Language:
English
Year of publication:
2006
Titel der Quelle:
Midstream
Angaben zur Quelle:
52,2 (2006) 8-13
Keywords:
La Guardia, Fiorello H.
;
Roosevelt, Franklin D.
;
Jews History 1939-1945
Abstract:
An excerpt from the proceedings of the third national conference of the David S. Wyman Institute for Holocaust Studies, held at Fordham University, New York, September 2005 - Koch's opening statement and closing remarks, and the remarks presented by Medoff. Koch states that Fiorello La Guardia was his role model for mayor of New York, especially in regard to foreign affairs, in particular in regard to his outspoken criticism of Hitler and the Nazis. Medoff details the course of this criticism, which included a 1934 public mock trial of Hitler and a public rally after the "Kristallnacht" pogrom, when American Jewish organizations were adopting a low profile. Notes La Guardia's less well-known activities in the 1940s, when he helped pressure President Roosevelt to promote the rescue of Jews, even though this conflicted with the mayor's own political interests. He sided with the Bergson group's activism in the face of the quiet diplomacy of Jewish leaders like Stephen Wise. He played a role in goading the administration into creating the War Refugee Board, which helped rescue 200,000 Jews, partly by financing the activities of Raoul Wallenberg. Koch cites two reasons why there were so few men like La Guardia at the time: reluctance of Americans to interfere in the affairs of other countries, and worldwide antisemitism, including in the USA in the 1940s.
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