In a moving scene by Auschwitz, an English-speaking Holocaust survivor told his story, surrounded by a group of 25 boys from Ateres Shimon from Far Rockaway.
Rabbi Shmuel Beller, 92, grew up in the Polish town of Oświęcim which later became the most notorious concentration camp associated with the Holocaust – Auschwitz.
Emotional, with his voice choked as tears streamed down his face, R’ Beller screamed “Unbelievable what the murderers, these Germans Yemach Shemam did! Where was Roosevelt, President Roosevelt Yemach Sememo?! He could of saved alot of Jews!
“He didn’t!”
“The Rasha (Roosevelt) Yemach Shemo!”
R’ Beller was 12 when World War II began and spent five years being transported to ghettos and labor camps until he was sent to a concentration camp at the end of the war. He survived the camp, endured a death march, and was ultimately liberated but ironically almost didn’t survive eating solid food after being liberated. He became critically ill and was hospitalized for three months.
WATCH THESE EMOTIONAL CLIPS BELOW
Rabbi Beller has previously said that after the war he was no longer religious, but the Klausenberger Rebbe drew him close and influenced him to become religious again.
Rabbi Beller gradually realized he was the only survivor of his family. He eventually discovered five surviving friends from his home town, adding that none of his friends were still religious and it was a miracle that he became religious.
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29 Responses
Deepest respects to you SIR!!
I’m one of the guides at Yad Vashem and, some months ago, I had the signal honor of guiding Rav Shmuel, his wife and daughter around the museum. It was an extraordinarily moving experience for me and I learned much more than I was able to convey.
Rav Shmuel, if you are reading this, I speak of you and your experiences to every group that I guide around the museum!
Heartrending! Absolutely heartbreaking!
Can we have more footage of this tour?
Lets all take a ferry to N.J. where Roosevelt’s home and grave is. Let’s throw up and spit on his grave. Does anyone know of a curse to say on his grave? May he burn in hell together with Chamberlain.
Roosevelt is a rasha who has the blood of millions of Jews on his hands.
This is obviously an emotional topic, but let’s understand a few things. There were traitor Jews in his administration who were partially responsible. There was a powerful German lobby in the US at the time who didn’t want war. Roosevelts legacy is not black and white.
He didn’t get to hell yet… he still is bouncing around the world from one end to the other… just wait.. they are preparing his punishment
It’s so sad when Jews remain ignorant and talk about spitting on the grave of a President. What will that accomplish? Will it really make you feel good? FDR certainly was far from perfect but to say he was a rabid Anti-Semite who wanted the Jews killed makes you sound like angry ignorant children.
(Obviously I’m not referring to the survivor. He gets a pass on everything he does. I’m talking about the commenters who will say the most vile things but will never take the time to read the history, facts, and nuance of this craziest time in world history.)
Bless this Man, his family and all those who are listening or part of this amazing dialogue……Roosevelt’s memory will go down in the horror of what he was
I’m not sure why any Jew would want to visit Ashwitz, it’s basically giving tourist money to the same economy and country that killed our grandparents!!
When you walk in the street every Goy you see probably had a grandparent that murdered ours and then we boost their economy by making it a tourist attraction???
Crazy!!!!
The Tzaar and anguish these survivors have to live on a daily basis is unfathomable. It was very brave of him to go to the very site where he witnessed these atrocities and it unfortinately bought terrible memories back to him. These people will go straight to Gan Eden, no questions asked
“It’s so sad when Jews remain ignorant and talk about spitting on the grave of a President.”
Billywee,
The only ignorance is on the part of those who continue to defend and even worship FDR. He had large majorities in both the House and Senate for most of his presidency and sufficient intelligence regarding the Final Solution during the war. FDR could have relaxed immigration quotas but his own visceral hatred and that of his Quisling Jews, who advised him to not even meet with the hundreds of Rabbis who marched on Washington in 1943, sealed the fate of millions.
