FDR’S DISAPPOINTING RESPONSE TO KRISTALLNACHT by Rafael Medoff (Part 2 of 5)
(Dr. Medoff is founding director of The David S. Wyman Institute for Holocaust Studies, www.WymanInstitute.org and author of 15 books about the Holocaust and Jewish history.)
According to the recent Ken Burns documentary, “The Roosevelts,” President Franklin D. Roosevelt responded to the 1938 Kristallnacht pogrom more forcefully than any other world leader. But the truth is that FDR responded with superficial gestures rather than meaningful action.
On the night of November 9-10, 1938, mobs of Nazi stormtroopers unleashed a hurricane of violence and destruction upon the Jews of Germany. Hundreds of Jews were beaten in the streets, and more than 90 were murdered. About 30,000 more were dragged off to concentration camps. Several hundred synagogues were burned to the ground, while fire fighters stood by, under orders from the Hitler government to act only to keep fires from spreading to property owned by non-Jews. An estimated 7,000 Jewish business were ransacked. The violence became known as Kristallnacht, the “Night of the Glass,” a reference to the widespread smashing of windows of Jewish homes and shops.
Ken Burns’ “The Roosevelts” emphasized that FDR was “the only leader of a democratic nation to dare denounce” the pogrom. Six days after the violence ended, Roosevelt told a press conference that he “could scarcely believe such things could occur” in the 20th century.
FDR also took two steps. He extended the visas of the approximately 15,000 German Jewish refugees who were then in the United States as tourists–but he also announced that liberalization of America’s immigration policy was “not in contemplation.” Roosevelt alsorecalled the U.S. ambassador from Germany for “consultations”
–but he rejected suggestions by some members of Congress to break diplomatic ties with the Hitler regime.
The narrator on “The Roosevelts” pointed out that Roosevelt’s temporary recall of the ambassador was “something neither Britain nor France dared do.”