More Could Have Been Saved

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Jerry Steinman (Letters to the Editor, June 28) writes that about 132,000 German Jews reached the United States between 1933 and 1945. He failed to mention, however, that under the immigration quotas then in place, 348,745 Jews of German nationality (the actual term) could have been admitted.

In short, the Roosevelt administration allowed only 37 percent of the quota places under which those Jews could have been accepted to be filled. That was a result of the administration’s policy to suppress Jewish immigration, limiting it to far below what existing laws allowed.

Professor of history and Judaic studies University of Oklahoma

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