"When they came for the gypsies, I did not speak, for I am not a gypsy.
             When they came for the Jews, I did not speak, because I wasn't a Jew.
             When they came for the Catholics, I did not speak, for I am not a
             And when they came for me, there was no one left to speak."
             -On the Wall at the Holocaust Museum in Washington
             It is impossible to learn about the Holocaust and the Second
             World War without the question of how it possibly could have happened
             arising, and along with that question comes another. The question of
             whether or not the Western World did enough to help the Jews in Europe.
             What was their reaction to the campaign of systematic persecution,
             robbery and murder the Third Reich inflicted upon the Jewish people?
             During the time leading up to the outbreak of World War II, the
             Western Press consistently carried numerous reports of the German's
             anti-Jewish policies and their purposeful victimization of the Jews
             living in Nazi Germany as well as the annexed territories. The general
             public cannot claim that they did not know what was going on, that they
             were uninformed. Whether or not they chose to believe it however, is a
             completely different story. The public were indeed outraged in many of
             the cases but the governments of the major European democracies felt
             that it was not for them to intervene for they felt that the Jewish
             problem classified as an internal affair within a sovereign state. The
             truth behind this is simply that the governments were anxious to
             establish cordial relations with Germany and didn't want to cause any
             hostility. Thus they stood idly by and remained silent as Hitler went
             from denying the Jews of their civil rights to denying them of their
             means of earning their daily bread.
             As much as they wanted to remain neutral, the countries of the
             Western World were finally forced to take a stand on the issue of
             emigration ...