WI no Holocaust.

Since today is Holocaust Remembrance Day, I would like to ask WI the Holocaust didn't happen, as in the Jews weren't gassed and killed by Nazis but still operresed, how would that change the post war world. Would antisemitism be still a big thing, would a Jewish state exist.
 
A few guesses:

  • Since a move was under way back at the time of World War I to establish a Jewish homeland, I don't see why Israel wouldn't exist anyhow.
  • Anti-Semitism has always existed to one degree or another. Apart from Germany IOTL, Poland, for example, was cited by John Gunther as the most anti-Semitic state in Europe. Suffering a massive brain drain as a result of emigration to escape oppression, I suspect the pendulum would probably have swung the opposite way in Germany today. Going way out on a limb, assuming immigration to Europe by Muslims still existed to some degree, look for anti-Semitism to rise accordingly in nations like France, perhaps.
 
Well, culturally speaking, we'd still have a lot more Yiddish speakers and also a lot more literature in Yiddish. After all, Yiddish theater had its heyday just before the War and the Holocaust. Plus, with technological advances in the film industry that made filmmaking cheaper, we might even see some folks involved in the Yiddish language live entertainment industry crossover into film, much like their English speaking Jewish American cousins who made the Vaudeville->Hollywood conversion. We'd also probably see casual anti-semitism remain more acceptable for much longer, possibly even lasting until the present day. After all, there are still plenty of Roma and antiziganism is still a major problem in Europe even after they were persecuted by the Nazis during the Holocaust.
 
Socially Acceptable

Other than anti-Semitism being socially acceptable, especially in England, I would imagine eugenics and euthanasia would not be derided as fascistic(although I hear both are making a comeback.)

However, if the Nazis still come to power in Germany, the sort of thing they did (before death camps and einsatzgruppen) would still horrify. (Much of it will be dismissed as war-propaganda, even as there are Holocaust deniers today.)

Somewhat more importantly, an entire culture -- East European Judaism-- would not have been erased.
 
A lot of the support for the creation of Israel came out of people's horror at the Jewish holocaust, without that do the Jews receive the same levels of support and later allowances made for their actions without the mantra of 'Never again'? Being deprived of their property and herded into ghettos, later transferred to camps as forced labour will certainly generate international sympathy but not as much as the Final Solution did.
 
there would be more music, great songs we're never heard of,

more science, both practical like medicine and great fantastic advances in abstract sciences,

and more people would have been alive to just live out their lives. :) I know this is patently obvious, but good utilitarian(?) and Kantian(?) that I am, still want to point it out!
 
I think Muslim immigration to Europe would not be allowed ittl. I mean, you hear about boats with hundreds of thousands of migrants, almost all men, coming in. A Europe not exposed to the holocaust would think nothing of deporting them at best and firing on them as invaders at worst.
 
Well...one could argue that the Holocaust was what really opened the gates for racist attitudes to start crumbling. Not saying they crumbled overnight - that'd be stupid, obviously - but the Holocaust began things.

Without the Holocaust, overt racism might have remained more acceptable. Which would then mean:

1) No Civil Rights movement in the US, at least not at the same time as OTL.

2) Imperial powers far more willing to use harsh measures to keep their colonies under their rule.
 

Deleted member 1487

Israel would be a lot wealthier and powerful than it is today.
Or not exist at all if there is the chance for reintegration and reclamation of property in Europe. The US might end up a more attractive option in the end too.
 

Deleted member 1487

Well...one could argue that the Holocaust was what really opened the gates for racist attitudes to start crumbling. Not saying they crumbled overnight - that'd be stupid, obviously - but the Holocaust began things.

Without the Holocaust, overt racism might have remained more acceptable. Which would then mean:

1) No Civil Rights movement in the US, at least not at the same time as OTL.

2) Imperial powers far more willing to use harsh measures to keep their colonies under their rule.
I have to disagree with both #1 and #2. In the US the Civil Rights movement had roots in Black Americans serving in the US armed forces, not to the Holocaust. In fact once Germany was rehabilitated in the 1950s for the Cold War then the Holocaust was not really talked about and Jim Crow was still in place.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/African-American_Civil_Rights_Movement_(1954–68)#Background
There was a much deeper history to the movement than WW2 though and it was coming with or without WW2 and certainly with or without the persecution of Jews in Europe.

