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My father was in Mauthausen, Austria labor camp freed by Americans and mother was in Auschwitz, Poland concentration camp freed by the Russians.
Your parents weren’t freed yet on December 7, 1941.
And if Japan hadn’t attacked Pearl Harbor, there is a good chance the United States would have stayed neutral in the European War, and war would have ended with much of Europe under Nazi control, meaning there would have been very few holocaust survivors.
Pearl Harbor was not “invaded.” It was attacked and the US naval fleet there was substantially destroyed. Six months later, the US won the first of many naval battles to reestablish US naval and political power in the Pacific region.
Akuperma,
I don’t know about that
Germany would have attacked the United States sooner or later
Reb eliezer,
That may be true but what huju is saying is that all invadings are attacks not all attacks are invading
Israel didn’t invade Syria’s boats they attacked them
Germany was trying very hard to avoid going to war against the United States. We were sending massive amounts of arms to the British, and our forces were attacking German submarines in international waters, and Germany pretended it wasn’t happening. When Japan attacked the United States, Germany honored its pledge to Japan to go to war against the Americans if they did. I suspect the Germans would have much more content if Japan attacked the Soviet Union, or at least respected American neutrality and left Hawaii and the Philippines alone (focusing on Singapore, Indonesia, Australia and India). American public opinion was very anti-war, and few Americans saw anything worthwhile it going to war in order to rescue the British, French and Dutch Empires. While war between the United States and Germany was probably inevitable, it would have had a different outcome if it took place after the fall of Britain.
More importantly, we can see that the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor had a great deal to do with “Haschaga pratis” since had the attack not taken place, it is unlikely that any European Jews would have survived. Those who were liberated in 1945, had little chance of being alive in the liberation was postponed by months, let alone years. And unless the US was at war with Germany, the US would not have been in a hurry to aid the Soviet Union, and especially if Japan did attack the Soviets, the outcome for Yidden on the Eastern Front would have been horrific.
FDR desparately wanted the US to go to war with Hitler, and desparately wanted the US *not* to go to war with Japan. The trouble was, Japan was already endangering US interests and had been for over four years. Sanctions were ineffective and Japan realized that the US was the only thing in the way of its conquest of all of East and Southeast Asia. So it attacked.
The other trouble was that almost every prominent Republican (1940 Presidential nominee Wendell Willkie was a rare exception) and large numbers of prominent Democrats (FDR actually had to fire his Secratary of War because of that) were isolationists who actually tried to sabotage preparations for war. Lindbergh was probably an actual Nazi in terms of his ideology and Herbert Hoover at one point expressed hope for a Nazi victory.
Even so, FDR still didn’t have the public’s support for war against Hitler after Pearl Harbor — until Hitler himself declared war on the US four days after Pearl Harbor. Mussolini did the same thing the same day.
“especially if Japan did attack the Soviets”
Japan had no interest in attacking the Soviet Union. The Soviet Far East was sparsely populated and undeveloped. The only real city was Vladivostok which while critically important to the Soviet Union was of no interest to Japan as long as the USSR stayed neutral. Stalin had to understand that Vladivostock was indefensible and agreed to a nonagression pact with Japan.
Stalin broke that pact on the morning of August 9, 1945. A few hours later, the second atomic bomb was dropped, on Nagasaki. The Soviet Army would in the next two weeks overrun an area the size of all of Western Europe, defeating the formerly terrifying Kwantung Army whose reputation for cruelty rivaled that of the SS.
My father a”h was in Buchenwald in 1944. The attack was such big news that he hear about it in the cocentration camp. It gave him chizuk that America was going to enter the war.
Dullradiance….Which “attack” . I’m confused by your reference to the big news in the Camp of “the attack” in 1944. Clearly you are not referring to Pearl Harbor…..
He probably meant Normandy.
I stand corrected. He was still on the run on Dec 7, 1941. I am a few months early with my comment. The 1944 remark was D-Day.
Dullradiance: Thank you. I have heard before, though cannot really imagine, how the news was communicated within the camps and perhaps empowered many to hold on until the liberation. With the news of the petirah of Bob Dole, I am reminded of the true gadlus of that generation of American heroes who provided that chizuk for yidden and the world.
charliehall: The Japanese had already fought the Soviets in the 1930, and both sides were considering the possibility of a full scale war. Remember that Japan had conquered most of northeastern China, and once Germany had invaded the Soviet Union, it might have been an easy target. Also, the US was also trying to provoke Japan by aiding China (including using American troops disguised as mercenaries, i.e., the famous “Flying Tigers”) and enacting serious economic sanctions against Japan. Japan could have easily skipped Pearl Harbor, respected Philippines neutrality (still a US protectorate, though a date for full independence had already been set), and concentrated on attacking British and Dutch colonial territories knowing that very few Americans would go to war to protect foreign empires). Both political parties were isolationist, and if the Axis put up with American government provocations, it is unlikely the United States would have entered the war on its own, and it is unlikely in that even that the British Empire and Soviet Union would have prevailed, and the Third Reich would still control most of Europe.
