FDR and the Holocaust

The speaker tonight was very interesting as he spoke about hat he refers to as the "second" of the "three  FDR's" we know of. He admits that most people know the third FDR, which is he spoke about the second. The FDR who turned away the S.S. St. Louis with thousands of Jews on board from docking in the US for political gains.

When I was in Israel over the summer on birthright we actually discussed this moment in history when we visited Yad Vashem (The Holocaust Museum just outside Jerusalem). While we were there we learned about the S.S. St. Louis being turned away from docking in the US with the Jews onboard just before the Holocaust started. We learned, I guess the Hollywood version of the story, that many of these Jews ultimately died being dispersed throughout countries in Europe that eventually fell to Nazi Germany. We were taught this because, we were obviously Americans on birthright, and the tour guide felt it was important to know that the United States was not the hero we claim to be during World War II saving the Jews from Nazi Germany. It was interesting to hear this story since Israel obviously has no reason to feel ill towards the US, as we back them on almost everything.

According to the speaker, FDR did this for political leeway to get Congress to change our foreign neutrality policy to enable us to go to engage in the war economically, and eventually militarily.

I enjoyed the speaker very much, it was interesting to hear him talk about the "second" of the three FDR's that less people know about.