FDR - Jean Edward Smith [382]
Roosevelt acknowledged that the government was now aware that Wise’s information had been correct. “We have received confirmation from many sources.” The president asked for concrete recommendations as to what might be done. The group, which was apparently taken by surprise, had none to suggest other than a public statement. FDR said he understood. “We are dealing with an insane man. Hitler and the group around him represent … a national psychopathic case. We cannot act toward them by normal means. That is why the problem is very difficult.”39 When the meeting ended, Roosevelt assured his visitors, “we shall do all in our power to be of service to your people in this tragic moment.”40
Nine days after meeting with Wise, Roosevelt induced Churchill and Stalin to join with him in a Declaration on Jewish Massacres, which denounced “in the strongest possible terms this bestial policy of cold-blooded extermination”; condemned the German government’s “intention to exterminate the Jewish people in Europe”; and announced their joint determination to try as “war criminals” all those responsible—the origin of the war crimes trials that later convened in Nuremberg.41 Given that U.S. and British troops had yet to land on the continent of Europe, the declaration nevertheless represented a powerful statement of Allied purpose.42* It received wide publicity in the American and British press and committed the United States, Great Britain, and the Soviet Union to prosecute war crimes against European Jewry.43
But the fact is that little tangible could be done. An Anglo-American conference on refugees convened in Bermuda in April 1943 but foundered on Britain’s refusal to discuss Palestine as a possible destination for whatever Jews might be liberated from Hitler’s grasp.44 In June Roosevelt met with Zionist leader Chaim Weizmann, who pressed the Jewish case for a Palestinian homeland. “The attitude of Mr. Roosevelt was completely affirmative,” wrote Weizmann.45 The president said the Arabs had not been helpful in the war and had not developed their vast territories. He thought they could be bought off and suggested that Weizmann meet with Saudi Arabia’s Ibn Saud.46 Later FDR authorized Rabbi Wise and Rabbi Abba H. Silver to announce on his behalf that “full justice will be done to those who seek a Jewish National Home.” The United States, Roosevelt was quoted as saying, had never approved Britain’s 1939 white paper restricting immigration. As Wise and Silver put it, “The President was happy that the doors of Palestine are today open to Jewish refugees.”47*
In the summer of 1943 the Treasury Department pressed plans to ransom 70,000 Jews from Romania at a cost of $170,000. The money would be deposited in Switzerland for Romanian officials to collect after the war. Roosevelt approved the arrangement, but because of State Department foot-dragging nothing came of it.48 Similarly, when Rabbi Wise came to FDR in July with a Swiss proposal to rescue Jewish children hiding in France, Roosevelt immediately agreed. “Stephen, why don’t you go ahead and do it,” the president said. When Wise suggested that Morgenthau and the Treasury Department might not cooperate, Roosevelt picked up the phone. “Henry, this is a very fair proposal which Stephen makes about ransoming Jews.” Treasury thereupon approved the plan, but again diplomats at State scuttled it.49
By the end of 1943 it had become evident that the European Affairs Division of the Department of State was determined to block any rescue effort. Officials at Treasury (most of whom were not Jewish) were incensed. Led by General Counsel Randolph Paul, Foreign Funds Control Chief John Pehle, and Assistant Counsel Josiah DuBois, the Treasury staff prepared a confidential report for Morgenthau documenting State Department obstructionism entitled “Report