Public opinion in the 1930s was very hostile to new immigration . Compounded by anti-Semitism , and the reluctance of Jewish newspapers and film producers to become involved , very little was done to rescue European Jews threatened by the Nazis . After Kristallnacht in 1938 , Roosevelt helped expedite Jewish immigration from Germany and allowed Austrian and German citizens already in the United States to stay indefinitely . He was prevented from accepting more Jewish immigrants by the prevalence of nativism and antisemitism among voters and members of Congress , resistance in the American Jewish community to the acceptance of Eastern European Jewish immigrants , and the restrictive Immigration Act of 1924 . The Immigration Act of 1924 allowed only 150,000 immigrants to the United States per year and set firm quotas for each country , and in midst of the Great Depression there was little popular support for revisions to the law that would allow for a more liberal immigration policy . In 1938 Roosevelt pushed the limits of his executive authority to allow 50,000 German Jews , to escape from Europe or remain in the United States past their visa expiration . Roosevelt 's State Department , however , was very hostile to the numerous proposals made it to rescue more Jews by bringing them to the United States . Germany in January 1942 implemented the " Final Solution " – the extermination of all Jews . American officials learned of the scale of the Nazi extermination campaign in the following months . Against the objections of his State Department , Roosevelt convinced the other Allied leaders to jointly issue the Joint Declaration by Members of the United Nations , which condemned the ongoing Holocaust and promised to try its perpetrators as war criminals . In January 1944 , Roosevelt established the War Refugee Board to aid Jews and other victims of Axis atrocities . Aside from these actions , Roosevelt believed that the best way to help the persecuted populations of Europe was to win the war as quickly as possible . Top military leaders and War Department leaders rejected any campaign to bomb the extermination camps or the rail lines leading to the camps , fearing it would be a diversion from the war effort . According to biographer Jean Edward Smith , there is no evidence that anyone ever proposed such a campaign to Roosevelt himself . In sum , Roosevelt took significant but limited action regarding the persecution in Germany , the refugee crisis in the 1930s , and the systematic killing of six million Jews in gas chambers after 1941 . Public and elite opinion , including the Jewish-American leadership , generated little pressure to take action . Roosevelt 's legacy remains highly controversial among historians and the general public . Richard Breitman and Allan J. Lichtman state : , " This ongoing quarrel is unforgiving , passionate , and politically charged . " They conclude that Roosevelt :
Kristallnacht
Kristallnacht
Foreign policy of the Franklin D. Roosevelt administration