You might want to read part 1 first.
For an index of my Holocaust/Jewish/Nazi related posts, click here.
For anyone who does not want to bother reading the first post but still wants to read this post....
I've been basically searching through Eleanor Roosevelt's My Day column which is published and indexed on the Eleanor Roosevelt Papers Project's website.
For the most part, I'm trying to get an idea of her feelings regarding the Holocaust, Jewish refugees from Europe, Jewish-Americans, etc. But sometimes I end up looking at other things....
* * *
On December 8, 1938, Roosevelt writes:
As I listened to the speeches last night at the dinner given for the support of the Leon Blum Colony which will assist some of the Jewish refugees to start life all over again, I could not help thinking how much all human beings like to fool themselves.
This is her introduction to some deep thinking about freedom.
But it made me question the Safe Haven documentary's narrative.
I feel the documentary was saying that a total of only 982 refugees was brought from Europe during the World War II/Holocaust era.
That did seem low to me.
I guess in the back of my mind, I imagined there were more. And what Roosevelt says here makes me think the back-of-my-mind was correct.
I don't think it's that the documentary lied.
It might be more of a technical difference.
Maybe the 982 were people who were directly rescued by the American government. America provided a ship, passage, and then a place to stay.
Other refugees may have trickled in with the help of family and community sponsorships.
Also, this column was published before the war began.
Confession: I had to Google the official dates. For anyone who's like me and not good with war-dates. World War II was September 1939-September 1945.
So...the Jewish refugees that Roosevelt was referring to would not be war refugees. Or at least they weren't WORLD War refugees.
* * *
Now I'm looking at the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum. They have a page about the number of refugees coming to the United States from 1933-1945.
In 1924, the United States added some extra racism to the pot. Congress passed a law that limited immigration from certain countries...trying to protect the US racial stock. They limited Jews, Africans, and Asians.
During the Great Depression, Herbert Hoover further reduced the number of immigrants.
In 1933, the US State Department issued visas to 1241 Germans. The allowed quota (from the 1924 thing) was 25,957.
Around 83,000 Germans were on the waiting list. Most of them did not get the Visa, because they could not afford it.
From 1934-1937, there were 80 to 100 thousand Germans on the waiting list. Most of them were Jewish.
In those years, an average of about 7000 Germans were given Visas.
An average of 89,000 Germans/Jews were put on a three to four year waiting list.
This makes me feel kind of sick...thinking of the people who talk about how they're fine with immigrants as long as they do things legally.
They need to wait their turn.
As if they're waiting in a Virtual Queue at Disney World.
And how much money is needed to do immigration legally?
* * *
Oh!
I read things wrong above.
It wasn't about having enough money for a Visa.
It was about having enough money to qualify for immigration.
When I was desperately wanting to move to Australia, one of the things I saw is that if you didn't have the desired career skills they were looking for, you could come over as an investor.
If we were wealthy enough, Australia would let us live there.
I was just an angsty autistic woman with a special interest. I was still safe in the United States. But what if there was the rumblings of a genocide? Should we have needed to be wealthy to move to Australia?
* * *
The United States Holocaust Memorial Museum says that between 180,000-220,000 European refugees moved to the United States from 1938-1945. Most of them were Jewish.
That's a much different number than 982.
I'm so confused.
I feel dumb.
Did I misunderstand something in the documentary?
Was I misled?
Anyway....there's a lot more to learn and understand. I think I'll add it as a topic to my list...and move on back to Eleanor Roosevelt.
* * *
I'm wondering if what makes the 982 special is that they didn't have visas. Maybe what was being asked from President Roosevelt is to keep the genocide in mind and bend the usual rules a bit.
* * *
I thought there was more "Jewish"/"Jew" search results in 1935-1941, but I suddenly found myself at the end.
So...now I'm at 1942-1945 which is when the United States was officially part of World War II, and Franklin D. Roosevelt (Eleanor's hubby) was President.
Although I just Googled and saw that the US entered the war in 1941 (after Pearl Harbor).
Sometimes research makes me feel smart.
Other days...like today...I feel like it's making me dumber. And it's providing me the wonderful opportunity of displaying my stupidity.
* * *
Reminder: Because of how the search thing works, the posts I'm looking for are not in order (date-wise)
I'm jumping around in time.
* * *
I'm looking at October 25, 1945.
This is post-war, and Roosevelt talks about Palestine.
FDR talked to an Arabic man named King Ibn Saud.
Googling....
