust murdered millions of non-Jewish people, civilians, and prisoners of war. The Nazis believed in the racist view that they must form living space of only Aryan white people to occupy. The Nazis wanted to force all Jewish people to leave Europe. Many Jewish survivors emigrated outside of Europe after the war. A few Holocaust perpetrators faced criminal trials. Billions of dollars in reparations have been paid, although falling short of the Jewish people's losses. The Holocaust has also been commemorated in museums, memorials, movies, television shows, books, and other forms of culture. It has become central to Western historical consciousness as a symbol of the ultimate human evil. the word Holocaust comes a Greek word meaning burnt offering. The terms of Shoah and the Final Solution refer to the Holocaust too or the genocide of Jewish people. The roots of the Holocaust existed long before 1941.
Jewish people lived in Europe for more than 2,000 years. By the Middle Ages in Europe, Jewish people were victims of anti-Semitic attacks in part because of a misinterpretation theology that falsely blamed all Jewish people for the crucifixion of Jesus Christ. Many Jewish people were murdered, had their property stolen, and were maligned. As late as the 19th century, many European countries gave full citizenship rights to Jewish people. By the early twentieth century, most Jewish people in central and western Europe were well integrated into society, while in eastern Europe, where emancipation had arrived later, many Jewish human beings continued to live in small towns, spoke Yiddish, and practiced Orthodox Judaism. By the 20th century, pogroms harmed Jewish people. The Nazis and anti-Semites blamed the Jewish people for WWI, the Russian Revolution, and everything under the sun. The Nazi Party with its leader, Hitler believed that Jewish people controlled the Soviet Union and the West to plot to destroy Germany. The Nazis ruled Germany by 1933.
The Nazis formed a system of camps for extrajudicial imprisonment. The Nazis murdered Jewish people, Roma, Sinti, homosexuals, socialists, communists, political opponents, liberals, Freemasons, socialists, communists, prisoners of war, and other human beings. The Nazis sterilized 400,000 people and made others to have forced abortions too. The Nazis ruled public and private life in Germany. The Nazis used racist and anti-Semitic propaganda to inflame the public to advance anti-Semitism via newspapers, speeches, books, etc. There were about 500,000 German Jewish people in 1933. The Nazis banned Jewish people from working in jobs like civil service. The Nazis passed the Nuremberg Laws in 1935 that banned Jewish people to have full citizenship, restricted Jewish economic activity, and criminalized new marriages among Jewish people and non-Jewish Germans. Jewish people were forced out of the school system. By 1939, anti-Jewish violence increased.
As a result of local and popular pressure, many small towns became entirely free of Jewish human beings and as many as a third of Jewish businesses may have been forced to close. Anti-Jewish violence was even worse in areas annexed by Nazi Germany. On November 9-10, 1938, the Nazis organized Kristallnacht (Night of Broken Glass), a nationwide pogrom. Over 7,500 Jewish shops (out of 9,000) were looted, more than 1,000 synagogues were damaged or destroyed, at least 90 Jewish people were murdered, and as many as 30,000 Jewish men were arrested, although many were released within weeks. German Jews were levied a special tax that raised more than 1 billion Reichsmarks (RM). Many Jewish people left to South America, South Africa, and Palestine. Many Nazi occupied nations like Bulgaria, Hungary, Poland, Romania, and Slovakia passed antisemitic legislation in the 1930s and the 1940s. The Auschwitz concentration camp was established to hold those members of the Polish intelligentsia not killed in the purges. Around 400,000 Poles were expelled from the Wartheland in western Poland to the General Governorate occupation zone from 1939 to 1941, and the area was resettled by ethnic Germans from eastern Europe.
