Roosevelt and the Holocaust

Robert L. Beir, Brian Josepher

• Publisher: Skyhorse Publishing
• Year: 2013
• Topic: History
• eBook ISBN:
  9781626363663
• Subtopic: Political Biographies
• Index: History

A thorough examination of FDR’s response to the rise of anti-Semitism and the genocidal Nazi regime.
 
In the same year that Franklin Delano Roosevelt began his presidency, teenager Robert Beir experienced a shock when a classmate called him a “dirty Jew.” Over the next twelve years, FDR would restore optimism and help a suffering and fearful nation emerge from the Great Depression, saving the capitalist system from collapse and then defeating Hitler. The young Robert Beir, like countless other American Jews, revered him—but in looking back at history, questions haunted him: How much did the president know about what was going on in Germany? Could he have done more? Why wasn’t there a more urgent rescue effort? In this well-researched and provocative book, Bier paints an unvarnished portrait of a man caught in the confusion and chaos of global upheaval and war—celebrating his extraordinary leadership, while also exploring the whys and what-ifs to offer a thoughtful assessment of how America can exert moral authority in the most challenging times.

Table of contents

• Cover Page
• Title Page
• Copyright
• Dedication
• Contents
• Foreword by Ernest Michel
• Acknowledgments
• Timeline of World and Holocaust Events
• An Introduction: Awakenings
• 1. A Blur of Strange Occurrences
• 2. A Decade of Newsreels
• 3. Impressions of War-Torn Britain
• 4. The Kind of Man Roosevelt Hired
• 5. “What Have I Got to Lose?”
• 6. A Journey with Roosevelt
• 7. “The Best Jew Is a Dead Jew”
• 8. The Avery Brundage Effect
• 9. Quarantine
• 10. “An Orgy of Sadism”
• 11. A “Dangerous People to Have Around in Large Number”
• 12. “Chased Like an Animal”
• 13. “No Cause for Alarm”
• 14. “Fear of the Hordes”
• 15. “With a Determined Resolve”
• 16. “The Crime of the Bureaucrats”
• 17. Bermuda and Warsaw
• 18. “We Shall No Longer Witness with Pity Alone”
• 19. “Relief, Like Water to the Thirsty”
• 20. Contact with Karski
• 21. Counterforces
• 22. A Sense of Agony?
• 23. Why I Call Myself a Rooseveltian
• 24. This Is What’s Happening
• A Final Note
• Endnotes
• Selected Bibliography
• Index