Operation Texas
Alleged undercover operation
Operation Texas was an alleged undercover operation to relocate European Jews to Texas , USA, away from Nazi persecution , first reported in a 1989 Ph.D. dissertation by Louis Stanislaus Gomolak at the University of Texas at Austin titled Prologue: LBJ's foreign-affairs background, 1908-1948 . [1] The following are some of the key arguments of the dissertation:
- In 1938, Lyndon B. Johnson , then a Congressman and later the 36th President of the United States of America , worked covertly to establish a refuge in Texas for European Jews fleeing Nazi Germany . [2] Johnson helped hundreds of European Jews enter Texas through Cuba , Mexico and South America .
- In part, Johnson was influenced in his attitude towards the Jews by the religious beliefs that his family, especially his grandfather ( Samuel Ealy Johnson Sr. ), who was a member of the Christadelphian church, shared with him. [3] [4] Christadelphians believe that the Jews are God's chosen people , [5] and LBJ's grandfather once said to him, "Take care of the Jews, God’s chosen people. Consider them your friends and help them any way you can." [3]
Various details of Gomolak's dissertation have been cited by other historians. [2] [3] [6] In 2008, Larry Ben David began an online campaign to collect documentation to submit to Yad Vashem , the Holocaust Memorial Museum in Jerusalem to have LBJ awarded the title of Righteous Among the Nations , often referred to as a Righteous Gentile . [7]
Additional primary research on Operation Texas was done for a 1998 Houston Chronicle article [8] and a 2016 article on the aish.com website. [9]
More recently, many of the arguments of Gomolak's thesis have been disputed following extensive research by Claudia Wilson Anderson, an archivist at the Lyndon Baines Johnson Library and Museum . [10] [11] Although his research materials (e.g., written interview notes, interview recordings and primary documents not located in archives) could support his arguments, Gomolak has not made them available for external review. [11]
References
- ↑ Gomolak, Louis Stanislaus (1989). Prologue : LBJ's foreign-affairs background, 1908-1948 . University of Texas at Austin, Department of History, Ph.D. dissertation. OCLC 670540426 .
- 1 2 Dallek, Robert (1991). Lone Star Rising: Lyndon Johnson and His Times, 1908-1960 . Oxford University Press US. ISBN 0-19-505435-0 . Retrieved 2008-04-05 .
- 1 2 3 Smallwood, James M. "Operation Texas: Lyndon B. Johnson's Attempt to Save Jews from the German Nazi Holocaust" . SFA ScholarWorks . Retrieved 2015-08-31 .
- ↑ Banta, Joseph (January 1964). "President Lyndon B. Johnson". The Christadelphian . 101 : 26.
- ↑ Pearce, David M. "Israel: God's People, God's Land" . The Christadelphian Magazine and Publishing Association . Retrieved 2008-04-04 .
- ↑ Smallwood, James (2012). "Operation Texas: Lyndon B. Johnson, The Jewish Question and the Nazi Holocaust" . East Texas Historical Journal . 50 (2): 88–106 . Retrieved 12 September 2016 .
- ↑ "Lyndon B. Johnson -- A Righteous gentile" . lyndonjohnsonandisrael.blogspot.com . Retrieved 2016-09-13 .
- ↑ Feldman, Claudia (September 27, 1998). "LBJ's Rescue Mission/ The little-known story of Lyndon Baines Johnson and friends helping Jews the Holocaust in Europe". Texas Magazine. Houston Chronicle . pp. Cover Story.
- ↑ Koop Kuper, Ivan (February 13, 2016). "Operation Texas: LBJ's Mysterious Mission to Save Jews" . aish.com . Retrieved January 28, 2017 .
- ↑ Anderson, Claudia Wilson (2012). "Congressman Lyndon B. Johnson, Operation Texas, and Jewish Immigration" . Southern Jewish History . 12 . Retrieved September 13, 2016 .
- 1 2 "Operation Texas: LBJ's Mysterious Mission to Save Jews" . 14 February 2016 . Retrieved 2016-09-13 .