The war provided cover for "Aktion T4", the murder of around 70,000 institutionalized Germans with mental or physical disabilities at specialized killing centers using poison gas. The victims included all 4,000 to 5,000 institutionalized Jewish people. Despite efforts to maintain secrecy, knowledge of the killings leaked out and Hitler ordered a halt to the centralized killing program in August 1941. Decentralized killings via denial of medical care, starvation, and poisoning caused an additional 120,000 deaths by the end of the war. Many of the same personnel and technologies were later used for the mass murder of Jewish people. The Nazis wanted to resettle Jewish people. Many synagogues were burned in Poland. Some were forced to live in ghettos in Poland. Rape and sexual exploitation of Jewish and non-Jewish women in eastern Europe was common. Hitler invaded the Soviet Union to steal Soviet lands, exterminate Jewish people, and replace them with Nordic peoples. Many people died of starvation in the war. Many Soviet prisoners of war died of starvation and murder. Local Ukrainian killed at least 3,000 Jewish people in the 1941 Lviv pogroms. Thousands of Jewish people were killed in mass shootings. By September 1941, all German Jewish people were forced to wear a yellow star. Many Nazis deported German Jewish people, Romani people, and other human beings for execution.
It took the Nazis several months after this to organize a continent-wide genocide. Reinhard Heydrich, head of the Reich Main Security Office (RSHA), convened the Wannsee Conference on January 20, 1942. This high-level meeting was intended to coordinate anti-Jewish policy. The majority of Holocaust killings were carried out in 1942, with it being the peak of the genocide, as over 3 million Jewish were murdered, with 20 or 25 percent of Holocaust victims dying before early 1942 and the same number surviving by the end of the year. Extermination camps had gas vans. There were gas chambers, and rail lines sending people to their deaths in Chelmno and other concentration camps. Zyklon B was used to murder people. Belzec, Sobibor, and Treblinka reported a combined revenue of RM 178.7 million from belongings stolen from their victims, far exceeding costs. About half of the Jewish people killed in the Holocaust died by poison gas. Thousands of Romani people were also murdered in the extermination camps. Prisoner uprisings at Treblinka and Sobibor meant that these camps were shut down earlier than envisioned. Many Jewish people were forced to do labor, many had their body parts destroyed to form objects like furniture, and some were victims of perverted experiments done by evil people like Mengele. About 200,000 Jewish people survived by hiding. Many non-Jewish people saved Jewish lives, and Jewish people were in resistance movements in most European nations. In December 1942, the Allies, then known as the United Nations, adopted a joint declaration condemning the systematic murder of Jewish human beings. Most neutral countries in Europe maintained a pro-German foreign policy during the war. Nevertheless, some Jewish folks were able to escape to neutral countries, whose policies ranged from rescue to non-action.
During the war the American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee (JDC) raised $70 million and in the years after the war it raised $300 million. This money was spent aiding emigrants and providing direct relief in the form of parcels and other assistance to Jewish people living under German occupation, and after the war to Holocaust survivors. The United States banned sending relief into German-occupied Europe after entering the war, but the JDC continued to do so. From 1939 to 1944, 81,000 European Jewish people emigrated with the JDC's assistance. Many Jewish people were deported to Greece and other places by 1943 when the Nazis would lose the war. Many Jewish people received reparations after the war, and many Nazi war criminals have been brought to justice. Simon Wiesenthal was one of the greatest Jewish Nazi hunters of all time. We know him as a famous author too. Adolf Eichmann, a Nazi, was executed in Israel by 1962 for his role in the Holocaust. Black people, biracial people, Mormons, Jehovah Witnesses, Slavic people, and other ethnic groups died in the Holocaust too. President Franklin Delano Roosevelt could have done more to allow more Jewish people to go into America during WWII.
Between 1945 and 2018, Germany paid $86.8 billion in restitution and compensation to Holocaust survivors and heirs. In 1952, West Germany negotiated an agreement to pay DM 3 billion (around $714 million) to Israel and DM 450 million (around $107 million) to the Claims Conference. Germany paid pensions and other reparations for harm done to some Holocaust survivors. Other countries have paid restitution for assets stolen from Jewish people from these countries. Most Western European countries restored some property to Jewish human beings after the war, while communist countries nationalized many formerly Jewish assets, meaning that the overall amount restored to Jewish human beings has been lower in those countries. Poland is the only member of the European Union that never passed any restitution legislation. Many restitution programs fell short of restoration of prewar assets, and in particular, large amounts of immovable property was never returned to survivors or their heirs. The Holocaust is an example of how evil some humans can be, and how we must never repeat it again.