King Ibn Saud was the King of Saudi Arabia.
Roosevelt says that her husband felt like the talks were a failure. The King of Saudi Arabia was not open to the idea of allowing an influx of Jews to come live in Palestine.
Roosevelt writes:
The Arabs, said King Ibn Saud, are of the same Semitic race as the Jews, and got on well when their backgrounds were similar. My husband said that King Ibn Saud asserted that he had been a warrior all of his life; he was not interested either in farming or forestry; his people were herdsmen and nomads, and he wished no change.
My translation: Yeah. Sure I would help Jews. Just not THOSE Jews. Because as the Beatles song says, Nothing's gonna change my world.
* * *
Another thing I want to look into someday....I think it's already on my post list. It's something I saw on the Zioness Instagram account about Jews being indigenous to Palestine.
Are Jews an invader to Israel like Europeans are an invasive species to Africa, the Americas, Australia, etc.
Or are Jews more like Indigenous people who were pushed into a diaspora by various wars and rulers; then found their way back home?
* * *
I wonder how many European Jews immigrated to Israel during the Nazi/Holocaust years. How many Arabs were welcoming and how many of them were like the Saudi King?
* * *
Now I've jumped back in time to August 13, 1943. This is during the war.
Eleanor Roosevelt has a lot to say about Jews on this day.
She met with a representative trying to save the Jews in Europe.
She says, Some people think of the Jewish people as a race. Others think of them purely as a religious group. But in Europe the hardships and persecution which they have had to endure for the past few years, have tended to bring them together in a group which identifies itself with every similar group, regardless whether the tie is religious or racial.
I find that interesting.
Before the Holocaust, were Jews less cohesive?
It's really hard to explain to people what being Jewish means.
I think there's an antisemitic, dismissive agenda to see Jewishness as just-a-religion.
Or it could just be ignorance...in some cases.
Claiming or believing that Jewishness is just a religion is similar to claiming that Blackness is just about skin color.
What it's really about is having a shared history.
And when a shared history involves major trauma, it creates an even stronger bond between people.
So...yeah. I think Roosevelt was on the right track there.
* * *
Roosevelt goes onto talk about how there are good Jews and not so good Jews.
She says it quite elegantly....I don't want to take up too much space quoting it all here. It might be better to just read for yourself (if you're interested).
She concludes the sentiment by saying: In other words, they are a cross section of the human race, just as is every other nationality and every other religious group.
Yep.
Roosevelt gives a good argument in favor of protecting people against genocide:
This same thing might happen to any other group, if enough people ganged up against it and decided on persecution. It seems to me that it is the part of common sense for the world as a whole to protest in its own interest against wholesale persecution, because none of us by ourselves would be strong enough to stand against a big enough group which decided to treat us in the same way.
Note to any MAGA people reading this (because I can guess what you're thinking) Persecution against the persecutors doesn't count. Neither does having to wear a mask or get a vaccine.
Well...no, of course....
Some persecution always counts no matter who's the target.
For example: Genocide, slavery, and police targeting you for looking a certain way.
What doesn't count: Being arrested after doing illegal things; Being kicked off Twitter, Having reporters ask you difficult questions, People celebrating your idol getting Covid, Your cousin's cousin unfriending you on Facebook, a major studio replacing you with another actor for one project and hiring you for a different project, Being treated like Black people often get treated even though you are white.
* * *
Now I'm reading the column for December 11, 1945.
Roosevelt talks about reading a magazine called Commentary published by the American Jewish Community.
I think it's so cool that she did this. I love the idea of having a First Lady or First Gentleman who reads about various cultures and then writes about it. I haven't ever paid a huge amount of attention to the spouses of American leaders. I wonder if anyone else did/does things like this.
Roosevelt says:
As in every other group, there are great varieties of opinion among the Jewish people on various questions. In this country especially, I think that the great majority of people of the Jewish faith, even those who have come from other lands, consider themselves only as Americans. They have fulfilled their duties as American citizens ever since the earliest days, with a patriotism and devotion to this country equal to that of the members of any other group. Back in Revolutionary days, our financial existence was assured by the contributions of two men, one of them a Jew.
I wonder if she means American vs Jewish-American. Or does she mean American vs. German-American or Polish-American or French-American.
I'm doubting that hyphens were as much of a thing as they've become these days.
My feeling is we can be American (or other country) and also have a bunch of other equally important identities.
