Letter to
the Editor: The Jewish Advocate of Brookline

August 28, 2008

Robert T.
Abrams said that I need a history lesson. I stated that Auschwitz
was not known as the final death camp terminus. (By the way my parents were
married by Stephen Wise in June of 1935) First of all, Sir Martin Gilbert, the
world’s leading expert on the Holocaust, states that fact in his book, “The
Allies and Auschwitz.” Second of all, a vast
amount of those two million Jews were killed by SS Units/ Einsatzgruppen troops
following regular Wehrmacht forces, and third of all, the Death Camps were
basically set up to systemize that killing, conceal the acts, and to take the
pressure off many of the regular German troops who were exposed to such
murderous activity. The Allies knew of Auschwitz/Monowitz as a work camp
dealing with war production, and until two heroic Jews were smuggled into the
death trains and left a message imbedded in the wooden frame of one of the
cattle cars, little was known, or believed about what Auschwitz
was about. Why don’t some of you arm chair experts read Lucy Dawidowicz’s book,
“The War Against the Jews.” You should blame the NY Times for putting
the story on the back pages. In Lucy Dawidowicz’s seminal book, she never even
mentions President Franklin Delano Roosevelt once in her 487 pages. But she
does cover in detail what really happened.

Ms. Racelle Weidman’s wrote that the War Refugee Board
was created with pressure from Congress, the Treasury Department and Jewish
Activists. The basic account of its creation has been written many times. She
should refer to “Mostly Morgenthau” by Henry Morgenthau III, the son of
Secretary of Treasury Henry Morgenthau Jr. who went to FDR and told him of the
obfuscation and anti-Semitism of Breckenridge Long. It was FDR who created the
WRB and it had nothing to do with Congress. There is no doubt that thousands of
Jews were saved and a greater effort by the United States could have helped
many more. What I said was, and I quote,  “In fact that official process
did not become policy until the Wannsee Conference on January 20, 1942. By the
time World War II had started and France
and the Low Countries had fallen, the ability
of any Jews to get on a neutral or Allied ship was virtually impossible. In
fact, 95% of the Jews that were murdered in WWII lived east of the Oder-Niesse River,
in areas of the Baltic States, Poland,
the USSR and Hungary
where they were trapped.”  I said, and I reiterate, it was virtually
impossible to get on a neutral or Allied ship to “America.”  In the limited
space allowed by these letters any detailed historical statement is impossible.
Again, my statement was in regards to Mountain’s diatribe, the beginning of the
Holocaust, the creation of the Death Camps, and the lack of concrete
information determining what the real purpose of Auschwitz
was. I defy Rafael Medoff, Racell Weiman, or any one else to disprove that
history. Accordingly of the 8,861,800 European Jews in the pre-final solution
population, 5,933,900 were murdered. Of that total, 546,000 Jews came from Belgium, Norway,
Holland, France,
Italy, Luxembiurg, and Finland. Of
that amount, 44% or 243,000 Jews were murdered. Obviously these people, mostly
from France, Holland and Belgium were swept up by Nazi forces, with the
connivance of local Nazis and anti-Semites, and their ability to escape was
virtually impossible. Therefore 95% of the murdered Jews came from Germany and eastern countries (including Greece)
where access to rescue was “virtually impossible.” The numbers are the numbers.
To blame FDR and even the xenophobic Congress, along with its America First
allies for aiding and abetting the Holocaust, as does Tom Mountain
and others, is ridiculous, insulting and a blood libel. If Jewish revisionists
want to find an answer to the Holocaust, re-read Hitler’s words. Also they
should read the “War of the World,” by Niall Ferguson, and “The Appeasers” by Martin Gilbert and Richard Gott. After a few weeks
or months of critical reading, one could be better informed about both what the
European Jews faced in almost every country they lived. Also, one could be a
lot more knowledgeable about the anti-Semitism that emerged in America
in the 1930’s. Franklin Roosevelt made a commitment to prepare and move an
isolationist country, which almost unanimously opposed even helping England
survive, defeat the Nazi/Fascist aggressors. That is the issue, not the small
minded hatred from people like Tom
Mountain.

 Richard J.
Garfunkel