The Internment of Japanese Americans
The internment of Japanese Americans was another evil. During World War II, America forcibly relocated and incarcerated about 120,000 people of Japanese descent in ten concentration camps operated by the War Relocation Authority (WRA), mostly in the western interior of the country. About two-thirds were U.S. citizens. These actions were initiated by Executive Order 9066, issued by President Franklin D. Roosevelt on February 19, 1942, following the outbreak of war with the Empire of Japan in December 1941. About 127,000 Japanese Americans then lived in the continental U.S., of which about 112,000 lived on the West Coast. About 80,000 were Nisei ('second generation'; American-born Japanese with U.S. citizenship) and Sansei ('third generation', the children of Nisei). The rest were Issei ('first generation') immigrants born in Japan, who were ineligible for citizenship. In Hawaii, where more than 150,000 Japanese Americans comprised more than one-third of the territory's population, only 1,200 to 1,800 were incarcerated.
The American government tried to justified this act for the sake of National Security, but some of the most brave fighters against the Axis Powers were Japanese Americans. Also, there is no excuse to steal the resources and lands from innocent human beings. Also, thousands of German and Italian Americans were placed in other internment camps. The Japanese Americans were placed in concentration camps in California, Arizona, Wyoming, Colorado, Utah, and Arkansas. Some were placed in Canadian camps by Canadian governmental leaders. Internees were prohibited from taking more than they could carry into the camps, and many were forced to sell some or all of their property, including their homes and businesses. At the camps, which were surrounded by barbed wire fences and patrolled by armed guards, internees often lived in overcrowded barracks with minimal furnishing.
Many Japanese immigrations came to Hawaii and the West Coast because a recession in Japan by the Meiji Restoration. From 1869 to 1924, about 200,000 Japanese people immigrated to the islands of Hawaii to seek work on the islands' sugar plantation. About 180,000 people went to the U.S. mainland in the West Coast mostly to form farms and own small businesses. Most arrived before 1908, when the Gentlemen's Agreement between Japan and the United States banned the immigration of unskilled laborers. A loophole allowed the wives of men who were already living in the US to join their husbands. The practice of women marrying by proxy and immigrating to the U.S. resulted in a large increase in the number of marriages. Many white racists and xenophobes opposed Japanese immigration to the States. Racist groups like the Asiatic Exclusion League, the California Joint Immigration Committee, and the Native Sons of the Golden West organized in response to the rise of Asian immigration. Their pressure caused the racist Immigration Act of 1924 to ban Chinese and Asian people from immigrating to America along with the 1882 Chinese Exclusion Act. The U.S. banned Japanese immigrations form being naturalized citizens. They relied on their children to rent or buy property. Japanese Americans worked in irrigation, cultivated fruits, and other foods. Many formed schools, did charitable work, and helped America in many ways.
In the 1930s, the Office of Naval Intelligence (ONI), concerned as a result of Imperial Japan's rising military power in Asia, began to conduct surveillance in Japanese American communities in Hawaii. Starting in 1936, at the behest of President Roosevelt, the ONI began to compile a "special list of those Japanese Americans who would be the first to be placed in a concentration camp in the event of trouble" between Japan and the United States. In 1939, again by order of the President, the ONI, Military Intelligence Division, and FBI began working together to compile a larger Custodial Detention Index. Early in 1941, Roosevelt commissioned Curtis Munson to conduct an investigation on Japanese Americans living on the West Coast and in Hawaii. After working with FBI and ONI officials and interviewing Japanese Americans and those familiar with them, Munson determined that the "Japanese problem" was nonexistent. His final report to the President, submitted November 7, 1941, found that Japanese Americans were very loyal to America. A subsequent report by Kenneth Ringle (ONI), delivered to the President in January 1942, also found little evidence to support claims of Japanese American disloyalty and argued against mass incarceration.