Lately, I've been asking myself...who are REALLY my people? Outside of family and friends. I mean if there were various groups matching my identities and interests, where would I most want to hang out?
With.....
Jewish people.
Autistic people.
Women
Texans
Democrats
Disney World Fans
Lost fans
TV show (in general) fans.
Coronation Street fans.
It's hard when you do a full list.
Easier to go either or.
Sometimes I think of it in terms of: Would I rather seek out autistic people among Lost fans or seek out Lost fans among autistic people?
* * *
Who was the wealthy Jewish person Roosevelt was referring to in the passage above?
The rich person that comes to my mind when I think of rich Jews from the bygone days is the Rockefeller family. But I think that's less bygone than Revolutionary times.
Googled....
Lord Wiki says it was a guy named Haym Salomon.
I don't think I've heard of him.
* * *
There are other lovely things in the December 11, entry.
Roosevelt talks about equality. She says, Until we have complete equality of opportunity in every field, equal rights socially and economically, we cannot consider ourselves a real democracy.
She adds: There cannot be, of course, complete equality for every human being because, even though we have equal opportunity, our native gifts and the circumstances in which we are born condition our development. But our race and our religion should not place any special handicaps upon us.
I think she should have said, even IF we have vs even though we have.
But based on what she said earlier, I think she meant if.
Also, it's kind of a contradiction. The circumstances in which we are born play into equal opportunity.
It's like playing Monopoly where one person starts off with the usual $1500 and the other player starts off with $15.
Each player has an equal chance of landing on New York Ave, and each player is given equal permission to buy the property. But they don't truly have an equal opportunity in being able to afford it.
* * *
I wanted to see if the Jewish magazine Commentary still existed.
I went from Google to Lord Wiki to a link to the magazine.
I think...hoped...that I got led to to the wrong thing.
It turns out that Commentary has gone pretty right-wing.
I got that idea first from seeing the editorials featured.
Samples of some of the titles.....
"Biden's War on Democracy"
"Can Democrats Let the Pandemic Go?"
"Why Fauci Became a Bobblehead" (although maybe that one's literal and not an insult?)
Then I went to look at their about page. If I had any doubts about their political leanings, this cleared it up.
They say:
COMMENTARY is America’s premier monthly magazine of opinion and a pivotal voice in American intellectual life. Since its inception in 1945, and increasingly after it emerged as the flagship of neoconservatism in the 1970s, the magazine has been consistently engaged with several large, interrelated questions: the fate of democracy and of democratic ideas in a world threatened by totalitarian ideologies; the state of American and Western security; the future of the Jews, Judaism, and Jewish culture in Israel, the United States, and around the world; and the preservation of high culture in an age of political correctness and the collapse of critical standards.
I wonder what happened in the 1970's to change them.
Or maybe they were always conservative but in the 1970's they graduated to flagship level.
* * *
Another thing to clue us in to the right-wing orientation of Commentary.
Looking through their long list of editorials....most are written by men. I see only one editorial written by a woman (Christine Rosen).
Two specific men seem to do most of the writing: Noah Rothman and John Podhoretz.
All that being said, there may be left-wing magazines where men hog the platform.
As for Rothman and Podhoretz dominating the site....
The Washington Post does have certain writers that have an editorial featured pretty much everyday. But each of those days also have editorials published by additional writers.
* * *
Well...maybe never mind.
When I look at a single issue (the most current one)....things look much more different.
Out of eleven editorials, two are written by women. That's better than one out of a long list.
Though, since women make up half of the population, it should be five or six written by women.
Only one out of eleven editorials was written by Podhoretz, and there's nothing from Rothman.
* * *
The September issue has thirteen editorials. Only one was written by a woman.
There's nothing by Rothman OR Podhoretz.
Are they on vacation?
If so, I wonder where to?
* * *
I'm going to leave this rabbit hole even though I don't want to.
I started reading from Lord Wiki, and I want to go down, down, down the hole.
But I'm going to save it for my list of future posts.
Though...just have to say one thing.
It turns out Podhoretz is the editor, and someone with the same last name was the editor from 1965-1995.
Norman Podhoretz. I clicked on his name. He's the father of John Podhoretz (current editor).
Also...one of the items on my post idea list is looking at modern right-wing opinions regarding the Holocaust. Commentary editorials will probably be incredibly valuable to that post.
* * *
On April 14, 1943, Roosevelt attended a memorial show with singing and acting in a place called Constitution Hall. It was called "We Shall Never Die" and was dedicated to the two million dead Jews in Europe.
