“Europe’s Jews were Hitler’s prisoners,” according to the new Ken Burns documentary, “The Roosevelts,” which aired on PBS earlier this month. And since the Jews were prisoners, there was nothing the United States could do to help them “other than to obliterate that madman and his monstrous regime.”
The claim that there was nothing President Franklin D. Roosevelt and his administration could have done to rescue Jews is not new. FDR and his spokesmen themselves made that claim repeatedly during the Holocaust years. They even coined a sound byte to give their policy a positive spin: “Rescue through victory.”
To which Congressman Emanuel Celler replied: “Victory, the spokesmen say, is the only solution…After victory, the disembodied spirits will not present so difficult a problem; the dead no longer need food, drink and asylum.”
The truth is that Hitler’s Europe was not hermetically sealed. We know that many Jews could have been rescued prior to the Allied liberation, because many Jews DID escape or were rescued before the war ended, without the help of the Roosevelt administration.
More than 26,000 European Jewish refugees reached Palestine between 1941 and 1944 in transports organized by Zionist activists. An estimated 27,000 Jewish refugees escaped to Switzerland and were granted haven during the war years, though tens of thousands more reached the Swiss border but were turned back. More than 7,000 Danish Jews were smuggled out of Nazi-occupied Denmark to safety in Sweden in 1943. Thousands of French Jews escaped the 1942 deportations by fleeing to Spain. Thousands more reached Allied-liberated Italy.
There was a myriad of ways to save Jews within Europe.
For example, in 1944, the U.S. government’s War Refugee Board –operating with almost no support from the White House or other government branches– convinced Rumania to move 48,000 Jews out of the path of the retreating German Army.
The WRB also financed operations to help refugees survive in France, Germany, Italy, Czechoslovakia, and Hungary, including bribing German officials, providing supplies and forged documents, and sustaining 8,000 Jewish orphans hidden in France.
The WRB also mobilized the international pressure that stopped the deportation of Jews from Budapest to Auschwitz in 1944, and Raoul Wallenberg, who was financed and assisted by the Board, saved many thousands in Budapest. As a result, some 120,000 Jews were still alive in Hungary at war’s end.
There were also numerous opportunities to save Jews that were squandered.
For instance, Rumania offered in early 1943 to allow 70,000 Jews to leave Transnistria. The Allied governments ignored the offer.
The War Refugee Board drew up a plan for pressuring Spain to shelter more refugees. The plan was blocked by the U.S. ambassador in Madrid, Carlton Hayes.
More than 200 rabbis held in the Vittel internment camp in France were deported to their deaths in 1944 because the U.S. State Department stalled for seven weeks before asking America’s allies to vouch for the rabbis’ questionable Latin American passports.
The Roosevelt administration refused to order the bombing of the Auschwitz gas chambers or the railways leading there, on the grounds that it would have required diverting aircraft from the battlefront. But, in fact, U.S. planes repeatedly flew over Auschwitz in 1944 when they struck German oil factories within a few miles of the crematoria, and when they dropped supplies for the Polish Home Army.
It was also possible to ship food and medical supplies to Jews in Nazi Europe. Pressure from the War Refugee Board resulted in the Red Cross delivering 40,000 food parcels to concentration camp prisoners in 1944–45. Near war’s end, the Board itself acquired trucks and delivered additional parcels to prisoners—and even brought 1,400 women refugees back across the Swiss border to safety.
When it came to the feasibility of rescuing Jews from Europe, Ken Burns’ “The Roosevelts” got it wrong. “Rescue through victory” was not a policy; it was an excuse. There were indeed ways to rescue Jews prior to victory. The problem is that in the White House, there was no will to do so.
“Europe’s Jews were Hitler’s prisoners,” according to the new Ken Burns documentary, “The Roosevelts,” which aired on PBS earlier this month. And since the Jews were prisoners, there was nothing the United States could do to help them “other than to obliterate that madman and his monstrous regime.”
The claim that there was nothing President Franklin D. Roosevelt and his administration could have done to rescue Jews is not new. FDR and his spokesmen themselves made that claim repeatedly during the Holocaust years. They even coined a sound byte to give their policy a positive spin: “Rescue through victory.”
To which Congressman Emanuel Celler replied: “Victory, the spokesmen say, is the only solution…After victory, the disembodied spirits will not present so difficult a problem; the dead no longer need food, drink and asylum.”
The truth is that Hitler’s Europe was not hermetically sealed. We know that many Jews could have been rescued prior to the Allied liberation, because many Jews DID escape or were rescued before the war ended, without the help of the Roosevelt administration.
More than 26,000 European Jewish refugees reached Palestine between 1941 and 1944 in transports organized by Zionist activists. An estimated 27,000 Jewish refugees escaped to Switzerland and were granted haven during the war years, though tens of thousands more reached the Swiss border but were turned back. More than 7,000 Danish Jews were smuggled out of Nazi-occupied Denmark to safety in Sweden in 1943. Thousands of French Jews escaped the 1942 deportations by fleeing to Spain. Thousands more reached Allied-liberated Italy.
There was a myriad of ways to save Jews within Europe.
For example, in 1944, the U.S. government’s War Refugee Board –operating with almost no support from the White House or other government branches– convinced Rumania to move 48,000 Jews out of the path of the retreating German Army.
The WRB also financed operations to help refugees survive in France, Germany, Italy, Czechoslovakia, and Hungary, including bribing German officials, providing supplies and forged documents, and sustaining 8,000 Jewish orphans hidden in France.
The WRB also mobilized the international pressure that stopped the deportation of Jews from Budapest to Auschwitz in 1944, and Raoul Wallenberg, who was financed and assisted by the Board, saved many thousands in Budapest. As a result, some 120,000 Jews were still alive in Hungary at war’s end.
There were also numerous opportunities to save Jews that were squandered.
For instance, Rumania offered in early 1943 to allow 70,000 Jews to leave Transnistria. The Allied governments ignored the offer.
The War Refugee Board drew up a plan for pressuring Spain to shelter more refugees. The plan was blocked by the U.S. ambassador in Madrid, Carlton Hayes.
More than 200 rabbis held in the Vittel internment camp in France were deported to their deaths in 1944 because the U.S. State Department stalled for seven weeks before asking America’s allies to vouch for the rabbis’ questionable Latin American passports.
The Roosevelt administration refused to order the bombing of the Auschwitz gas chambers or the railways leading there, on the grounds that it would have required diverting aircraft from the battlefront. But, in fact, U.S. planes repeatedly flew over Auschwitz in 1944 when they struck German oil factories within a few miles of the crematoria, and when they dropped supplies for the Polish Home Army.
It was also possible to ship food and medical supplies to Jews in Nazi Europe. Pressure from the War Refugee Board resulted in the Red Cross delivering 40,000 food parcels to concentration camp prisoners in 1944–45. Near war’s end, the Board itself acquired trucks and delivered additional parcels to prisoners—and even brought 1,400 women refugees back across the Swiss border to safety.
When it came to the feasibility of rescuing Jews from Europe, Ken Burns’ “The Roosevelts” got it wrong. “Rescue through victory” was not a policy; it was an excuse. There were indeed ways to rescue Jews prior to victory. The problem is that in the White House, there was no will to do so.