America and the Holocaust: Draw your own conclusions
[link|http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/amex/holocaust/filmmore/reference/primary/index.html|America and the Holocaust]
President Roosevelt'S Apparent Reluctance To Help Europe'S Jews
Entry from Assistant Secretary of State Breckinridge Long's diary in which he notes that President Roosevelt supports his policy of encouraging consulates to "postpone and postpone and postpone" the granting of visas
A report written by Adoph Held, the president of the American Jewish Labor Committee recounting President Roosevelt's 29-minute meeting on December 8, 1942 with a small delegation of American Jewish Leaders
After the State Department confirmed reports that Hitler was planning to murder all the Jews in territories under German control, several American Jewish leaders including Rabbi Stephen Wise managed to arrange an audience with President Roosevelt. At this meeting, the only one FDR had with Jewish leaders about the Holocaust, the President was presented with a document outlining the Nazi plan to annihilate European Jews. As this report of the meeting indicates, the president was acquainted with details of the atrocities being committed by the Nazis.
Memorandum of Conversation by Mr. Harry L. Hopkins, Special Assistant to President Roosevelt regarding a meeting with Anthony Eden March 27, 1943
Four months after the State Department confirmed the dimensions of the Holocaust, British Foreign Secretary Anthony Eden met in Washington with President Roosevelt, Secretary of State Cordell Hull and Undersecretary of State Sumner Welles. At this meeting, Eden expressed his fear that Hitler might actually accept an offer from the Allies to move Jews out of areas under German control. No one present objected to Eden's statement.
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6. Bombing Railways And Auschwitz
Summary of the Auschwitz escapees report by Gerhart Riegner, World Jewish Congress, Geneva, sent under cover of R.E. Shoenfeld, U.S. charg\ufffd to Czech government in London, to Cordell Hull, Secretary of State, July 5, 1944
On April 7, 1944, two Slovakian Jews escaped from Auschwitz. By the end of the month they had reached the Jewish underground in Slovakia, where they gave a detailed account of the mass murder operations at the camp. The two men also warned that preparations were underway to murder the Jews of Hungary. Their report initiated a series of requests that the U.S. bomb the crematoria at Auschwitz and key rail links that would be used to transport Hungarian Jews to Poland.
Henry Morgenthau, Jr., Secretary of the Treasury to Assistant Secretary of War, Jan 28, 1944, asking that Theater Commanders be advised to cooperate with WRB rescue operations
Shortly after the establishment of the War Refugee Board, Henry Morgenthau, Jr. Secretary of the Treasury asked the War Department to advise theater commanders that they would be expected to cooperate with the Board in aiding "Axis victims to the fullest extent possible." No message to this effect was ever sent to military commanders.
Thomas T. Handy, Assistant Chief of Staff, Memorandum for the Chief of Staff, February 8, 1944, on reassuring the British that military forces will not be used to rescue refugees
Cable from Switzerland to Agudas Israel World Organizations, New York June 12, 1944 describing situation of Hungarian Jews and calling for bombing deportation railways
As the Nazis began deporting Jews from Hungary to the Auschwitz death camp in Poland, requests to bomb the deportation railways were sent to the United States.
Jacob Rosenheim, Agudas Israel World Organization, New York, to Henry Morgenthau, Jr., Secretary of the Treasury, June 18, 1944, asking that deportation rail lines be bombed
Thomas Handy, Assistant Chief of Staff, War Department, to Director, Civil Affairs Division, June 26, 1944, conveying the Operations Division's conclusion that bombing the deportation railways is "impracticable"
In line with its undeclared policy not to aid in the rescue of refugees, the War Department routinely turned down requests to bomb deportation railways. No studies were ever conducted to check the feasibility of such bombing raids.
Draw you own conclusions.