If the governments of the United States and other countries had acted faster and stronger, the two million might never have grown to six million.
* * *
The United States Holocaust Memorial Museum has a page about the memorial. I'm going to save the rabbit hole for a possible future post. It looks pretty interesting. It was a show written by a Jewish-American screenwriter. There were multiple performances of it.
* * *
On October 8, 1945, Roosevelt wrote about a ceremony she attended, held by a Netherlands-Jewish society.
There was a message from the Queen of the Netherlands. I'm not sure if the message was live—that the queen was there...or if she had sent in a message.
But anyway, the queen expressed sorrow for the deaths but also spoke proudly of her citizens for banding together to fight the Germans.
Roosevelt says, Holland is one of the places where not only is there no anti-Semitism, but there has been no distinction between citizens. That is something of which to be extremely proud, and I wish it could be said in all parts of the world.
I don't think a country exists where there is no antisemitism. But I can believe there are places where there is less of it...than the average.
I thought of Denmark as being the country that fought to save the Jews. I think that's the subject of the Lois Lowry book, Number the Stars.
Also, I associate the Netherlands with Anne Frank. Isn't that where the attic is? Things didn't turn out so well for her.
Well...maybe it was the Dutch folks that protected her, and the ones who captured, imprisoned, and killed her were Germans.
* * *
The Anne Frank house in Amsterdam has a page about the Holocaust in the Netherlands. The title is "We Don't Have an Antisemitic Bone in Our Body"
No, I'm joking. It's actually "The Netherlands: The Highest Number of Jewish Victims in Western Europe".
They disagree with Eleanor Roosevelt about the lack of antisemitism. Admittedly there was some antisemitism, often not openly expressed, but in these countries there had been no legal difference between Jewish and non-Jewish citizens for almost 150 years.
A lot of this goes over my head...will maybe learn more later.
But from what I do understand. In comparing what happened to in France and Belgium to what happened in the Netherlands....
The Netherlands was the only country of the three to have public protests against anti-Jewish laws.
Well...I might be wrong, because I'm kind of skimming some parts. I think maybe they're saying that since France and Belgium were more cooperative with the Nazis, they actually ended up with more influence over what eventually happened to the Jews.
I almost feel like the website is saying that because the Dutch stood up against injustice and antisemitism, things turned out more deadly for the Jews.
I shall have to read about this later...get a better understanding.
* * *
On February 26, 1945, Roosevelt talks about the death of a woman named Henrietta Szold. She was the founder of Hadassah.
That's meaningful to me, because I remember our Grandma Goldie being very involved with Hadassah in Chicago.
Roosevelt says that Szold helped save 12,000 European Jewish children from death. She brought them to safety in Palestine.
* * *
I feel like most of this post is me gathering ideas for future posts.
* * *
Roosevelt has some strong words against Congress on December 18, 1945.
She says,
It would seem impossible for the members of Congress to go home and enjoy their Christmas vacations with the weight of the suffering of the world constantly before them, and no action yet taken to alleviate it.
It would, I think, be for all of us a sadder Christmas. Our representatives in Congress must be conscious of this, and yet I am sometimes a little bit confused by their apparently inconsistent reactions to this suffering.
For instance, as far as I have been able to find out, there has been comparatively little protest over the fact that the Germans—Jews, Protestants and Catholics—who have spent years of the war in concentration camps, and therefore should be regarded as our Allies who fought from within Germany, are treated similarly to the Germans who fought the war against us, whether as soldiers or civilians.
I'm wondering if she's referring to what I learned while watching the Safe Haven documentary—that while refugees were imprisoned in Fort Ontario and not allowed to seek employment, German prisoners of war were given work and paid by the US government.
Roosevelt also talks about how thirty-four congressmen (Democrats and Republicans) voted to increase rations for Germans. At first, I thought she was talking about German prisoners of war. But she was actually talking about Germans in Germany.
Oh...well, I think the paragraphs above are also in reference to German civilians and not prisoners of war.
I guess this was about the post-war interactions between The United States and Germany.
This post would have been written a couple of months after the war's end.
Roosevelt isn't completely heartless towards the Germans. She says she doesn't want them to starve. But she wants to give them the bare minimum. She'd rather help go to other people.
I get that.
It makes sense to me.
It's like if Trump became homeless and starving. I wouldn't feel okay walking past him and not helping at all. But I could just give him a cheap granola bar and a bottle of water. I don't need to give him all the cash in my wallet, take him out for an expensive meal, and then let him stay at our house. If I am wanting to be generous, there are people who are much more deserving.
