Thursday, May 05, 2005
Today is two days
The first is Yom HaShoah, if I got my dates right. Or rather tonight is, I think. Anyway.
In 1939, when the Nazis began to destroy the Jews of Poland, what bothered Sulzberger was Franklin Roosevelt's casual remark that Jews were a "race." He got FDR to call them a "faith," which settled the issue of the Warsaw Ghetto for him.
On the eve of Thanksgiving 1942, the State Department confirmed that 2 million Jews were dead in Europe, and it allowed Rabbi Stephen Wise, the leader of American Jewry, to announce the news. The Times didn't send a reporter to the press conference in Washington. Instead, it ran a short from The Associated Press — on page 10, surrounded by turkey ads.
What if FDR had announced the news? Then, even a scared Jew like Sulzberger would have been afraid to keep it off the front page. And if that happened, millions of Jews could have been saved.
But Roosevelt didn't give a damn about the Jews. When the chips were down, they were expendable. He never lifted a finger to save them, and when faced with the 1944 election, for the first time he spoke out against the massacre and it made page 1: "Roosevelt Warns Germans on Jews."
In 1939, when the Nazis began to destroy the Jews of Poland, what bothered Sulzberger was Franklin Roosevelt's casual remark that Jews were a "race." He got FDR to call them a "faith," which settled the issue of the Warsaw Ghetto for him.
On the eve of Thanksgiving 1942, the State Department confirmed that 2 million Jews were dead in Europe, and it allowed Rabbi Stephen Wise, the leader of American Jewry, to announce the news. The Times didn't send a reporter to the press conference in Washington. Instead, it ran a short from The Associated Press — on page 10, surrounded by turkey ads.
What if FDR had announced the news? Then, even a scared Jew like Sulzberger would have been afraid to keep it off the front page. And if that happened, millions of Jews could have been saved.
But Roosevelt didn't give a damn about the Jews. When the chips were down, they were expendable. He never lifted a finger to save them, and when faced with the 1944 election, for the first time he spoke out against the massacre and it made page 1: "Roosevelt Warns Germans on Jews."
