MY SAY: HOLOCAUST BLAME GAME
The ever brilliant and thoughtful writer Edward Rothstein has a column, below on a new exhibit at the United States Holocaust Museum- “Americans and the Holocaust” which rightfully accuses American media and policies.
“What did we know and when did we know it? And what could have been done?These are the questions posed by a new long-term exhibition at the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, “Americans and the Holocaust.” And behind them is a long-simmering indictment. The accusations: that there was a continuous refusal before World War II to accept larger numbers of Jewish refugees; that there was a seeming refusal during the war to accept the scale of the murders; and that there was an outright refusal late in the war to expend any military effort in disrupting the Nazi killing machine.”
What about Great Britain’s outrageous role in enabling Hitler’s killing machine? Britain’s notorious White Paper of 1939 which cut off Jewish immigration to Palestine on the eve of the Holocaust was a death sentence for millions of European Jews trapped in Europe.
After World War 11, British perfidy persisted and the 1939 White Paper remained the basis of British policy. Its cruel provisions kept wretched survivors of the Holocaust trapped and homeless in displaced persons’ camps in hostile European nations or behind barbed wire in detention camps in Cyprus. They fired on half of the “freedom ships” taking survivors to Palestine.
The British Navy was ordered to attack in case of any resistance. They used tear gas, clubs and firearms against refugees who occasionally fought back with sticks and eating cutlery.
When these ships reached the Palestine coast they were apprehended, boarded, and often rammed by the Royal Navy. Passengers were herded and transported to squalid prison camps on Cyprus formerly used to house German prisoners of war!
There is monumental blame to go around, but Britain gets a pass. rsk
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