* * *
On November 7, 1945, Roosevelt talks in favor of Jewish refugees emigrating to Palestine from Europe.
She writes, There is in Europe at the present time a group of 100,000 displaced persons—the miserable, tortured, terrorized Jews who have seen members of their families murdered and their homes ruined, and who are stateless people, since they hate the Germans and no longer wish to live in the countries where they have been despoiled of all that makes life worth living. Naturally they want to go to Palestine, the one place where they will have a status, where they will feel again that sense of belonging to a community which gives most of us security.
Reading that makes me really wish, the Jews and Arabs had found a way to live peacefully together.
* * *
There's that modern saying, This Tweet didn't age well.
I think that sentiment can be applied to Roosevelt's column on October 13, 1945.
She writes against giving help to the Germans.
Our economic advisers—looking primarily to the interests of the industrialists of this country, backed by a similar group of industrialists in England—are saying that we should reestablish the industries of Germany so that Germany may live.
Anyone who looks at the German people knows that they have suffered less than any people in Europe. What are we doing? Are we planning to make them strong again so we can have another war....Will we never learn the lessons of history? Not the Russians, but the Germans have brought about the past two world wars.
I wondered how surprised she'd be to see Germany today. They've had an amazing turn-around.
But with her lacking foresight, I can understand why she'd feel that way.
I wonder if it's very true that the reasons the United States helped Germany was because of wanting to do nice by industrialists. Was it less about humanitarian reasons and more about money?
* * *
On April 30, 1945, Roosevelt brings up what happened in Europe, to the Jews, to fight in support of a fair employment bill.
Roosevelt says:
Many people have come to think of this bill as being of value only to certain minority groups. I think it is important for the public in general to understand clearly that the bill, while it may be of value to these groups, is equally vital to each and every one of us who are citizens of the United States. If we do not see that equal opportunity, equal justice and equal treatment are meted out to every citizen, the very basis on which this country can hope to survive with liberty and justice for all will be wiped away.
That's before she brings up Germany.
Then she says:
Are our memories so short that we do not recall how in Germany this unparalleled barbarism started by discrimination directed against the Jewish people? It has ended in brutality and cruelty meted out to all people, even to our own boys who have been taken prisoner. This bestiality could not exist if the Germans had not allowed themselves to believe in a master race which could do anything it wished to all other human beings not of their particular racial strain.
This makes me think of the anti-racism movement and the idea that you're either anti-racist or racist.
When there's systemic racism, it's really not helpful to be "not racist". It's kind of meaningless.
Would it have helped save any Jews if a person in Europe was not-antisemitic? Sitting around, not hating on Jews, would not have saved any lives. What helped to save lives was being AGAINST antisemitism and fighting antisemitism.
That being said...when it's not about systemic discrimination...if it's more a matter of hurt feelings....being just not-bigoted is probably enough.
At this point, I don't feel that I'm in significant danger as a Jewish person in the United States. I mean...for being Jewish. Yeah, there are hate crimes against Jews. But I don't feel it's at a widespread, dangerous level.
I think antisemitism in the United States is more about hurt feelings. And though that sounds dismissive, I don't mean to be dismissive. I think the things that are said are very hurtful. It hurts me. It angers me.
I feel most non-Jewish people are at least a little antisemitic. I think there are many who are moderately antisemitic. I think there a small number of people who are very antisemitic.
So for me, a person being NOT antisemitic is enough. At this point, I'm even grateful for just-a-little antisemitic.
If things get worse for Jews in the United States...like laws against us and/or an increase in violence against us; then I'd want people to be anti-antisemitic rather than simply not-antisemitic.
* * *
On July 2, 1945, Roosevelt wrote about a letter she received from a Jewish father. Though her daughter did well in high school, three colleges rejected her, because of religious quotas. The universities didn't bluntly tell them that. They gave other excuses. The principal of the high school told them the truth of the matter.
So...there we had more widespread antisemitic discrimination in the United States.
In many of her columns, such as this one, Roosevelt isn't just not-antisemitic. She is anti-antisemitic. She uses her platform to speak out and fight against injustice.
* * *
I think I'm going to stop here.
I feel like I've gotten enough of a sense of what Eleanor Roosevelt was thinking regarding Jewish people from 1942-1945.
In my next post, I will probably look at Jewish related things in her 1946-1952 years.
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