WCBSTV reports: A new book disputes widely held assumptions that President Franklin D. Roosevelt was insensitive to the plight of European Jews under the Nazis.
The book claims instead that he tried to arrange resettlement for thousands of refugees in the late 1930s, only to be thwarted by resistance from his own State Department.
The New York-based Center for Jewish History is holding a news conference Friday to publicize the book titled “Refugees and Rescue,” which will be released later this month.
It is being published by Indiana University Press in association with the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum.
Many historians disagree with the revisionist theory, saying Roosevelt didn’t do enough to help Jews escape Europe before World War II and ignored evidence of Adolf Hitler’s plans to exterminate them.
Elected to four terms in office, FDR served from 1933 to 1945 and is the only U.S. president to have served more than two terms.
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14 Responses
It’s been well documented that unofficial, but active policy of the U.S. gov’t under Roosevelt, from the mid 30’s until Roosevelt’s death was to deny visas to Jews whenever feasible.
The mainstream “history” is that the US was willing but unable to rescue Jewish refugees.
The “revisionist” theory (supported by the transcripts from Ultra interceptions of German communications), is that the Allies knew all about the holocaust, and made a deliberate decision not to interfere for reasons related to domestic politics (fear of both orthodox and socialists Jews coming to America, especially by reform Jews, fear of Jews moving to Palestine and disrupting the British Empire, etc.).
The article is discussing a rebuttal to the revisionist theory, but not a total one. There was a great deal of sympathy for saving Jews prior to the war (which only involved largely westernized Jews from Austria and Germany), so that’s no hiddush. As it was the percentage of German Jews who survived was quite high, at least compared to East European Jews. Saving a few hundred thousand largely assimilated Jews was controversial, and is well known.
Once the war began, rescue would have required getting the Germans to agree to allow East European Jews to leave Europe, and it became more complicated. Since the Allies had full knowledge of the holocaust (after all, they were reading Hitler’s private mail, cf Ultra), the decision not to grant assylum to Jewish refugees is more problematic. From what is in the article above, the books seems to be addressing the pre-war period, which isn’t as controversial.
The following was reported by YWN:
FDR Responsible For 190,000 Jewish Deaths
October 4, 2008
The following is a letter to editor in the Washington Post regarding a previous article in the publication:
Geoffrey Wheatcroft [Outlook, Sept. 28] recalled that in the 1920s, Congress slammed the door on “immigrants (even desperate Jews fleeing Nazi Europe).”
That’s true, as far as it goes. But immigration quotas were only part of the story. Many more Jews could have been saved if President Franklin D. Roosevelt — without changing a single law — had simply permitted the existing quotas to be filled.
The quota for immigrants from Germany and Austria would have allowed 27,370 refugees to enter the country each year. But the Roosevelt administration encouraged U.S. consular officials abroad to create bureaucratic obstacles to reduce refugee immigration to levels far below what the law allowed. Thus, during Hitler’s first year in power, 1933, less than 6 percent of the German quota was filled. The following year, less than 14 percent of those spaces were filled. During Hitler’s entire reign, 1933-45, less than 36 percent of the German-Austrian quota places were used.
During the years that the Nazis were slaughtering 6 million European Jews (1941 to 1945), nearly 190,000 quota places from Axis-controlled countries sat unused. That is 190,000 lives that could have been saved, had FDR shown even a minimal amount of humanitarian interest in their plight.
RAFAEL MEDOFF
And let us not forget the Rabbi’s march on Washington, when FDR slipped out the back door, totally ignoring them. A GROYCE “FEH!”
BALONEY to the inth degree.
Why does it seem to me that Orthodox Jews have a knee-jerk allergic reaction to hearing any possibility that FDR tried to help the Jews? Is it possible at all that he tried to help the Jews? Have we read the books and arguments on both sides of the issue? This book is being published in association with the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum. Do we have no respect for the museum’s opinion? Is it possible that we’ve overstepped the bounds on our expertise?
Chopnik; Do not call us Orthodox Jews we are called Jews. It is other types are Jews which need a special descriptor. Unaffliated, Reform, Conservetive, Secululer, Reconstuctionst, etc.
This is either history revision or a feeble meaningless effort on the part of FDR that did not fit in with his character. There are eye witnesses in Lakewood who went to speak with FDR who pretty much said his concerns are not those of the Jewish people in Europe.
#6 – actually, there is strong evidence that Reform Jews led by “rabbi” Stephen Wise actively lobbied against holocaust-rescue, especially after the US entered the war (the time frame of the “rabbi’s march”), when the issue was not admission of “cultured” German and Austrian Jews, but of “backwards” Eastern European Jews. Policies in 1933-1939 involved a totally different situation than in 1942-1945.
It should also be remember that the British Empire at the time was much larger than the US, and better located (being in Europe, and controlling Eretz Yisrael). Their antagonism to Jewish rescue was apparently based on fear of a zionist takeover in Palestine disrupting their empire (Churchill was still planning on preserving the British Empire, probably not a realistic goal).
Chopnik,
most of YWN’s readers don’t need to read the book to “know” it’s wrong. There’s no such thing as looking at both sides, if one of those sides is a liberal. I’m not saying I agree with that thought process.
bigkhuna,
everyone outside of the frum community calls us by a qualifier, Jew and gentile alike. and no Jewish group needs a qualifier….they’re just as Jewish as you or me. it’s our job (and only our job) to eliminate the need for such qualifiers by showing them the light of Torah.
Holocaust denial with different feathers
THIS BOOK IS A WHITEWASH JOB, ATTEMPTING TO PROTECT THE REPUTATION OF THE SECULAR JEWS’ FAVORITE LIBERAL PRESIDENT.
Roosevelt actively cooperated with his Anti-Semitic State Department and his Reform Jewish sycophants, led by “Rabbi” Stephen Wise, who schemed to bury any news of the Holocaust and to have the Irgun activists who tried to raise money to save Jews arrested and deported.
Poor Roosevelt–an innocent prisoner of his State Department–Indeed!
To see the REAL story, check out the book “The Secret War Against the Jews” by John Loftus.
There is a book by Ruth Gruber called “Haven” which describes the only actual resettlement of Jewish refugees in the US during the war. About 5,000 refugees (not all Jewish, though) were settled in Oswego, NY. A mikvah was even built there for their use.
The last time I was at his house and museum in Hyde Park, the Sefer Torah that was given to him (I have no clue why any organization would give a sefer Torah to any president)it was opened to the parsha on illicit relationships.