May Roosevelt yimach shemo burn in gehinom for his cowardice and apathy towards the murder of Klal Yisroel. However, let’s not also forget the reshoim within the Reform Community who also played a part in the lack of action from America on the death camps, such as Stephan Wise yimach shemo who not only refused to help efforts by the Orthodox organisation Vaad Hatzalah to try and save yidden in Nazi Germany and inform the US government about what was happening in the death camps, but actively sabotaged these operations because they didn’t want to be seen as “disloyal to their home country”. These reshoim were willing to let their own fellow Jews die in order for the goyim to hate them just a little less. May Roosevelt yimach shemo suffer, and his Reformi cronies like Wise as well.
> Halacha12345
While the Polish people certainly were guilty of cruelty and murder of Jews during the holocaust, they weren’t the ones who built the concentration camps. That was Nazi Germany, in fact many poles were also put in concentration camps as well.
The real question is if you were President in 1940, what would you have done?
Only after WW2 has America maintained a large army. At the start of the war the US Army had under 200,000 soldiers. Smaller than Portugal.
You think they could of just stepped in and saved the Jews against a modern advanced German army of millions and a huge Air Force?
Presidents aren’t in total control. There was a huge isolationist movement in America. America and the world was just pulling out of a deep depression. The unemployment rate in 1940 was at 14%. Where would he have put these millions of Jews? How would he afford to house and feed them? Where would they get jobs and how would Americans feel losing out on jobs to these immigrants? How with Europe in chaos would he vet these Jews to make sure German spies and saboteurs weren’t being let in? How would he keep out the Jewish Communists of which there were many?
I could go on and on. It shows a certain small mindedness and ignorance to just say millions of Jews should have been let in without understanding the factors. In the 1930’s, the height of the depression, he let in over 125,000 German Jews.
Oskar Shindler is considered a hero for saving 1,100 Jews. Why aren’t you spitting on his grave because he didn’t save 2,000 or 5,000 Jews?
People talk about bombing the tracks. The bombs back then weren’t very powerful and only hit their target 10% of the time. Do you think damaging a few hundred feet of track which would have been repaired in a few hours would of changed anything?
People talk about why they didn’t bomb the crematoria. Do you think they would of sent the Jews home because they didnt have an efficient way to burn the bodies?
The American strategy was that the best way to stop the killing was by destroying the Nazis. Therefore they invested all the resources in achieving that goal.
Just because you disagree with their policy doesn’t mean you should vomit on anyones grave.
I’m sure you’ll find Jews who will find a defense for Stalin and Arafat too, just as they defend Franklin Roosevelt.
@billywee
With regard to your first question: Yes, I would’ve bombed the tracks.
Second question: Yes. The USA would’ve caused a big dent. Stop with the revisionism!! The USA won the war.
Next point: isolationist, my foot. The USA was already bombing German positions in Europe.
Please understand: While America was bombing German targets with a command from the President, the air force could’ve moved a few yards and bombed the tracks. Please. Are. You. For. Real. They could’ve bombed the tracks even with your 10% target hit rate (which btw I’ve never ever heard of ever before. Please source your Alleged facts)
Don’t think I’m just an emotional guy who lost my grandfather in the Holocaust. No. It’s. Not. just. me. Your attempted defense of President Roosevelt holds no water and, is quite frankly, grasping at straws.
In fact, President Bush asked Secretary Condoleezza Rice while visiting Yad V’shem in January 2008 why the USA did not bomb the tracks.
Twelve years ago I wrote an open letter that was published by the Yeshiva World.
http://www.theyeshivaworld.com/news/general/13673/out-of-the-mailbag-to-yw-editor-open-letter-to-president-bush.html
In my letter I was very generous. I wrote “President Roosevelt erred”.
Billy, With all due respect It was more than just an error. Rabbi Shmuel Beller, feels that President Roosevelt has blood on his hands for not bombing the tracks How can you blame him??? Notwithstanding your comments, if it was Roosevelt’s relatives that were being slaughtered and cremated, would Roosevelt not have have bombed the tracks?????
All your attempted defenses fail when you ask yourself this question:
Had President Roosevelt’s relatives been in the crematorium, I can guarantee you that bombing the tracks would been the first thing the President would’ve done.
