Williamsburg Regional Library

FDR and the Jews, Richard Breitman, Allan J. Lichtman

eng

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history

FDR and the Jews

sound recording

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843200156

Richard Breitman, Allan J. Lichtman

Nearly seventy-five years after World War II, a contentious debate lingers over whether Franklin Delano Roosevelt turned his back on the Jews of Hitler<U+2019>s Europe. Defenders claim that FDR saved millions of potential victims by defeating Nazi Germany. Others revile him as morally indifferent and indict him for keeping America<U+2019>s gates closed to Jewish refugees and failing to bomb Auschwitz<U+2019>s gas chambers. In an extensive examination of this impassioned debate, Richard Breitman and Allan J. Lichtman find that the president was neither savior nor bystander. In FDR and the Jews, they draw upon many new primary sources to offer an intriguing portrait of a consummate politician<U+2014>compassionate but also pragmatic<U+2014>struggling with opposing priorities under perilous conditions. For most of his presidency Roosevelt indeed did little to aid the imperiled Jews of Europe. He put domestic policy priorities ahead of helping Jews and deferred to others<U+2019> fears of an anti-Semitic backlash. Yet he also acted decisively at times to rescue Jews, often withstanding contrary pressures from his advisers and the American public. Even Jewish citizens who petitioned the president could not agree on how best to aid their co-religionists abroad

adult

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