I took a War in US Society class many years ago, and I recall the professor mentioning a survey about troops who liberated the concentration camps, and that many of them reportedly believed that either the Jews deserved what happened, or even if they didnt deserve it, that they didnt care because they were "just Jews." (heavily paraphrasing here). I think I remember something about the survey being classified later for fear of how bad it looked.
I know Anti semitism was strong in America both before the War and even long after the War, but when I tried googling any information on this subject I came up completely blank.
Am I misremembering or exaggerating this? It was always a good story to tell at a bar whenever WWII came up, but I dont want to keep repeating the claim if its completely false.
The Soviets responsible for the liberation of Auschwitz and many other camps probably harbored some degree of anti-semitic feelings. Anti-Semitism (and even the Holocaust for that matter) was not an isolated feeling. Pogroms were incredibly common in Russia and throughout Eastern Europe. Romania also willingly and violently persecuted their Jews, even before the rise of the Nazi state and WWII.
As far as arguing that liberators felt the Jews deserved the Holocaust, I think that’d be a difficult argument to make. While anti-semitism was relatively common in Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union, anti-semitism does not necessarily mean Holocaust. Most of the accounts of the liberation of camps, such as Auschwitz, talk about the horrendous conditions and the horrible conditions of the Jews. Troops actively sought to provide food and other comforts to the liberated Jews and to make sure they received medical attention. While many Soviets surely did not feel compassion for the Jews at camps, the majority of their actions would show the opposite.
In regards to the Americans, Americans liberated camps such as Dachau. Dachau is marked by the killing of German prisoners of war by the American soldiers who liberated the camp. This is significant because it shows the empathy felt by the soldiers for the mistreatment and murder of Jews by the Nazis. During this time in America, some anti-semitism was prevalent, to what extent is hard to measure. Large cities such as New York tended to hold an array of different ethnic and religious traditions, so while society was not as accepting as today, people were substantially more accepting than they were in other places. America being an ethnic blend instead of ethnically pure (like Romania and Germany sought to be) enabled for more groups to be accepted. Persecution was more common in rural areas that tended to be more homogeneous.
Like the Soviets, there were probably some degree of American troops that didn’t like Jews, but the vast majority of reports show sympathy for the conditions in the camps. It is difficult to put a number or a figure on the degree of anti-semitism among soldiers during this time, but most accounts indicate feelings of sympathy towards the liberated Jews.