IMHO That’s part of Rabbi Shmuel Beller’s pain. He feels that President Roosevelt failed humanity. How Can anyone blame him?
May Hashem avenge all the blood that was spilled and bring us our biggest nechama. Moshiach and Techiyas Hameisim. May it come speedily in our days. And May Rabbi Shmuel Beller witness our Redemption with much health.
Where was Roosevelt? Trying to win the war. He and Eisenhower had to focus all resources on defeating the Nazis. During the winter of 1944-45, tens of thousands of people starved to death in the Netherlands. Was Roosevelt anti-Dutch?
No, there was no attempt made to bomb Auschwitz. However Buchenwald, Dachau, Bergen-Belsen, and many other camps were in Germany, within easy reach of bombers from Britain. Were any of them ever bombed? Remember that until the end of the war, nearly all their inmates were non-Jewish.
The futility of bombing concentration camps was well recognized at the time. On 1 July 1944, A. Leon Kubowitzki, head of the Rescue Department of the World Jewish Congress, sent a letter to the War Refugee Board saying:
The destruction of the death installations can not be done by bombing from the air, as the first victims would be the Jews … and such a bombing would be a welcome pretext for the Germans… the Soviet Government [should[ be approached with the request that it should dispatch groups of paratroopers to seize the buildings …
By the time emigration had become impossible, 72% of German Jews had left, including 83% of young people. Most did not go the the United States, not because of restrictive quotas, but because of the distance, expense, and lack of jobs. Instead they went to “safe” countries like Poland, France, and the Netherlands. What happened subsequently was no fault of FDR.
> 1
> Billywee
Let us get some context here. The complaint is not “mainly” about 1940 or 1941. The “main” complaint is 1944 when US knew full well what Auschwitz actually was doing, and bombers were already flying near Auschwitz on a daily basis to bomb nearby targets. The bombers (at times) were so close that they could heard from Auschwitz. Yet the administration refused to allow a single bomb to be diverted to do something like blow up the railway lines. Every day that the railway lines would not function would literally save 10,000 Jews, which was the average extermination rate in Auschwitz at the time.
At around the same time, the administration prolonged the war, and cost not only Jewish lives but American lives as well, by literally saving the economy of Greece when Greece was occupied by the Germans (if the economy of Greece died the German soldiers would have no funds in that part of the world and the German war effort in that part of the world would crumble).
Even if there was something Roosevelt could have done, why should he have? He had no obligation to interfere. It was none of his business. His job was winning the war, not saving Jews. The war was not being fought to save the Jews, it was fought to stop Hitler conquering more countries.
The US was only in it in the first place because Hitler foolishly declared war on it; without that the US would have gone to war only against Japan and not against Germany, just as the USSR was at war only against Germany and not against Japan. Hitler’s generals urged him to leave the US alone and let the Japanese fight it themselves, since they started it, but Hashem addled his brains and caused him to ignore their advice. Once he declared war and attacked the US it had no choice but to fight him, so it did.
Saving Jews (or anyone else) was not part of the mission. But by defeating the Germans the Jews were saved. Had Hitler listened to his generals the US would have stayed out and who knows what would have happened r”l to us.
Billywee,
Enough of your shameful apologies for the anti-Semitic FDR and the self-hating Jews in his administration. By 1943 the government knew what was happening to the Jews of Europe and could have let them into this country. The Va’ad Hatzalah was raising funds and had sponsors available for these immigrants but on numerous occasions, government officials wouldn’t even meet with them. The sad truth is that FDR hasted Jews and his Jewish supporters, like Stephen Wise, didn’t want their “filthy” brothers and sisters polluting their “new Jerusalem”.
Georgeg, the I.G. Farben synthetic fuel and rubber plant had been a military target for at least a year, with dozens of surveillance flights taking photos sent to teams of specialized interpreters. The famous aerial photographs of Auschwitz remained in negative form until 1978. The columns of prisoners on the way to the gas chambers would not have been visible given the primitive enlargement technology of the time.