Still, President Franklin Roosevelt was wrong to promote the internment of Japanese Americans. FDR held racist views about Japanese people as his articles in the Macon Telegraph proven. He support California band on land ownership by first generation Japanese. In 1936, he privately wrote desiring Japanese people placed on a list to be placed in a concentration camp. After Pearl Harbor, advisors like John Franklin Carter wanted Japanese Americans to be defended of their rights. At first, many Americans supported Japanese Americans. After Pearl Harbor in six weeks after the events, most of the American public had a hostie attitude about Japanese Americans. Even J. Edgar Hoover said that Japanese Americans were not doing espionage against America. Executive Order 9066, signed by Franklin D. Roosevelt on February 19, 1942, authorized military commanders to designate "military areas" at their discretion, "from which any or all persons may be excluded." Initially, Oregon's governor Charles A. Sprague opposed the incarceration, and as a result, he decided not to enforce it in the state and he also discouraged residents from harassing their fellow citizens, the Nisei. He turned against the Japanese by mid-February 1942, days before the executive order was issued, but he later regretted this decision and he attempted to atone for it for the rest of his life. Members of some Christian religious groups (such as Presbyterians), particularly those who had formerly sent missionaries to Japan, were among opponents of the incarceration policy. Some Baptist and Methodist churches, among others, also organized relief efforts to the camps, supplying inmates with supplies and information. The NAACP, NCJW, and George S. Schuyler opposed the interment camps against Japanese Americans. The Ringle report would have undermined the administration's position of the military necessity for such action, as it concluded that most Japanese Americans were not a national security threat, and that allegations of communication espionage had been found to be without basis by the FBI and Federal Communications Commission.
The WPA or the Works Projects Administration helped to build and staff the camps in the early period. The Wartime Civil Control Administration (WCCA) was formed by the Western Defense Command to handle the removal of Japanese Americans to go to inland concentration camps on April 9, 1942. The camps had barbed fire, bad conditions, some education, and sports. After these injustices, Japanese Americans fought the Axis Powers with courage and distinction. The 100th/442n Regimental Combat Team were of Japanese descent who fought in Europe. Many of them liberated one of the labor camps of the original Dachau concentration camp on April 29, 1945. They stopped a death march in southern Bavaria on May 2, 1945.
In its 1944 decision Korematsu v. United States, the U.S. Supreme Court upheld the constitutionality of the removals under the Due Process Clause of the Fifth Amendment to the United States Constitution. The Court limited its decision to the validity of the exclusion orders, avoiding the issue of the incarceration of U.S. citizens without due process, but ruled on the same day in Ex parte Endo that a loyal citizen could not be detained, which began their release. On December 17, 1944, the exclusion orders were rescinded, and nine of the ten camps were shut down by the end of 1945. Japanese Americans were initially barred from U.S. military service, but by 1943, they were allowed to join, with 20,000 serving during the war. Over 4,000 students were allowed to leave the camps to attend college. Hospitals in the camps recorded 5,981 births and 1,862 deaths during incarceration.
The Ringle report would have undermined the administration's position of the military necessity for such action, as it concluded that most Japanese Americans were not a national security threat, and that allegations of communication espionage had been found to be without basis by the FBI and Federal Communications Commission
In the 1970s, under mounting pressure from the Japanese American Citizens League (JACL) and redress organizations, President Jimmy Carter appointed the Commission on Wartime Relocation and Internment of Civilians (CWRIC) to investigate whether the internment had been justified. In 1983, the commission's report, Personal Justice Denied, found little evidence of Japanese disloyalty and concluded that internment had been the product of racism. It recommended that the government pay reparations to the detainees. In 1988, President Ronald Reagan signed the Civil Liberties Act of 1988, which officially apologized and authorized a payment of $20,000 (equivalent to $52,000 in 2023) to each former detainee who was still alive when the act was passed. The legislation admitted that the government's actions were based on "race prejudice, war hysteria, and a failure of political leadership." By 1992, the U.S. government eventually disbursed more than $1.6 billion (equivalent to $4.12 billion in 2023) in reparations to 82,219 Japanese Americans who had been incarcerated. The internment of Japanese Americans was immoral and especially in our time in 2025, we must forever reject racism, xenophobia, and all forms of bigotry
By Timothy
