One more reason to admire The Babe. A few years ago, I read about his efforts to help his alma mater, St. Mary's, after a devastating fire on campus. Apparently, he did this without expecting any personal credit.

Nice story about Babe Ruth. An annoyance in it, however, is the assertion by the author: "...there was little indication that the Roosevelt administration intended to do anything in response to the killings...(t)here was no talk of taking any steps to rescue the Jews." Actually, the U. S. did so something and it did take steps: it won the war. A failure to focus on anything other than victory could have changed the outcome (and in all likelihood, would have cost a great many more Jewish lives than those actually lost). If you feel an urge to say, "Thank You," we accept. tyk

Tyk,
Go read David Wyman's The Abandonment of the Jews: America And The Holocaust, then report back. And who's this "we" who deigns to ask for and accept thanks? Is it the same "we" who turned back the 937 Jewish refugees fleeing Nazi pogroms and seeking sanctuary in the U.S. aboard the SS. St. Louis? Maybe they are owed an apology---but oh, I forgot, they were exterminated at death camps to which they were taken on the railroad lines we refused to bomb.

Stephen. Sorry to ruffle feathers, but can we get real? I read a review of Wyman's book. It sounds like Monday morning quarterbacking all rolled up in the old "bomb the rail lines" canard. No one with any semblance of air war credentials thinks that would have worked. Rail lines were too hard to hit (with the bombs then) and too easy to repair. The scheme would worked for the Nazis, however; they would have had a merry time picking off B-17s, capturing and killing air crews after our fighters turned around over Potsdam. Go wake up the beloved Stalin and ask him why he didn't send his bombers. They were in easy range for fighter cover all the way out and back (maybe the same reason he held the Red Army back from lending a hand in the Warsaw uprising). For young people (such as yourself, I presume) who weren't alive at the time, it is easy to read of WWII and think that it always was going to turn out just as it did just when it did. I lived at the time (I was young) and I can tell you with certainty that no one then foresaw the ending as clearly as we see it now. Today, it is easy to say that, yes, we could have diverted resources, and, yes, it would have made little difference. Back then, though, it was -- to say the least -- less than crystal clear. Living history forward and reading about it afterward aren't the same thing. Sorry about the "we" thing. I claim no credit for stopping the Holocaust, but I do claim it for my uncles and older cousins (all from what are now called Red states, or "Flyover Country") who stopped the Holocaust with boots on the ground and M-1's in their hands. All survived the war, but all now have died. Too late to thank them. tyk

Tyk,
Funny, I assumed you were young and naive from your earlier posts about the Mitford girls, but it seems you're almost as old as I am. I too lived through the second world war as a youngster. In fact, I'm old enough to notice when someone critiques a book he hasn't read, and ignores inconvenient facts--like the turning away of desparate refugees. Wyman--and Medoff--are serious scholars who can't be dismissed second hand by citing reviewers. You're old enough to read and make your own judgments. There was widespread anti-semitism in America in the 1930's and '40's(remember Charles Lindbergh?) and it was easy for Roosevelt to ignore the plight of the Jews in Europe. Sorry, but the sainted Roosevelt was a politician and his strengths were accompanied by flaws. One of those flaws was his unwillingness to lift a finger on behalf of European Jewry.

Tyk,
Is Michael Beschloss reputable enough for you? In his history The Conquerors, about the defeat of Germany, he took up the evidence, especially of Henry Morgenthau's futile efforts to get assistance to European Jewry. Incidentally, Morgenthau fought valiantly against the State Dept which actively sought to conceal news of the ongoing slaughter of the Jews. "Not only did FDR fail to address the Holocaust, Beschloss argues; he also remained "shockingly disengaged from the struggle to rescue Jewish refugees from Hitler." Nor did he attempt "to explore whether death camps bombings and transportation lines might have saved lives.""http://www.fpp.co.uk/History/antisemitism/FDR_Beschloss_Jews.html

"...There was widespread anti-semitism in America in the 1930's and '40's(remember Charles..." (from your post). You're onto something here Stephan. Surely you can't be imagining that, with Americans lined up around the blocks at soup kitchens, it was politically possible, regardless of the moral imperative, for Roosevelt to do what you seem to think he should have done. Ask your PhD pals to muse on how Europe's Jews would have fared under a Wendell Wilkie presidency. tyk P.S. I love your insights and your posts.

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