And thus the bottom line, Pearl Harbor needs to be seen as something from Shmayim that saved European Jews (meaning the original poster would not be around to post anything since his parents would have died during the war).
akuperma: Also consider that Hitler put so much resources into the Final Solution, that he thereby reduced Nazi Germany’s military resources available for the war.
Akuperma, the US was not trying to provoke Japan. It was trying to help China which was facing brutal Japanese aggression.
Ujm, it was true only at a certain point in the war.
Akuperma, sadly, ive observed your kind of backward reasoning before. You attribute the saving of the balance of European Jewry due to Hashem’s orchestrating Pearl Harbor.
In your way of thinking, couldn’t Hashem have avoided the deaths of ALL European Jewry ( and the loss of life at Pearl Harbor) by not allowing Hitler and the Japanese military from coming to power?The US relationship with the other Allied Powers was more complicated. It’s not as simple as “The Nazis and Japanese are against everyone”.
AJ: Are you suggesting Hashem had no part in orchestrating Pearl Harbor? Or that Hashem had no bearing on the beneficial side results of Pearl Harbor benefiting Yidden?
AnnonymosJew, there was a gezeirah min Ha’Shamaim on the Europen Jewry. However, also there was a gezeirah min Ha’Shamaim that a part of the European Jewry had to be saved. One of the ways the latter was accomplished was by involving the US in the war (due to the bombing of Pearl Harbor).
somehow we take halakha l’Maase seriously and many people will not entertain partaking of a meat soup with a drop of milk without asking a shailah. But, somehow, everyone has a quick explanation for the reasons while millions of souls that perished, one way or the other. Maybe because you don’t think it is a practical matter and you can say whatever? For some reason, Hashem felt a need to afflict that and other tzoros on us and taking them unseriously denigrates both the neshomos and the One who Did it. Real Talmidei Chachmim are more honest (R Steinsaltz, for example, said that it is too early to answer. Maybe because the question came from a survivor, I don’t know …)
You guys seem fairly confident about your first-hand info regarding so called “gezeirahs min Ha’Shamaim” to accomplish outcome A which in turn resulted in tragedy B that then triggered churban C etc. I’m sure the Ebeshter is aware of the concept of the “shortest distance between two points is a straight line” and didn’t necessarily require collateral damage along the way to implement his plan for the world.
” I’m sure the Ebeshter is aware of the concept of the “shortest distance between two points is a straight line” and didn’t necessarily require collateral damage along the way to implement his plan for the world.”
I am sure this conversation is way too big for this thread but… well, I will try it out anyway.
Any reliable poster here who says that there was a gezeira would not be using confident, first hand info. They would be quoting great people who know. Anyone who is using it in any other fashion is just being dramatic.Having said that – there is a concept here that every blade of grass has it’s own malach, every single leaf that falls it’s because Hashem willed it – this concept is saying Hashem is in charge of the game plan. But if you are visualizing the game plan as the big events or the end results, and all the other stuff is just necessary consequences then you are missing the picture.
If you need to get your kid to the doctor ASAP, you are “in charge” of getting him from point A to point B and dinner may get burned or big brother may need to find a ride home etc because you will no longer be available.
With Hashem, it doesn’t work that way. EVERY part of it is point B. Meaning Hashem will bring a horrible tragedy and if there are 5 stops on the way, it is because those were also needed and necessary. There will also be tremendous brachos and miracles on the way, and awakenings and tests and pain and joy. But each thing is planned. They are not obstacles and traffic jams that Hashem got caught in because His GPS didn’t work.
I know many people don’t like the idea of all these tragedies but that is a seperate topic that there ARE those qualified to discuss with you. I am merely trying to explain that if something has/had to happen, so did the things that led up to it, that happened as a result, that avoided happening etc. it isn’t a point A to point B, it is a constant guidance and creation of scenarios to make all of us as a group and as individuals into the very best we can be.
