Posted on 07/07/2005 7:11:04 PM PDT by wagglebee
Historians who specialize in the question of America's response to the Holocaust are urging the Franklin D. Roosevelt Museum to correct a panel in its exhibit that claims there was nothing President Roosevelt could have done to save many more Jews from the Holocaust.
Twenty-four historians who are experts in this field have signed a non-partisan petition, organized by The David S. Wyman Institute for Holocaust Studies, which was sent to the Museum's curator, Herman Eberhardt, on July 6, 2005.
The signatories include Prof. David Wyman, author of the best seller "The Abandonment of the Jews"; Prof. Samantha Power of Harvard University, author of the Pulitzer Prize-winning "'A Problem from Hell': America and the Age of Genocide"; and Prof. Greg Robinson of the University of Quebec, author of "By Order of the President: FDR and the Internment of Japanese Americans."
The text in the museum's panel states that "even Roosevelt's bitterest critics concede that nothing he could have done - including bombing the rails leading to Auschwitz in 1944 - would have saved significant numbers from annihilation, let alone dissuaded the Nazis from [murdering Jews]."
Wyman Institute director Dr. Rafael Medoff, commented: "The Roosevelt Museum is wrong to suggest that historians believe nothing could have been done by FDR to rescue Jews from Hitler. In fact, the opposite is true. Among scholars who specialize in this subject, there is an overwhelming consensus that Roosevelt could have taken many steps to save Jewish lives – as this non-partisan petition, signed by Jewish and non-Jewish historians alike, demonstrates."
The historians' petition describes the museum's text as "misleading and inaccurate," explaining: "There are numerous steps that the Roosevelt administration could have taken to save lives, such as granting refugees temporary haven in America or in Allied-controlled regions; pressuring the British to open Palestine to refugees; ordering the bombing of the gas chambers at Auschwitz or the railways leading to them; and giving broader funding and power to the U.S. War Refugee Board."
In an e-mail reply today, Eberhardt wrote that the museum's director, Dr. Cynthia Koch, "is considering the matter and will be responding to the petition as soon as possible."
The museum, a federally funded institution, is part of the official Franklin D. Roosevelt Presidential Library. It is located in Hyde Park, N.Y., where the Roosevelts lived.
Prof. Michael Berenbaum, former research director for the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington, D.C., described the Roosevelt museum's panel as "unbearable. It lacks all shame," and Marvin Kalb, of Harvard's Kennedy School of Government, noted that "even a less-than-serious review of World War II history would show that the Allies could have disrupted rail lines into Auschwitz and thereby damaged Hitler's killing machine."
I have always believed that FDR could have done more, he just didn't care.
I really wonder why he didn't act.
he definately couldve done something, but at the time the republicans were even more anti semetic, so they wanted to do even less. the repub sympathizers, like Lindberg, didnt even want to be at war. As a whole, the country truly didnt care and thats a shame.
Lindberg WAS NOT a Republican, he was a Nazi sympathizer.
he was, he was prodded by republicans to run against FDR in 1940 but turned it down.
However, the Jews were not the only ones to suffer from an American "tradition." 40000 Irish were turned away from US ports and dropped off on the rocks near Nova Scotia to die. There is also the fact that America was isolationist and adverse to foreign intervention... and it was up to Congress to declare War, if that is what is being inferred. One has to wonder if the previous harsh treatment of immigrants is the reason (in part) for the laxity of today.
The problem will never be resolved. I also saw a History Channel program that inferred wealthy Jews in the US, particularly those in Hollywood, should have done more but did not. Perceived class or ethnic differences?
Lindbergh had German children.
But criticizing FDR because FDR because he didn't do "enough" to save the Jews is just so much 20/20 hindsight. His job was to save America, and he did a damn good job of it. (militarily)
ML/NJ
He was a Democrat. He wanted a 5-year study to be sure of the intelligence.
This is actually news to anyone? (I'm not including the errant liberal who may be looking in)
And he was 1,000 times more "brutal" toward our enemies than George Bush ever dreamed of.
Thank God Durbin, Kennedy and our Star Media weren't around back then. The war would have lasted 20 years, and we would have lost 3 million men.
truly, you are an idiot. I just dont know what to say to someone who thinks that - i guess just read a history book. Germany trended towards Hitler because of the heavy repariations that were put upon them which causes their depression of the late 20's, even before there was a depression in the united states. and as much as you may not like FDR's economic policies, he was a damn good president because many other presidents would not have gone to war or faught as vigorously. So dont patronize the holocaust- as someone who had many many family members die, get a clue.
I don't think that it's a matter of criticizing Roosevelt for not doing enough.
This issue is that the museum erected a plaque that states -- affirmatively -- that there was nothing that he could have done that would have saved more Jews, and that even his bitterest critics agree that this is the case.
These historians are not trying to insert a new criticism of FDR into his museum, in my opinion. They are trying to correct the historical record which was distorted by the museum's curators.
Am I not entitled to put forth theories like everyone else? You obviously have too much emotionally invested in the argument to post on this thread. As for the 'idiot' comment, your poor spelling, grammar, and punctuation reveal your level of education.
This is very encouraging. fdr was one of the worst presidents we have ever had. His economic policy starkly chronicled in "fdr's folly" lenghtened and worsened the depression, and yalta cost us and eastern europe untolled misery, this just further confirms the disaster that is the liberal agenda.
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