the American public didn't know the extent of the Holocaust during the war

What about the American decision-makers?

Lee, damn. Those are some boots. Luckily I know I'd never wear them, so I'm safe.

I'm still trying to find the right moment for my red tights. Any time now, I'm sure.

certainly the American public didn't know the extent of the Holocaust during the war

but regardless of the what the American public knew, what did the American GOVERNMENT know? I'm hard-pressed to believe no word filtered out of Germany when the attrocities started.

What about the American decision-makers?

Hard to say. FDR had some information but there seems to be have been widespread distrust that it was true.

I'm not sure if that's after the fact ass-covering, but I do get that impression.

There were certainly intelligence reports indicating the mass deportation of Jews, but the White House didn't seem to think the death camps were real.

Lee, damn. Those are some boots. Luckily I know I'd never wear them, so I'm safe.

I have the ankle-high version of those. They're my snow boots.

but regardless of the what the American public knew, what did the American GOVERNMENT know?

Looks like the "Final Solution" wasn't actually ordered until mid-1942, 6 months after the US entered the war. There were mass-killings of Jews and others before then, but not on the scale seen during the "final solution."

[link]

ooh, I should go look for the ankle high ones. I think I would like them even more.

From wikipedia (FWIW):

In the decades since the Holocaust, some national governments, international bodies, and world leaders have been criticized for their failure to take appropriate action to save the millions of European Jews, Roma, homosexuals and other victims of the Holocaust. Critics say that such intervention, particularly by the Allied governments, might have saved substantial numbers of people and could have been accomplished without the diversion of significant resources from the war effort.[1][2][3]

Other researchers have challenged such criticism. Some have argued that the idea that the Allies took no action is a myth — that the Allies accepted as many German Jewish immigrants as the Nazis would allow — and that theoretical military action by the Allies, such as bombing the Auschwitz concentration camp, would have saved the lives of very few people.[4] Others have said that the limited intelligence available to the Allies — who, as late as October 1944, did not know the locations of many of the Nazi death camps or the purposes of the various buildings within those camps they had identified — made precision bombing impossible.[5]

Heh. You do know that a "matilda" is sort of like a backpack right? So to go waltzing with matilda means to hit the road with your bindlestiff.

Not precisely. I had a vague idea due to a confusing music video when I was much younger, but nothing solid. However, I quite literally mean waltzing. As in, a dance done in three quarter time.

You guys are really beginning to kill my Dancing premiere night with all your dead people and wars. And complete lack of acknowledgment of how unfair it is to be assigned a foxtrot as your first dance, when you're already coming in with a small fanbase. And I do realize that these thoughts rather make me what's wrong with America.

In a topic crossing bit of information, I always get a little bit jealous when people talk genealogy, because I'll never know more than I do right now (which is considerable, but...) because the records were destroyed in the bombing.

I do have a lovely "family secret" story, though. My grandmother's sister, my Auntie Mikie, had studied the genealogy extensively, even going to Japan, but ending in the above sad conclusion. She had some old family tree documents that were in Japanese, and we were having some trouble translating them. (I'm fourth generation, as you may remember, so my great-grandparents came from Japan to Hawaii. My grandparents' generation spoke a pidgin, with mixed Japanese and English and some Portuguese thrown in for good measure. Anyway, it was still pretty hard to read that sort of document.)

The SO & I were studying Japanese at the time (free of charge, courtesy our Japanese company and the local Japan America Society.) and the SO put some considerable time into working on the documents. He did a good job working out the syllabic translations, and the family was able to put it together from there, mostly.

But there was one entry that was just giving him fits. No matter what he did, he kept thinking, it's like someone's name was "Unknown" or "Unknowable." Finally, he brought it to our teacher and asked for her help. She, a very proper, very elegant Japanese-from-Japan lady, was delighted. She took the document home. It took a while.

When she finally did get to us with it, she told us a lot of what we already knew. Then she got to the mystery section, and hemmed and hawed. Finally she confessed that since my family line was samurai class (this was the heritage document of the samurai in question) the unknown meant that the woman in question was clearly not samurai class. Possibly a prostitute. But also possibly just someone outside the class, which clearly held just about the same amount of shame.

The SO & I and our family were thrilled to have the information; it explained a lot of the missing documentation. But she was just so mortified to have to tell us, thinking for sure we'd be dreadfully upset.

To me, it's just a wonderful romance; my lineal ancestor married for love, forsaking his entire family, and spinning off his own family tree.

Well, Matilda does bounce along as soon as she hears music so I expect she'll be a dancer.

And both JZ and I know how to waltz so we'll make sure to teach her.

Back to the wars and dead people, another wikipedia note...

The International Red Cross did relatively little to save Jews during the Holocaust and discounted reports of the organized Nazi genocide

There was widespread belief that the rumors of the death camps was largely propaganda. I don't think people could really conceive the possibility at the time.

Accusations of wartime atrocities are fairly common during wars.

Doesn't mean they aren't true, but the world hadn't seen anything like the Holocaust. People couldn't imagine it.

Even something like the previous Armenian genocide was relatively hidden from public awareness.