| Dr. Wyman is owed a great debt by American Jewry not caught up in denial. American Jews, as our German predecessors, consider their country ?exceptional.? Even in this brief interview it should be clear that, when rabid antisemitism gripped Christian Europe, the US was not exceptional. Wyman is correct that a, perhaps THE major reason US Jewry did not respond more forcefully was our fear of a similar lethal antisemitic backlash in an already overheated American antisemitism. As regards Roosevelt, here to I fear Dr. Wyman is a bit too charitable. The St. Louis is but one of several ships carrying Jews desperate to flee Europe ahead of the death camps. Roosevelt watched passively as his State Department closed all ports to the refugees steaming up and back along the US coast, the ship captain pleading to allow him to offload his passengers until, finally with just enough fuel for the return voyage he returned the victims to Europe. Or the effort to at least gain entrance for the |
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