Language:
English
Year of publication:
1996
Titel der Quelle:
Holocaust and Genocide Studies
Angaben zur Quelle:
10,1 (1996) 52-77
Keywords:
United States.
;
Holocaust, Jewish (1939-1945)
;
World War, 1939-1945 Diplomatic history
;
Holocaust, Jewish (1939-1945) Rescue
Abstract:
In 1944-45, Iver Olsen, special representative of the U.S. War Refugee Board in Sweden, received a series of Nazi proposals to exchange Jews being held in camps in the Baltics, and some places in Germany, for cash or materiel. The WRB took the ransom plans, first suggested by Hillel Storch of the World Jewish Congress, into consideration because other rescue plans were unreliable and involved human losses. However, the Nazis' proposals, which were supposedly extended for humanitarian reasons, represented an attempt by high-ranking officials, notably Himmler, to open a dialogue with the Americans on a separate peace, or, at a later stage, on more lenient conditions of surrender. Constrained by limits of the Allied policy of unconditional surrender, Olsen and U.S. Minister to Sweden Herschel Johnson attempted to aid Jews, but the political ramifications of concluding a deal prevented the exchange. Only in April 1945, negotiations between Norbert Masur of the World Jewish Congress and SS leaders succeeded in the liberation of 1,000 Jewish women from Ravensbrück, who were transported to Sweden.
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