FDR played politics with lives of Jews

In the historical novel Barred: The Shameful Refusal of FDR's State Department to Save Tens of Thousands of Europe's Jews from Extermination, Carl L. Steinhouse contends that the U.S. and other countries acted to bar Jews from emigrating and escaping the terrors of Adolf Hitler's Third Reich. Steinhouse describes the pretext that began World War II and the following six years of Hitler's unabated slaughter of innocents. He also features the heroic actions of Jews and gentiles who risked their lives under the German oppressors to bring news of the massacre to the free world.

These heroes, charges Steinhouse, faced resistance from the State Department and the British Foreign Office which, according to the author, took every measure to conceal, downplay, or outright deny what was happening in Europe. Various factors influenced these actions, including placating the Arabs, trying to prevent immigration of any nature to the free world by Jews, or simply furthering anti-Semitic agendas. "Barred tells about an American president who, for political reasons, did nothing to change the situation, despite the urging of the First Lady, until it was too late to save the bulk of the Jewish people in Europe."

Eventually, the conspiracy was exposed, due to the hard work of those inside and outside the U.S. Eleanor Roosevelt staged a fierce campaign to open America to the Jews, facing opposition from the State Department and even her own husband, Steinhouse contends. Jewish agency officials, American diplomats in Switzerland, and rabbis in the U.S. worked together to overcome the anti-Semitic government bureaucracies to bring evidence of the horrors to the free world.

Secretary of the Treasury Henry Morgenthau investigated and found the smoking gun evidence that finally forced the President to take action in 1944, concludes Steinhouse.

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COPYRIGHT 2008 Gale, Cengage Learning