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The Abandonment of the Jews: America and the Holocaust, 1941-1945

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For anyone who has wondered whether there was something the allies could have done to obstruct the Nazi holocaust, Wyman presents the troubling answers. They are very consistent with similar investigations of the British record by Wasserstein and Gilbert. This book had to be written, as part of a truth-telling process essential for a society to understand itself. A person of conscience, as well as a painstaking historian, Wyman does not accept the bureaucratic excuses for inaction at face value. It is an unpopular line of investigation, because it upsets the myths that the USA was on the side of the angels, fighting the war to save the Jews, and that FDR was a near saint. Wyman remains cool and balanced, never forgetting that the Allied culpability was on an entirely different level from that of the Germans and their helpers, but not sugar-coating Allied indifference, obstruction and lack of imagination about trying to stem the extermination program. For example, the simple step of broadcasting to the European countries, where Jews were being rounded up, to tell them what would happen at their destination, might have slowed down the deportations by stiffening the resistance. A healthy reminder that our historical record has plenty of which to be ashamed, and that governments, even in enlightened democracies, often perform in ways that don't stand up to moral inspection. A call to vigilance.

Wyman's choice of a title is indicative of what is wrong with this book. However, there is also much right about it as well. "Abandonment" implies there was some sort of relationship to begin with between European Jews and and the United States. In order to "abandon" someone, you have to "leave." The US was never "there" to begin with. To say that America "turned its back" to European Jewry during WWII implies that it once had its back NOT turned to European Jews...and this simply was never the case. It wasn't even the case within the United States. The U.S. paid lip-service to American Jewry by including a few in the Roosevelt Administration, a couple on the Supreme Court, but there was no truly significant Jewish influence even in the United States at that time. Therefore this is a study of much more than simply the Roosevelt Administration. It is a study of America and any study of America during the time after WWI through the mid 1960's must include an acknowledgement of American anti-Semitism. It reached its peak, ironically, during WWII. FDR was the consummate politician. He may have held sympathy for what was happening to the Jews of Europe - but he was a POLITICIAN! And we all need to remember that. Had the American people demanded it, Roosevelt would have acted. Better put, there was enough anti-Semitism to make rescue a "political impossibility." Politics is, among other things, the "art of the possible." The real tragedy Wyman thus exposes is American anti-Semitism. Most significantly (and unfortunately) in the State Department. Wyman is "nice" (in my opinion) to Breckinridge Long, one of the most destructive anti-Semites in American History.

It is sad to acknowledge that The United States of America couldn't muster the courage to drop a single bomb on the rail lines leading out of Hungary, or into Auschwitz-Birkenau. One bomb would have done nothing to stop the Holocaust - but it would have spoken symbolic volumes about what America supposedly stood for.

Anti-Semitism was bad in the United States at that time. And anti-black racism was even worse. As sad an episode as this was in US History (not simply the US failure to act symbolically or otherwise to rescue European Jewry - but also the internment of Japanese Americans in camps, and the relegation of blacks to driving trucks in the military) it did, in the longer run, finally force America to look itself in the mirror.

I consider this a "must read" for anyone even slightly interested in American History, especially the upheavals of the 1960's. America "ignored" the Jews in Europe as it always had, and as it mostly ignored its own. WWII set in motion events that forced America to live up to what it was supposedly fighting for in "The Good War."

This book is also valuable because it reveals the depth of the split within American Jewry over how to respond the mass killings. That split certainly contributed to the ease with which FDR could concentrate on other issues besides The Jews of Europe...and thereby avoid any hint of a schism with Churchill.

The reader will not want to believe what is being read.

The evil, satanic Nazi regime and it's methods intent on the slaughter and genocide of the European Jews is well documented elsewhere.

Little is written or heard about the passive accomplices....I hesitate in using the latter word, but none other can really suffice in this context. The author has provided an extremely valuable service with this work in bringing this subject to our attention.

It is difficult to estimate how many of the six million murdered Jews could possibly have been saved through a concerted, determined Allied rescue campaign. However, suffice to say no such measures were taken and all the victims perished.

The author documents that the US State Department and the British Foreign Office has absolutely no intention of rescuing large numbers of European Jews from the Nazi genocide machine.

Indeed, the author shows that the Allies actually feared that the Nazi regime would release tens of thousands of Jews into Allied hands and the inherent responsibility that such a move would impose upon them.

Such a move by the Nazis would have inevitably placed immense pressure on the British to open Palestine to increased Jewish immigration, and the US to admit even larger numbers of Jews to their own shores.

A situation that neither Government wanted to face. The British, although allowing virtually unhindered Arab immigration from surrounding Arab nations into Palestine, had their own reasons for refusing increased Jewish entry into what is now Israel. Instead, the British provided concentration camps of their own on Cyprus for those Jews seeking what they perceived as `illegal' entry to Palestine. A damning historical indictment, which being British and a non-Jew, I still find difficult to stomach.

The author shows that there was clear, authenticated documentation available to the US State Department in 1942, that revealed unmistakable evidence that the Nazis were pursuing a systematic extermination of European Jewry. However, it is shown that nothing was done for some 14 months, and only then were limited measures eventually adopted. Even so, the US record of action is still far better than that of the British.

These limited measures of assistance adopted by the US are shown to have been impeded by rampant anti-Semitism throughout US society and the US Congress, plus the mass media's failure to publicise Holocaust details and the virtual near silence of the Church and it's own leadership.