Specific, actionable news of Auschwitz, the Vrba-Wetzler report, reached Budapest at the end of April 1944. There would have been insufficient time to mount a bombing raid, even if anyone thought it advisable. Deportation of Hungarian Jews started on 15 May 1944 and was completed on 9 July 1944. The first official proposal to bomb the crematoria was made on 8 November 1944.
Auschwitz was chosen by the Nazis because it was a rail hub on the western border of the Austro-Hungarian empire. Bombing one rail line would have simply meant a temporary diversion around a somewhat longer route, for the few days it took to repair the tracks. The Allies did bomb rail bridges, yards, and stations at the time–in France, preparing for the D-Day invasion. Any sacrifice of American air crews for a similar mission in Eastern Europe would have been impossible to justify.
Why only Roosevelt? Why aren’t you mad at Stalin or the Presidents of Argentina, Chile, Australia, China, etc.?
Why was it FDR’s job to save the Jews that when he didn’t do enough he’s vilified? Do you hate the Presidents that didn’t save the 1.5 million Armenians that were killed in the Turkish genocide?
What about the Presidents that took years to act when Muslims in Bosnia were being slaughtered?
Jews are no different than anyone else. It’s not the job of a President to risk his own citizen’s lives to save a group of people thousands of miles away. Also, a mother in Nebraska had no obligation to risk losing her 3 sons to save your Uncles. Why should her own son’s lives be less important to her than your Uncle in Europe?
> Milhouse
As I said in a previous post, the U.S./FDR saved entire Greece at great cost to their own country and to the great detriment of the U.S. war effort. So much for “(or anyone else) was not part of the mission”.
Further, it seems self-evident that for the relatively petty cost of dropping a few bombs on the railways that the tens-of-thousands (quickly adding up to hundreds of thousands) saved behind enemy lines would itself put an ever increasing strain on the German war machine itself as it had to divert resources to managing such unwieldy numbers causing havoc.
Billywee isnt totally wrong
Could the allies have done more , Absolutely, However bombing the tracks would not have dont alot since they could have easily been fixed , bombs in those days were not smart bombs, they were just bombs you dropped and hoped it hit the target, there was not gurnatee it was going to hit anything
also the allies DID bomb Auschwitz on September 13, 1944. It was an accident as they missed their target as they meant to hit the IG Farben factory nearby . The killing continued while the bombing was going on.
Unfortunatly the Vaad Hatzallah didnt exactly have the right idea either. The Nazis did not want to free any jews, they just wanted more money to rob american jews and prolong the war. Many times the Nazis took bribes and killed their victims anyway. The Nazis used Briberly as a means of theft not as buying influence. Eichman YMSH was a mass killer he was even a fake when he was put on trial in 1962, He acted like a nice old grandfather rather than a cunning mass murderer , what makes you think you could trust him to take a bribe and then release jews. He probably would have taken the Money or trucks and killed the jews anyway
Georgeg, I am puzzled by your reference to the USA having “saved” Greece. The Germans pulled out in October 1944. The British moved in troops very much against the wishes of FDR, who saw Churchill trying to prop up the British Empire and the Greek monarchy. When the British left after the war, there was a very nasty and destructive civil war which lasted until 1949. That was the start of Marshall Plan financial aid, which amounted to only 3% of that given to other European countries.
I’m also puzzled by your statement “[B]y 1943 the government knew what was happening to the Jews of Europe and could have let them into this country. ” The Nazis would not let them out, and those who did escape had better sense than to cross an ocean full of German submarines. They would have had no trouble staying in England.
Auschwitz held up to 30,000 prisoners. A couple days’ delay in shipping Hungarian Jews would not have affected the number sent each day to the cremetoria.
It is interesting that criticism of FDR’s actions during WW2 regarding the Holocaust did not start until 1968. That’s when direct experience of the fighting, suffering, and dying was being replaced by attitudes towards the Vietnam war.
There is in fact one thing and one thing only which could have stopped the Holocaust: if the atomic bomb were ready a couple of years earlier. I hope nobody is about to blame Jewish scientists for all the delay.
I cry with deep sorrow.