By: Elise O’Neil
There has long been a prevailing historical narrative that the United States did not put forth enough effort to save the lives of Jews and other marginalized groups in Europe during the Holocaust. Like so many hot-button issues today, the question about what could be done by Americans for European Jews was a political one.
Congress enacted a quota system through the Emergency Quota Act of 1921 and the National Origins Act of 1924 which allowed only a certain number of immigrants from each country to immigrate to the United States each year. The process of obtaining a visa became even more restrictive in the early 1930s with the economic downturn of the Depression.[1] This meant that for a number of the years between 1933 and 1945, when European refugees were most in need of safe harbor, the United States didn’t even reach its allotted visa quotas. Thousands more visas could have been issued during this time—each representing a life saved.[2]
Further, until the last two years of the war, public opinion in the United States seemed to skew towards taking in less refugees as opposed to more. There are various reasons for this. Coming out of the Depression years there was a concern that an influx of new immigrants could imperil American jobs. Another reason was the strong strain of antisemitism running through America, proliferated regularly by pro-German, antisemitic speeches made by isolationist national icons like the aviator Charles Lindbergh and the popular radio host Reverend Charles E. Coughlin.[3] Once the United States had entered into World War II, many people felt that humanitarian concerns like the plight of the Jews in Europe should take a backseat to the primary focus of winning the war. Finally, an event as catastrophic to humanity as the Holocaust strained credulity for many, even after reports of the atrocities being committed began to trickle into U.S. newspapers. Many Americans just couldn’t believe that Jews and others in Europe were being systematically murdered. It was difficult to galvanize the public opinion to assist potential refugees and seemingly more insurmountable to get the government to take action.
There were, however, some people in both the government and in the wider civilian population attempting to help the European Jews from the United States. Jewish organizations across the country worked to get out the word about what was happening in Europe and raised money to rescue as many people as possible. Rabbi Stephen Wise, who led protests against Nazism throughout the 1930s, presented President Roosevelt with a report in late 1942, detailing the horrors taking place in Europe[4]. And in January of 1944, the president issued an executive order creating the War Refugee Board, a temporary government agency put in place to help the Jews who were still alive in Europe. The director of this agency was John Pehle, a 34-year-old Treasury Department official from Omaha.[5]
Born in Minneapolis, Minnesota in 1909, John Pehle moved to Omaha at the age of 14 with his parents and siblings.[6] He attended Central High School where he participated in the yearbook staff, senior play, and Spanish Club, and was Second Lieutenant in Company “A” of the Cadet Regiment.
After graduating from Central in 1926, he attended Creighton University where he earned a Bachelor of Philosophy in 1930. Notably, he was an ROTC Captain at Creighton, and during his last two years at the University he worked nights at the Dundee Theatre (now operating as Filmstreams at 50th and Dodge.)
Pehle continued at Creighton’s Law School for two years before transferring to Yale, where he received his law degree in 1933. He stayed on at Yale on a fellowship until 1935, earning a Doctorate of Science in Law. [7]
After finishing up his schooling, Pehle moved to Washington, D.C. where he took up a post in the office of the General Counsel of the Treasury Department. He worked his way up in the department and in late 1940 was put in charge of the division of Foreign Funds Control, which would eventually control 7 billion dollars worth of assets in the United States belonging to enemy and neutral countries. It was in this capacity that in the summer of 1943 a request came across his desk from the World Jewish Congress for a license to allow them to fund relief for the Jews in France and Romania. Pehle granted the license and sent it to the State Department to be transmitted, but officials in that department shelved it. When the matter was pursued, State Department officials continued to obstruct the issuance of the license until Secretary of the Treasury Henry Morgenthau personally intervened to ensure its transmission.[8]
While investigating the cause of the delay, Pehle and his colleagues at the Treasury Department discovered that State Department officials had not just been obstructing attempts at providing humanitarian aid to the European Jews. They had also been attempting to keep details of the ongoing Holocaust from being proliferated across the United States. In the wake of these discoveries, Pehle and two colleagues wrote a report to the Treasury Secretary entitled “Report to the Secretary on the Acquiescence of This Government in the Murder of the Jews.” They did not mince words. [9]
The report begins: “One of the greatest crimes in history, the slaughter of the Jewish people in Europe, is continuing unabated. This Government has for a long time maintained that its policy is to work out programs to serve those Jews of Europe who could be saved. I am convinced on the basis of the information which is available to me that certain officials in our State Department, which is charged with carrying out this policy, have been guilty not only of gross procrastination and willful failure to act, but even of willful attempts to prevent action from being taken to rescue Jews from Hitler.”[10]
On January 22, 1944, soon after a copy of the report was passed onto President Roosevelt by Secretary Morgenthau, the president issued an executive order establishing the War Refugee Board. This agency was established with the sole aim of saving the lives of as many Jews in Hitler’s Europe as possible. Pehle, who had already demonstrated a keen interest in the cause, was placed in charge of the agency. He hit the ground running.
