Wednesday, October 2, 2019

FDR AND THE HOLOCAUST : A BREACH OF FAITH
by Rafael Medoff 

In 1932 when Franklin Delano Roosevelt was vying for the presidency of the United States, he made a campaign promise that he would champion the cause of "the forgotten man." Before the elections FDR said that he would support the Jewish people, and about 80 or 90% of the Jews voted for him after hearing that declaration. Why would they not? After all he made this pledge and they swallowed it up hook, line, and sinker. FDR would renege as soon as the elections were over. He basically closed the door on the Jews. This would become apparent when it came to the Holocaust. FDR was virulently anti-Semitic, and so was most of his Cabinet. There were many despicable cretins. One of them was fascist Breckinridge Long (he admired Mussolini), and was very impressed by Adolf Hitler's book Mein Kampf because of his opposition to Jews.  Long and FDR were long-time friends, and so Long  was placed in the State Department where he was in charge of the visa section. His attitude was to delay and postpone any Jewish immigrant who wanted to come to the United States with as many obstacles as possible. All these American Jews blindly trusted FDR to be a man of his word, and all he did was to turn his back on them.
FDR and the Holocaust is quite an eye-opener, although I have known for years about FDR's total abandonment of European Jewry during the Nazi genocide. But, he didn't just hate Jews. How about his  internment of Asians who were U.S. citizens? He also didn't like black people. (FDR had no interest in their civil rights, and refused to support anti-lynching legislation.) Some humanitarian. There's all these myths about FDR being there for the downtrodden when in actuality he could not have cared less.
This is a book that should be read by everyone, especially the American Jews who still idolize him today. Maybe they will learn something.
Highly recommended.