Located in Oswego, NY, Fort Ontario was built by the British in 1755. It was initially used as an National Guard base during World War II. In August 1944, Fort Ontario was repurposed as the Fort Ontario Emergency Refugee Shelter by the War Refugee Board. The only camp in the United States designated to shelter refugees fleeing the Nazi regime in Europe, Fort Ontario was home to some 1,000 refugees between August 1944 - February 1946. The mainly Jewish refugees, who had come from Allied-liberated territory in northern Italy, represented over thirty different countries and were the only refugees allowed entry to the US outside of the immigration system during the war. Their undefined immigration status meant they could not leave the Fort. After the war, many of them were granted visas to stay in the US.
A collection of eyewitness accounts compiled by three prisoners who escaped from the Auschwitz concentration camp in 1943-1944. The Auschwitz Protocols provide a detailed description of camp operations, including the arrival of Jews in the camp, the selection process, and the killing operations. Also known as the "Auschwitz Report," the document was initially shared with and circulated among various Jewish and Allied organizations working to publicize the atrocities being committed by Nazi Germany. The War Refugee Board published the report in the United States in 1944 under the title "The Auschwitz Protocols." Its publication was critical in raising awareness of the Holocaust and solidifying efforts to address the atrocities, and in contributing to the growing body of evidence that would inform post-war trails against Nazi criminals.
Formed in 1940, the America First Committee supported an isolationist policy for the United States and actively opposed US entry into World War II. The AFC consisted of a broad coalition including members of the Republican and the Democratic parties as well as communists, anticommunists, farmers, industrialists, students, and journalists. The America First Committee subscribed to a pro-American isolationism that was increasingly perceived as being associated with antisemitic and pro-fascist sympathies. Some of its members held antisemitic or pro-Nazi sympathies, despite the fact that the organization never openly proclaimed these views as its own.
A German-American, pro-Nazi organization founded in 1936 and active through the early 1940s, the German American Bund sought to influence German Americans in support of German interests and Nazi ideology, and maintained a demand for US neutrality in the European conflict. The German American Bund had an estimated membership of 25,000, and actively distributed pro-Nazi propaganda, organized rallies and ran youth camps modeled after the Hitler Youth. After the US entered the war against Germany in 1941, the organization was seen as a threat to national security and its influence and activity declined until it was eventually disbanded.
Fritz Julius Kuhn was elected to the leadership of the German American Bund in 1936; Kuhn was born in Munich and immigrated to the US in 1928 at the age of 28. He became a US citizen in 1934. Under his leadership, the organization employed antisemitic, anticommunist, pro-German and pro-American propaganda. In 1939 he was convicted of larceny and forgery and served time in prison. His American citizenship was revoked in 1943 due to his activities as a foreign agent and his loyalty to Germany and the Nazi Party. Kuhn was repatriated to Germany in 1944, where he was sentenced as a Nazi offender.
A series of government programs, financial reforms, and public works projects enacted by President Franklin Roosevelt between 1933-1939 to combat the Great Depression. The New Deal was aimed at facilitating economic recovery, providing unemployment relief, and reforming the financial system to avoid future economic crises. The New Deal significantly expanded the role of the federal government in the economy and had a lasting impact on American social and economic policy through the introduction of Social Security and unemployment insurance, as well as job creation programs.