The author also shows that appeals to bomb the Auschwitz-Birkenau gas chambers, railroads and bridges were refused outright amidst claims that such military action would divert essential air-power. Yet, at the very same time numerous heavy Allied bombing raids were still taking place within 50 miles of Auschwitz, only a few minutes flying time away. The value of saving Jewish lives was not worth a single Allied bomb.

This is a disturbing book about a disturbing period of history and a disturbing analysis of the integrity of our leaders together with our foreign policies & agendas during the war years. There is so much information here. Read this and Sir Martin Gilbert's `Auschwitz and the Allies' for differing approaches to the same subject, but which reveal the same conclusions. Recommended.

This book restates the case behind America's involvement withthe Holocaust. It relies on mostly first source material which canniether be disputed nor discredited. I encourage readers from all backgrounds to read this wonderful book!

Wyman wrote this book in the mid 1980's. Since then, many other historical studies have shown the same shamful findings:FDR and the State Department and many segments of the American public, including most of the Jewish leaders, not only suppressed the news on the extermination of the European Jews, but did their best to hinder efforts of rescue. Wyman includes undisputed sources for every fact, but being a gentile, he is too soft on the American Jewish leaders who looked at FDR as a God, and in order not to upset him, kept quiet. For those who still worship FDR, consider this: A million Americans are stranded in Europe during War World II and the Germans are systematically shipping them to concentration camps, torturing and gassing them. What would FDR and his administration have done? Conduct the war in a gentlemantary manner with taking of prisoners, etc., (a quarter million Axis prisoners were shipped to the US while a common American and British response to the abandonment of the Jews was no ships available), or immediately start a military operation to rescue them. Readers who still believe that saving the Jews was not possible because of the war effort, should read historical books on Great Britain during the war. While the British refused to consider any plan of saving the Jews they deployed more than 100,000 troops and a large armada in Palestine and the Med Sea for the sole purpose of capturing Jews who escaped the European hell. In 1940, the British had elaborate plans to attack would be German invaders with low flying planes dropping gas on the invaders, despite the Geneva agreements that the German kept (except with respect to the Jews, of course,who were gassed by the millions). This book is a Noble Price material because it reveals the truth about the darkest period in human history, a truth hiden because too many people still cannot confront the sicknening facts: The leaders of the free world in the 1940's were cowards, anti-Semites, and liers. Only a handful of brave men such as Hecht, Rogers, and a few Irgun members fought against overwhelming odds to bring about some response to the terrible plight of the Jews.

As a history teacher I have discovered that one of the most enduring myths of younger Americans not versed in the history of their country preceding their birth, is that the United States entered the Second World War in order to save the Jews of Europe.

In fact, the very opposite was the case.

The government deliberately chose not to save the Jews until it was much too late.

After FDR's callous immigration authorities illegally obstructed and surreptitiously slammed the door to freedom for vast numbers of potential refugees, his administration continued its policy of deliberate betrayal of the millions of European Jews in Hitler's death camps until the "Final Solution" was almost finalized.

David S. Wyman's The Abandonment of the Jews is a masterpiece in meticulous scholarship in documenting these horrific events.

This brilliant book formed the basis for the powerful PBS documentary, America and the Holocaust: Deceit and Indifference.

Many Jews died in the holocaust because of what the United States did or failed to do. Especially the State Department and FDR. This well researched book details all of it . It does not go past the end of the war and our failures at that time. An important book well worth your time.It has real implications for today.

This well documented book offers the reader some explanation for the most moral dilemma of the twentieth century. It is shocking in it's scope and after reading it you will understand that the more you read about the Holocaust the less you understand.The book is a must read for readers who really want to know the painful truth of America's position and the search for the truth is very painful. It will change the way you view the world and it attempts to answer some serious questions.

The abandonment of the Jews is the result of the common hostility towards the Jews more than economic considerations or a tribute to a balance of power. That the western allies, especially the Brits were no friends of the Jews who nazi-Germany persecuted is no new knowledge but often forgotten. It has to be remembered to draw some conclusions.
The author writes: "The British Foreign Office and the US State Department were both afraid that the Third Reich would be quite willing, indeed eager, to stop the gas chambers, empty the concentration camps, and let hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of Jewish survivors emigrate to freedom I the West. The Foreign Office "revealed in confidence" to the State Department its fear that Hitler might permit a mass exodus. If approaches to Germany to release Jews were "pressed too much that is exactly what might happen."
It must be not forgotten also what the Vatican`s policy was. Pope Pius XII wrote an urgent letter to President Roosevelt to persuade him that Jews should not be allowed to return to Palestine. Why? It was catholic doctrine that the catholic church was the New Israel, taking over all its rights. And for this presumptious pretence 1700 years long the absence of a state of Israel in the Holy Land was a proof. Whereas Hitler, a catholic who was never banned from the church, and the Nazis, mostly catholics, none of whom banned from their church, could be clearly identified as being evil, the rest of the world competed in hypocricies and disguised dislike. There was no sorting of wheat from the chaff!

This is a remarkable book. It shows the power, importance and the neglect of duty by media to impartially report events and comments on them. It documents how the politicians, even the best of them, react to media attitudes. They act if pressed and do nothing if media mostly ignores or hides the news. This book should be a compulsory reading material for students of journalism. Unless we learn from the history we are doomed to make the same errors. And the consequences can be disastrous. It is difficult to understand how the media and hence the politician allow a president of one stste who is a member of the UN to proclaim removal of another member of the UN. The lofty ideals of UN do not look so good when a section of the UN invites such a president to address it. It looks to me that a lot of present day journalists did not read this book. What will be the future cost of this?