We must remember that we are looking back into history – and it is always easy to use a “retrospectoscope” to accuse and condemn. The difficult problems of personalities and politics of the time are well analyzed and described in David Wyman’s book The Abandonment of the Jews, as well as a number of others.
If one must find guilty parties among the players of that time then we have not just President Roosevelt but Breckinridge Long, Sumner Welles, Sol Bloom, Emmanuel Cellar, Samuel Rosenman, Herbert Lehman, Bernard Baruch, Cordell Hull, Winston Churchill, and Pius XII, to list a few.
Rabbi Wise was persistent in his attempts to bring the stories of the massacres of European Jewry to Roosevelt, but, rightly, or wrongly, felt that Peter Bergson’s “mass movement” tactics would be counterproductive, given the degree of anti-Semitism in the United States at that time. The 1930s and early 40s hardly constituted an era of successful mass movements.
Yes, Wise had a massive ego; so did Roosevelt and many other “greats.” But Wise was unquestionably dedicated to the plight of European Jewry, and brought it to the attention to people he felt he could trust to respond appropriately.
Carl N. Steeg, MD
(Via JewishPress.com)
Where Were The Voices?
My dad has been gone since 1996 but I’m reminded frequently of the number indelibly branded on his powerful right arm – B2299.
I’m reminded whenever I hear a survivor’s story (and wonder how I would have fared in the same circumstances) or when I hear someone saying it never really happened.
It’s a reminder that something terribly wrong happened in a terrible place called Auschwitz and everywhere else the Nazis systematically killed six million Jews.
I’m blessed to have my mom still with me. She was a child in hiding in Poland at the hands of righteous gentiles but her story is no less horrifying. Living without food in constant fear was the way she and my grandma existed in a hole under a cow barn.
I guess this is all coming up for me now as I hear the news about a presidential candidate who wants to keep a group of people out of the country for what he believes is the safety and security of Americans. And with his statement has come an outpouring of outraged reaction from people of all races and religions.
But where were such voices of outrage 70 years ago when my family and our Jewish brothers and sisters were being marched to their deaths? Were they less deserving to live their lives the way Hashem wanted?
Where were the voices?
Ron James
San Diego, CA
