the holocaust?

Question

why did not any other countries stop the holocaust or hide jews?

Answer 1

Isn't it horrible that people have to die in millions for other people to realize? No matter what the answers are to your question, whether it was for political reasons, or means of communications, or people didn't know... I sincerely believe that the majority of people just don't care enough until they see vast numbers of bodies, and then realize!
The same happened in Rwanda (other countries even evacuated their own people, left them to die and THEN started playing the "I wish I knew" game).
The same is happening in Darfur, Sudan at this very moment. Some people protest here and there, but those people are still dying to this day!
I'm sorry honey, but the majority of people just want to live their life and not care ( Of course, they will cry when they watch the movie that shows how millions were slaughtered)

Answer 2

Well, in the beginning of the persecution of the Jews, a lot of countries including the US and the UK were anti-semitic too, though certainly not to the extent that the Nazis were, and thought that some other country ought to take the Jews who were fleeing persecution. And of course, a lot of Jews fled Germany into other countries such as France and Poland, which were later invaded in their turn.

Secondly, the really brutal part of the Holocaust didn't start until the Nazis started invading eastern Europe. As soon as the war started in earnest, travel between countries became much more difficult, if not impossible.

Thirdly, the killing started in Poland but didn't reach genocidal proportions until the invasion got beyond Poland and into places like the Baltic countries and Ukraine, when the Einsatzgruppen started the mass murders by shooting. News from those countries was sparce and, since genocide was entirely new to the western countries, no one realised for quite a long time that anything was going on other than a very brutal invasion.

Fourthly, the only way to really stop the Holocaust was to stop the Nazis all together and that's what attacks by the USA, the British Empire and (especially) the Russians were designed to do. Especially, when you consider that, any sensible country at war wouldn't have wasted time, personnel and materials rounding up even more Jews for the extermination camps - but the Nazis did, even against their own best interests.

Fifthly, I don't think that the allies could really believe what was going on. The information that they were receiving was so extraordinary that they part of their minds must have been unable to cope. I'm not saying that they disbelieved it, just that the sheer scale of what was going on must have been difficult to grasp.

Yes, later in the war they could have bombed Auschwitz, but *I* suspect (and it's only my guess) that they thought they'd kill more than they saved because they couldn't grasp the sheer inhuman horror of what was going on. The allies knew about the concentration camps - where people were merely worked to death and hideously mistreated. I don't think they realised that some camps were there to take people off trains and kill them within hours.

It wasn't until Allied troops started liberating concentration and death camps that the vile truth came out.

Answer 3

Before the war, many jews tried to enter allied countries but were sent back. We in the west & in Europe were much more anti-semetic than today.Also noone would believe that anything as inhumane as the Holocaust would ever take place.
Someone else mentioned Denmark. The King had the custom of riding through Copenhagan every morning on his horse. When the nazies occupied Denmark, they issued the order for Jews to wear the yellow Star Of David. The next morning when the King went for his morning ride he was wearing the Star. The Danish people followed suit, and as a result all the Danish Jews were moved to safety in neutral Sweden.

Answer 4

There are many instances of people in occupied countries who hid Jews from the Nazis. The best known of these are the Dutch family who hid the family of Anne Frank. If you ever go to Amsterdam, you should visit the Anne Frank museum.

As for why the Allies didn't try to stop the holocaust, that is more complicated. According to what I've heard, Allied leaders were afraid to bomb the concentration camps because in WWII bombers were not very accurate and they were afraid that they would hurt innocent people. In retrospect this was a very bad decision.

Answer 5

It was my understanding that Jews in Denmark were relatively safe, as the entire country chose to wear the characteristic 'yellow star' on their clothing, thus making it impossible to distinguish Jew from Gentile.

The fate of those killed in the Holocaust was largely unknown, until Allied forces drove deep enough into Europe to liberate the death camps. And remember, well into the 1940, Europe was either unprepared or simply unwilling to stop Hitler's agression.

Europe outside of Germany has a history of Anti-Semetism: research of Shakespeare's Merchant of Venice, the Inquisition, and the treatment of Jews when the Catholic Church was the dominant power will show some of the unfortunate history of Europe.

Answer 6

There were plenty of people who hid, or otherwise assisted Jews during WW2. There are many people who suggest that the railway tracks to the camps should have been bombed, but the Nazis would have probably just death-marched their victims to the camps in that case. They kept herding people to the camps even when it meant taking soldiers away from the front, so that seems like a reasonable assumption. In any case the Germans were very efficient at repairing bomb damage to railways.

I believe the Allied leadership was aware of what was happening, but the thinking at the top was that the focus should be on what would bring the earliest possible unconditional surrender rather than any potentially pointless effort at mitigation.

Answer 7

The beginning of the Holocaust started in disguise and as it wasn't a secret anymore, the most countries were involved in WW2. Other countries, like the Swiss,took profit by the Holocaust, a lot of the Jewish gold is hidden in their safes until now.
And the pope did nothing, so the catholic & evangelic church earned a lot of money, because the Nazis invented a church-rate!

Answer 8

All of the countries that were fighting against the Nazis were fighting to stop the Holocaust, as for hiding Jews, many families and churches were killed and destroyed for hiding the Jews. The Death Camps were not a secret and many countries fought to save them. America did not win the war alone, it took many people and many countries to win against such oppresion.
Raevyn

Answer 9

When your country is occupied by an invading force you are powerless to do anything. In some countries the Jews represented only a small part of that countries population so occupied countries would not deem them a special situation. This is a big question though. Good luck with the answers.

Answer 10

If you look deep you will find vague and inconsistent definitions of that "Holocaust". This is due to a relation set between the Nazi and the Zionists under Herzog. This ended in an ethnic cleansing of unwanted Jews to found the nation of Israel. To tell you there was clear definitions and agreements between Nazis and Zionists. But as usual the Zionists will not say that and will not show an alliance to a war looser. There was a conspiracy governed by the hidden powers that drive the world and all the parties. The reason for that was to start a new nation with selected people not anybody from anywhere. This resulted in that killing process called Holocaust which helped the Jews more than the Nazis.