A huge part of the work of the War Refugee Board involved getting relief money into the hands of allies in occupied countries. This involved streamlining the pesky licensing process for distributing U.S. money overseas that had first revealed the obstructionist actions of the State Department officials. Pehle and his staff made this process so much simpler that by the conclusion of the war, the agency had approved 11 million dollars in humanitarian aid to be spent in Europe. Though some funds originated from the U.S. government, much of this money was provided by private organizations, including the Quakers, the International Red Cross, and several Jewish relief agencies.[11] The money was used to buy weapons, procure official papers, fund escape efforts, and bribe officials like border guards. It was against U.S. policy to pay bribes, but Pehle was not fastidious about this technicality when it came to saving lives. The War Refugee Board also continued to spread awareness about the atrocities taking place in Europe, and garnered support for a refugee camp on American soil which opened in upstate New York in the summer of 1944.[12]
Much of the agency’s work was covert, making it difficult to estimate an exact count of the number of people saved by the actions of Pehle and his staff. The most conservative estimates are in the tens of thousands. The activities of the War Refugee Board were most beneficial to Hungarian Jews, many of whom had not yet been deported to concentration camps at the time of the agency’s inception.[13] As Pehle said in a speech at the Fontenelle Hotel in April of 1944, their task was “a simple, honest job of saving the lives of people who (were) inside Hitler’s Germany and in imminent danger of death.”[14]
The War Refugee Board saved countless lives in the brief time it was in operation. That is not insignificant. Further, the United States was the only nation during World War II with a government entity devoted to providing relief to the Jews and other persecuted people of Europe. [15] In fact, the United States admitted the most refugees of any country during World War II—between 180,000 to 200,000.[16] Again, these lives were precious and significant.
But when looking back on his work with the War Refugee Board, John Pehle stated, “What we did was little enough… It was late. Late and little, I would say.”[17]
Still, people were saved, and generations have lived on after them because they were able to escape.
Pehle resigned from the Treasury Department after the war. He lived a life mostly out of the public eye, working in private practice tax law and golfing in his retirement. He lived the rest of his life in Bethesda, Maryland and died in 1999 at the age of 90.[18] Like a classic Midwesterner, he didn’t draw attention to himself and didn’t insist that his community recognize his accomplishments. In a press conference in June of 1944 in which President Roosevelt spoke about the activities of the War Refugee Board, he consistently referred to Pehle (pronounced Pay-lee) as “Mr. Peeley,” suggesting that in the months the two men had worked together so far, Pehle hadn’t bothered to correct him.[19] But he was an Omahan of the highest degree, who believed in the idea that the United States should be a force of good in the world.[20] He certainly did his part.
[1] “American Response to the Holocaust.” History.com. 21 August 2018. https://www.history.com/topics/world-war-ii/american-response-to-the-holocaust.
[2] “The United States and the Holocaust.” United States Holocaust Memorial Museum. Accessed on 4/20/23. https://encyclopedia.ushmm.org/content/en/article/the-united-states-and-the-holocaust.
[3] Burns, K. (Director). (2022). The U.S. and the Holocaust. [Film]. PBS.
[4] “Stephen Wise.” United States Holocaust Memorial Museum. Accessed on 4/21/23. https://exhibitions.ushmm.org/americans-and-the-holocaust/personal-story/stephen-wise.
[5] Hansen, Matthew. “An Omahan Saved Countless Jews During the Holocaust, Then Faded into Oblivion.” Omaha World-Herald. 4 February 2019.
[6] “Young Creighton Graduate Holds Axis Billions in U.S.” Omaha World-Herald. 17 June 1941.
[7] “Young Creighton Graduate Holds Axis Billions in U.S.” Omaha World-Herald. 17 June 1941.
[8] Burns, K. (Director). (2022). The U.S. and the Holocaust. [Film]. PBS.
[9] “The Creighton Alum Who Helped Save 200,000 Lives.” Creighton University News. 13 October 2022. https://alumni.creighton.edu/news-events/news/john-pehle-creighton-us-holocaust.
[10] Officials of the United States Department of the Treasury. “Report to the Secretary on the Acquiescence of this Government in the Murder of the Jews.” 13 January 1944. http://www.shoppbs.pbs.org/wgbh/amex/holocaust/filmmore/reference/primary/somereport.html.
[11] Burns, K. (Director). (2022). The U.S. and the Holocaust. [Film]. PBS.
[12] Hansen, Matthew. “An Omahan Saved Countless Jews During the Holocaust, Then Faded into Oblivion.” Omaha World-Herald. 4 February 2019.
[13] “The Creighton Alum Who Helped Save 200,000 Lives.” Creighton University News. 13 October 2022. https://alumni.creighton.edu/news-events/news/john-pehle-creighton-us-holocaust.
[14] “Refugee Task Is Explained.” Omaha World-Herald. 5 April 1944.
[15] Burns, K. (Director). (2022). The U.S. and the Holocaust. [Film]. PBS.
[16] “The United States and the Holocaust.” United States Holocaust Memorial Museum. Accessed on 4/20/23. https://encyclopedia.ushmm.org/content/en/article/the-united-states-and-the-holocaust.
[17] “The Creighton Alum Who Helped Save 200,000 Lives.” Creighton University News. 13 October 2022. https://alumni.creighton.edu/news-events/news/john-pehle-creighton-us-holocaust.
[18] Hansen, Matthew. “An Omahan Saved Countless Jews During the Holocaust, Then Faded into Oblivion.” Omaha World-Herald. 4 February 2019.
[19] “Refugee Problems.” Omaha World-Herald. 5 June 1944.
[20] Burns, K. (Director). (2022). The U.S. and the Holocaust. [Film]. PBS.