I started reading this for my capstone paper. I finished the book because it was fascinating. Shogan did a great job with material that could have been dry and boring and made it gripping and interesting to read, not at all boring.
FDR and Hitler both came to their office of power in 1933. Hitler began almost immediately to destroy the Jews. FDR on the other hand surrounded himself with Jews and put them into positions of power in his government. On the surface it would seem that having so many Jews in his inner circle would have made him more likely to take action and help the European Jews, it did not.
Of the Jewish men closest to him, Supreme Court justice Louis Brandeis, Harvard law professor Felix Frankfurter (who later became a Supreme Court justice), speech writer Sam Rosenman, Treasury Secretary Henry Morgenthau and Rabbi Stephen Wise, only Morgenthau advised action.
The State Department holding back cables with pertinent information, antisemitism in the US and abroad, fear of political fall out and a host of so many other pieces kept FDR and the US from doing something to help a people being systematically exterminated.
I was angry and sad and so very disappointed in the leaders of the time for their inaction and political cowardice.
Francis Perkins tried to get something done but was blocked. It took Morgenthau what he called a terrible 18 months to get anything done but even that came 10 years after the start of Hitler's reign of terror.
This isn't just a dry historical tale, it is relevant and well written. And I didn't feel like it was a bash FDR book, just a laying out of the evidence.
(finished May 6, 2013)
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