When the National Socialist government of Germany was exterminating Jews and seeking to eliminate European Jewry, the rest of the civilized world did very little.When Ambassador Charles-Roux, France's representative at the Holy See, had learned from Pope Pius XII what the Nazis were really like, he tried to warn his own government of the danger from Hitler and his thugs. They would not listen. What had the French to fear from an Austrian-born house-painter?
The British and American governments were no better, despite the warnings of Sir Winston Churchill and his friends.
Since the seizure of power by Hitler, the murderous intentions of the Third Reich were well-known to Western governments, even if the people were still unaware. Eye-witness accounts were reported in Western newspapers like The New York Times e.g. the account from a boy released from Oranienburg concentration camp was published on 6 October 1933. Reports were given in the British House of Commons, too.
Nevertheless, the US government did not boycott the Berlin Olympic Games of 1936 despite the fact that the grossly anti-Semitic Nuremberg Laws had been passed by then.
A month after assuming office, Hitler was already making sarcastic references to the US refusal to allow Jewish refugees into the USA (New York Times, 6 April 1933).
The New York Times tells Americans about KristallnachtJust 5 days after Kristallnacht, when Jewish shops were burned and looted and synagogues burned down, and 25,000 Jews were taken to concentration camps, Franklin Roosevelt was asked at a White House press conference if he would recommend a relaxation of US immigration restrictions so that Jewish refugees could be allowed in.
He replied - and let his words live in infamy! - as follows:
"That is not in contemplation. We have the quota system."
Yes, there it is!
The darling of the American Left himself!
Refusing to help the persecuted and oppressed Jews to escape certain death and torture under the Nazis.
What an appalling disgrace!
Jews being led away to concentration camps from the Warsaw Ghetto after KristallnachtAnd Roosevelt did not stop there in his refusal to help suffering mankind.
Under the influence of his wife, Eleanor, he also refused to help those in Soviet Russia and Eastern Europe who were being savagely persecuted by the Communists, too.
Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn being searched in a Soviet Gulag.Roosevelt, under the influence of his wife, Eleanor, never condemned them as they imprisoned and murdered millions upon millions
It is frankly amazing that there are still Americans who consider this man to have been a "great" President of the USA.
I beg to differ.
...
Eleanor Roosevelt saved many Jewish lives and was a huge friend to Israel. Please learn the facts before perpetuating incorrect information that tarnishes a worthy person's legacy.
ReplyDeleteNancy Shear
Don't forget the repatriations after the war of Soviet soldiers and refugees and even of the descendants of the so-called "White Russian" royalists who had taken refuge in western Europe decades since.
ReplyDeleteDear Nancy,
ReplyDeleteI challenge you to find any evidence that Eleanor Roosevelt "saved many Jewish lives". On the contrary, she declined to do anything for the European Jews persecuted by Hitler.
I don't want to sound insulting but I have to say that I am constantly amazed by the amount of sheer poppycock that you Americans are prepared to swallow.
I do not blame you. You are, I know, taught these things at school, at home and by the media. It's not your fault.
I feel sure that you are lovely lady, full of compassion and love for your fellow man. So please don't take my objections to the view you expressed as in any way hostile to you personally.
But the truth must be told.
Eleanor Roosevelt was not a "worthy person". She was a fellow-traveller with totalitarianism and turned a blind eye to some of the greatest evils of our time.
Although no-one ever elected her to office, she claimed the right to be a public figure purely by virtue of her marriage to FDR and, at the same time, claimed to be some kind of a Feminist. This is just hypocrisy - plain and simple.
Here is what she wrote in her column My Day about the Jews in 1943, at the height of their persecution:
"On the other hand, largely because of environment and economic conditions, there are people among them who cringe, who are dishonest, who try to take advantage of their neighbors, who are aggressive and unattractive."
[My Day column, "Jews in Europe", 13 August 1943]
Here is what even her allies and admirers have had to say about her:
"The one strange silence from Eleanor was on Germany's treatment of Jews from 1933 to 1938. Though Jews were disenfranchised, thrown out of the professions, and finally not allowed to own property or shop in most stores, Eleanor and Franklin said nothing about it, not even in their private correspondence. Cook rightfully expresses shock at this horrendous omission."
["Eleanor Roosevelt: 1933-1938" by Ann Carol, from Off Our Backs, Oct 1999.
"Like others in the WASP hierarchy, Mrs Roosevelt displayed a casually anti-Semitic attitude in private. Forced to attend a party for Bernard Baruch when FDR was Assistant Secretary of the Navy, Eleanor wrote to her mother-in-law, 'I'd rather be hung than seen at' it, since it would be 'mostly Jews'. Afterward, she reported back: 'The Jew party was appalling. I never wish to hear money, jewels and sables mentioned again'".
[By Maureen Dowd, reviewing
Eleanor Roosevelt, Volume 2:1933-1938, by Blanche Wiesen Cook, New York:Viking, 1999.]
So you see, my dear Nancy, fine lady though I am sure you are, you have been badly misled about Mrs Roosevelt.
Tribunus.
Tribunus,
ReplyDeleteIn the 1920s I believe FDR also petitioned Harvard to impose a quota on the number of Jews admitted.
Something like 1/3 of the incoming freshman classes were Jews, and FDR didn't think it was good to allow so many Jews to attend the school.
Louis
Tribunus,
ReplyDeleteI appreciate your perspective about the Masonic influence in the U.S. and in U.S. foreign policy historicaly. However, some your analyses go over the edge, particulary with regard to your anti-Americanism. I would suggest you hold it up to a mirror. The comment of Eleanor Roosevelt about Jews sounds like you, yourself talking about America and Americans: "On the other hand, largely because of environment and economic conditions, there are people among them who cringe, who are dishonest, who try to take advantage of their neighbors, who are aggressive and unattractive."
You've mentioned over and over the Masonic influence in the U.S., and although you recently admitted such influence in the U.K., you hardly harp on that. You talk about U.S. intervention in Mexico, but the U.S. for the last 150 years has been a more hospitable place for Catholics and Catholicism than has Mexico and its atheistic and occultist leaders. What about the Masonic aspects of Italian and French history which was much more pernicious than American Masonry and led to a continent increasingly dechristianized?
Yet another anonymous person who is afraid to say who he is!
ReplyDeleteWell, Mr Anonymous, you are too defensive. The truth is the truth and it ought to be told.
If you think it untrue then prove it otherwise. You'll get all the space you need on this blog.
Otherwise stop moaning.
Until ill-informed Americans learn a bit more about their history they are likely to repeat their mistakes.
And since America is the most powerful nation on earth that is a very important priority.
Those Americans who wish to hide their head in the sand are doing no favours to themselves, nor their country, nor the world.
Face it, buddy! Eleanor Roosevelt was bad news.
All the best,
Tribunus.
Oh - and by the way. I am not anti-American. Only anti-dumb ass Americans.
ReplyDeleteSee the difference?
Trib.
Please correct the caption on the image of the Jews being led away to concentration camps. That photo was not from Kristallnacht. That was from the Warsaw Ghetto uprising of 1943.
ReplyDeleteYou can consult various sources for the accuracy of this fact, including this one:
http://www.holocaustresearchproject.org/ghettos/
Freddie,
ReplyDeleteThat was after Kristallnacht, not before, so the caption is not incorrect.
However, I've added a gloss.
That is why the caption is misleading, because you're saying that the event in the photo happened "during" Kristallnacht.
ReplyDeleteOk, fair comment. I've made the change accordingly.
ReplyDeleteTrib.