Does anyone still blame the allies for not stopping the holocaust?

Question

People today do not often say it, but at the time may people blamed the Allies for not preventing the holocaust event. I am well aware why they could not, and can understand the desperation these people wish to blame. However, I just want to check that no one else still blames the Allies for not preventing it sooner...Sensible answers only please.

I am pleased with all answers, just remember I KNOW the Allies could've done nothing. I am not pointing the finger at anyone other the the SS and the head Nazis in charge of the Final Solution. DEFINITELY NOT the USA. I hope whoever claimed "winning the war wasn't enough" was referring to the allies, not just USA, that would be a miscarriage of justice. I am glad to see people have finally left behind the myth of holocaust acceptance and negligance by the Allies, it was tragic, but could hardly be helped at the time.

Answer 1

I know no one who blames the Allies for not stopping the Holocaust. BUT WE MUST REMEMBER THE HOLOCAUST. The six million Jews who were murdered by the Nazis must always have a place in our history, our memory, our fears. Never again.

Answer 2

I've been reading a really interesting book lately, Memoirs of a Soviet Ambassador (The War 1939-43) by Ivan Maisky. He was, obviously, the Russian ambassador to Britain during the war years and was well acquainted with the situation and the people involved. It's fascinating to see an insider's take on the war and how it compares with what you learned in history class. Naturally, his views of Chamberlain and Daladier and everyone else are a bit biased, but still his writing gives you a better sense of how politics stood at the time than any textbook can.

Honestly, until I started reading this book I never thought of the Allies as anything but the heroes who finally saved the day. As it turns out, it was a lot more complicated than that. But I really don't think it was the Allies' fault that the Holocaust wasn't prevented. There was too much going on, on too large of a scale, and some of it no one even knew about. I do think they should have acted earlier and more decisively than they did, but then again, hindsight is 20/20. In my opinion they did what they could and what's done is done; the Holocaust was entirely the fault of Hitler and his cohorts.

Answer 3

The holocaust deniers get the lion's share of the press coverage but a lot of people do blame the allies.

I agree with most of what these answerers are saying. Taking history out of its contemporary context after the principles are dead and can no longer defend themselves is now a commonly used political tactic.

Several months ago I saw a piece on The Jim Lerher News Hour on PBS about a new exhibit on Darfur at the US Holocaust Museum. The interview was with a honcho from the museum and she mentioned in passing that the US government was complicit in the holocaust. (I don't recall her exact words.)
So I fired off an angry e-mail to the museum saying she should have come clean and elaborated with some historic detail to support her allegation. Instead I heard back from a PR staffer who expatiated about how the museum regularly recognizes the bravery and sacrifice of the servicemen and women in the conflict. That was all.

Answer 4

I guess leaving Germany in a pile of rubble and winning the war wasn't good enough?

I think maybe you're asking, why didn't we jump into the war sooner???

Attacking continental Europe and winning earlier than June 1944 was not possible. Attacking sooner would've meant tactical defeats and prolonged the war at least another year. The US strategy of building up an overwhelming force was the strategy in WWII.

In 1943, the US & western allies were landing in Sicily and making their way up the boot of Italy. Building up the force that attacked the Atlantic Wall required a June 1944 attack date.

Several setbacks in 1944 also prolonged the war, inluding the little gamble known as the Battle of the Bulge.

I guess winning the war and defeating the Germans wasn't good enough? I think you may be asking is why didn't we conquer the German's sooner? But even that question is a little out of context, as the Allies went about the invasion of the Atlantic Wall and the Eastern Front as fast as they could...although i see that the Red Army stopped just short of Warsaw during the Polish uprising, causing more Poles to die than there should have.

Some people wonder why the railways leading into Auswitz weren't bombed. I have to believe that the extent of the state-sponsored genocide was not known and that the few reports that did get out were too fantastic to believe.

Answer 5

I don't think that any group blames the Allies for not stopping the Holocaust because there was no way to stop it after the war began except to bomb the Death Camps and cause even more casualties.

We are blamed for not talking about it when we learned about it in 1943 but at that time the Allies couldn't believe that any country would kill it's citizens because on ethnicity or religion especially Germany. For that I do believe we hold some blame.

Answer 6

They couldn't prevent what happen, the camps were in the middle of Nazi territory and the had to wait until they were liberated. There was nothing the allies could do.
I doubt that even at the time people blamed the allies, most would have been oblivious of the camps until after they were liberated.

Answer 7

maximum of Europe grow to be controlled by utilising the Nazis, and it wasn't that straight forward to defeat them. ultimately the allies did it, besides the indisputable fact that it took various years. they could no longer end the holocaust until eventually they could get into the worldwide places the place it grow to be happening. to assert they 'did no longer bring up a finger' is ridiculous - what do you think of grow to be happening interior the early Forties, for heaven's sake? We have been struggling with a conflict, you recognize. And there have been many extra concentration camps than in simple terms Auschwitz, and an outstanding form of human beings have been despatched there as properly as jews - working example, Slavs, gypsies, homosexuals, Jehovah's Witnesses, communissts, and the mentally and bodily handicapped, have been additionally focused.

Answer 8

The Allied Powers knew what was going on and they did nothing. The Allied Powers could have taken more Jewish immigrants but they routinely turned the Jews away.

Answer 9

Blaming dead men for decisions they made without the advantage of hind-sight is a political/power mechanism. It's a means of attempting to acquire advantage by inflicting guilt.

Has nothing much to do with anything that actually happened, or didn't happen.

Answer 10

i just learned about this today in american history =].
but i think the allies should have tried too stop the holocaust, but then again i understand why they didnt.... hitlers power was way too strong and the US didnt want too get pulled into the way quite yet. but in my history book, it said that the world didnt know of the horrors that were occuring untill the end of the war. but too me that makes noooo sense lol