[BroJoeK]

There is an admittedly imperfect comparison here which nevertheless bears noting.
The fact is that ordinary, every day anti-Semitism was pretty strong in America in the 1940s.
Many Americans did not want to be told they were being drafted into war, shipped across the ocean and thrown into a life-or-death struggle, to save the Jews.

The comparison is 1861 — at the war’s beginning, Union soldiers weren't told, and certainly didn't want to hear that they were being sent to fight & die to free the slaves.
In the Civil War that came later, step by step.
In WWII, it never really came.

[jjotto]

mmm...

So which is it? Everyone knew Jews were being mass-murdered, or no one knew Jews were being mass-murdered?

Talk about revisionist history!

[henkster]

That’s true. I doubt too many Americans would send their sons to fight for the Jews. While not as segregated as the blacks, I believe there were a number of hotels and restaurants that would not serve Jews, if they were known as such.

On the other hand, not so many Americans would have fought for the Armenians in World War 1, or the Ukrainians in the Holodomor, or for the Chinese, or the Ethiopians, or Sudanese Christians today....