Ujm, like your alter ego, Joseph, you tend ignore points you don’t want to address. Of course everything is from Hashem but your answer , everything is a gezeira, is the easy way out. Remember , many of the six million who died were generations who obeyed the gedolim and stayed in Europe, only to be lost to yiddishkeit when they were trapped in the Soviet Union or to be killed by the Nazis. It’s fair to question why Hashem’s plan to save the balance required millions more to be killed or injured
Gadol, agree but you are also taking too much on yourself
>> I’m sure the Ebeshter is aware of the concept of the “shortest distance between two points is a straight line”
and I am sure Eibeshte is aware of Riemann and Bolyai-Lobachevskian geometries.It seems that we mostly agree that learning quick lessons from history is presumptuous. On the other hand, as RebE says the lessons are surely there, whether we are talking Shoah or Covid or any other world event. After naviyut, it is said that the way to interpret is through midah k’neged midah, but supposedly we are not smart enough to see that nowadays also.
Maybe a practical path would be to generate possible hypotheses of midah k’neged midah, verify that they are not simply your personal/group bias (blame every event on smartphones), and carefully verify that possible solutions are not against halakha or have danger in them (for example, create machloket by by blaming some group of Jews). Then, emphasize those areas, understanding that this may not be an ultimate answer, but something that is worth working on anyway and is a possible path for us to take.
troll post
I’m not certain that wo american entrance into WW2 the Germans would have lost.
The fact is that after Stalingrad the Russians never stopped pushing the Germans back to Germany. This was done wo too much american help.
By the time americans landed at Normandy Russians has already driven the Germans pretty far back and the end was clear.
This is not a criticism of the Americans bc the bombing campaigns that preceded D-Day were crucial to ensure a safe passage across the channel. I.e. if the Luftwaffe had air superiority or even been a nuisance the crossing would not have been possible. It took two years to prepare the way, so to speak.
The point is, the Russians were essentially fighting the Germans alone for 2.5 more years and winning on their own wo american help.
One can even make the argument that allies invaded France not so much to free Western Europe but rather to prevent the Russians from conquering western Europe (a legitimate goal in and of itself)
Unless you taanah that the bombing campaigns disrupt German production so much that it affected the German war effort against the Russians. Is that true? Was that a goal of the bombing campaign?
The Russians were losing until America joined WWII.
Ujm, your statement is patently wrong.
“The Russians were losing until America joined WWII.”
Its hard to make that determination with certainty, and of course it is impossible to predict wha twould have happened.
Stalingrad is often considered the turning point on the Eastern front .The German 6th army was surrounded in November 1942. Germany’s momentum in North africa was already held up by the British at El Alemain.
American involvement against Germans began with Operation torch in November 42′ By then the German fate in Stalingrad was largely sealed.
Granted, it is possible that, the German attempt to relive Stalingrad in December 42 (Operation Winter storm) would have been more successful if troops weren’t tied up in North Africa, but again they were busy with the British anyway.
In August 42 Stalin begged the allies to open a second front in Western Europe but this didn’t happen until nearly 2 years later (By that time the tide was well in the USSR’s favor).
Again, it is impossible to say with certainty what would have happened, but the notion that the Russian were losing before American involvement isnt really true
US was sending materiel to Britain and USSR starting 1941 already through lend-lease. Given intensity of the fighting on Eastern Front, this clearly made a difference. As well as helped Western front going.
AnonymosJew and others, I answered your questions about the “gezeirah min Ha’Shamaim”, but for some reason the Moderator did not let my post through.
Incorrect, the Germans offered mexico all the land that they lost in the Spanish american war if they would attack the us. The British since they cracked the German codes showed this to the Americans to convince them to join the war this was before Pearl Harbor
AAQ.
Firstly, I believe that lend lease was mainly an anglo thing. Not tonsure the us aided the Slavs.
But assume for a sec they did; this aid had nothing to do was pearl harbor. America was isolationist bit only insofar as sending troops. Not vis a vis aid.
The point remains that Russia would probably have destroyed the German army and conquered Germany wo any american boots on the ground.
Zog ich, the main reason the Americans and English launched D-Day etc. was not to stop the Germans but to prevent communism from conquering Europe.
By1212, Soviets would take a lot of time walking to Berlin without jeeps. I am open to evidence that operation overlord was to stop Stalin taking over Europe. What is it? Available evidence shows that Stalin pressed for the operation to start, and Churchill stalled first because he was afraid of losses and failure, and also tried to bargain for full access to nuclear development with an eye for postwar.
Keep in mind that both sides knew well what others were doing: VP Wallace shared white house news, including pre and post Pearl harbor to his BIL, a swiss diplomat, and Nazis had a spy there. Us and Britain were reading all cables between Japan and their negotiators in US, including hard dec 1 deadline and even time of planned delivery of the final note to end negotiations. The only thing that was not there was where exactly attack will happen, although that information existed in other collects
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