In terms of #2 the only reason the Europeans didn't fight even more than they did to keep their colonies was they were broke from WW2. They weren't motivated by the Holocaust in any way, they just were too weak to hold on. In fact they acted in spite of the history of the Holocaust, I mean look what the French did in Algeria and French Indo-china, or the British in Kenya.
 
Or not exist at all if there is the chance for reintegration and reclamation of property in Europe. The US might end up a more attractive option in the end too.

The US had strict immigration quotas, throughout the war and beyond. Anne Frank's father tried to get visas for the family before the US joined the war, and couldn't.
 

Deleted member 1487

The US had strict immigration quotas, throughout the war and beyond. Anne Frank's father tried to get visas for the family before the US joined the war, and couldn't.
By 1948 that changed. The big issue with immigrating was the lack of assets; the US didn't want to take refugees with no money (of course racism/anti-semitism was at play pre-war too), so they used the economic argument during the 1930s to keep Jewish refugees who had their resources stripped by the Nazis from getting refuge in the US. Had those assets being restored post-war it would be a lot easier to get immigration status for the US, especially if the post-war push for immigration for victims of the Nazis happens eventually.
 
By 1948 that changed. The big issue with immigrating was the lack of assets; the US didn't want to take refugees with no money (of course racism/anti-semitism was at play pre-war too), so they used the economic argument during the 1930s to keep Jewish refugees who had their resources stripped by the Nazis from getting refuge in the US. Had those assets being restored post-war it would be a lot easier to get immigration status for the US, especially if the post-war push for immigration for victims of the Nazis happens eventually.

The national origins quotas were still in place. The special rules in the 1930s were there for German Jews, who could have gotten in under the original quota system since the US had plenty of Germans in 1890. The Polish Jews would not have had a chance. To get to the US, Vladek and Anja Spiegelman had to first live in Sweden for a few years.
 
Actually the immigration acts of the 1920's had special consideration for "Hebrews" in a negative way. Even with the Holocaust antisemitism in the USA was very open until the early 1960's. This including very open quotas for Jews in Ivy league schools and many other universities, quotas in professional schools (medical, dental, law), "restricted" communities and subdivisions where Jews (as well as blacks and Hispanics of course) were prohibited from owning property, and certain companies were well known for their unwillingness to hire Jews or if they did, opportunities for advancement were quite limited. This is, of course, on top of the usual social antisemitism of club membership, hotels, personal slurs from individuals both public and private and so on.

While the Balfour Declaration had stated the approval of HMG for a "Jewish National Home" in Palestine, after WWI through 1948 OTL the British did everything they could to prevent or minimize Jewish immigration to Palestine. Absent the Holocaust I see no reason the British would be any more accommodating than they were OTL with the Holocaust. You still might get Israel, and with a larger Jewish population in Europe a larger Jewish population but then again perhaps not.

Even absent extermination, the question is how bad would Jews be treated in Nazi occupied Europe, and other European countries (Italy, Hungary, Romania, etc). I expect the situation of the Jews of Europe in 1945 would be substantially worse than before the war - confiscation of assets/property (which likely would not be returned) and the sort of discriminatory laws that got worse during the 30s and the war still intact.

While eliminating the Holocaust is a wonderful thing, this will not make life rosy for those who survive the war. IMHO the antisemitism in American (and western Europe) will continue longer than OTL.
 

Deleted member 1487

While the Balfour Declaration had stated the approval of HMG for a "Jewish National Home" in Palestine, after WWI through 1948 OTL the British did everything they could to prevent or minimize Jewish immigration to Palestine. Absent the Holocaust I see no reason the British would be any more accommodating than they were OTL with the Holocaust. You still might get Israel, and with a larger Jewish population in Europe a larger Jewish population but then again perhaps not.
The Balfour Declaration was a private missive to a member of the Rothschilds to get the Jews in neutral countries on the side of Britain and they were more than happy to renege on that offer when it was convenient, not least of which was the Arab Uprising of 1936:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1936–39_Arab_revolt_in_Palestine
That resulted in the White Paper of 1939.
 
There's something in psychology called social norms or norming. An example is when a university sent out a letter saying the average student celebrating his or her 21st birthday has two drinks or less.

So, basically you use positive examples rather than scare stories.

There has been how many acts of genocide since the Nazi Holocaust? Maybe damn it in spite of everything there would have been even more without this glaring negative example. Or, maybe there would have been fewer if there was the example, well, shit, even the Nazis didn't do that, and genocide was was viewed as even more beyond the pale.
 
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