New book says FDR tried to save Jewish refugees
NEW YORK – A new book disputes widely held assumptions that President Franklin D. Roosevelt was insensitive to the plight of European Jews under the Nazis, and instead concludes that he tried to arrange resettlement for thousands of refugees in the late 1930s, only to be thwarted by his own State Department.
“Most of the initiatives to resettle refugees in underdeveloped areas proved impossible, met substantial resistance abroad, or developed very slowly partly because of resistance by the Department of State,” the Center for Jewish History says in a statement about the book.
Rafael Medoff, a Holocaust author and director of Washington’s David S. Wyman Institute for Holocaust Studies, vigorously dismissed the idea that Roosevelt was committed to saving Jews.
“Roosevelt may have talked about mass resettlement of Jewish refugees but actions speak louder than words,” he said.