Breaking the Rules
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Rafael Medoff & Bat-Ami Zucker BREAKING THE RULES Violations of Academic Standards in the Debate over FDR’s Response to the Holocaust !2 About the Authors Dr. Rafael Medoff is founding director of The David S. Wyman Institute for Holocaust Studies. His most recent book is FDR and the Holocaust: A Breach of Faith. Dr. Bat-Ami Zucker is Professor of History at Bar-Ilan University. Her books include In Search of Refuge: Jews and U.S. Consuls in Nazi Germany 1933-1941. Cover illustration by Sal Amendola; layout and typography by Richard Sheinaus. The David S. Wyman Institute for Holocaust Studies 1200 G St. NW - Suite 800 Washington, D.C. 20005 202-434-8994 www.WymanInstitute.org !3 Breaking the Rules impossible for Allied planes to reach Auschwitz. He was soon joined by Scholarly research, publishing, and William J. vanden Heuvel, an attorney discourse proceed according to who was a founder and longtime generally-accepted rules of president of the Franklin & Eleanor professional behavior. Adherence to Roosevelt Institute; he argued in these standards ensures the integrity various articles and lectures that the of scholarship as well as the credibility only way to help the Jews was to win of scholars in the eyes of the general the war. The first-book length defense public. of America’s response to the What do these standards entail? Holocaust was authored in 1997 by For authors, they mean--at a William Rubinstein, a scholar of minimum--that documents should be British economic elites. His book, The quoted accurately; evidence should Myth of Rescue, asserted that “no Jew not be suppressed, regardless of who perished in the Holocaust could whether it accords with the author’s have been saved by any action which perspective; and statements derived the Allies could have taken...” Robert from the work of others should Rosen, a divorce attorney, authored a include proper attribution. For book with a similar thesis, in 2006, editors, it means publishing only those called Saving the Jews. essays that pass peer review; assigning Several well known historians books for review to qualified scholars; whose area of expertise lies elsewhere, and disqualifying potential reviewers such as Arthur Schlesinger, Jr. (an who are known to be biased. For expert on the New Deal) and Gerhard history museums, it means making Weinberg (a World War II expert), corrections when they are presented also occasionally authored strongly- with evidence of errors in their worded defenses of Roosevelt’s exhibits, and resisting pressure to Holocaust record. make changes for reasons other than Most recently, a mainstream historical accuracy. Holocaust historian, Richard These and related obligations have Breitman, coauthored a book, FDR been codified by the American and the Jews, which argued that Historical Association in two lengthy President Roosevelt tried his best to statements defining the professional help the Jews and succeeded in and ethical responsibilities of rescuing many. Prof. Breitman’s book historians and museums, the garnered significant attention from Statement on Standards of the news media and reviewers in Professional Conduct and the 2013-2014. Statement on Standards for Museum Serious scholars can, and do, Exhibits Dealing with Historical disagree regarding aspects of the Subjects. These are the guidelines to Roosevelt administration’s response which the scholarly community to the Holocaust. That is not the focus expects its members to adhere. of this essay. Our concern is the These standards have been violated integrity of the rules that the academic in a number of books and articles community has established to govern written since the mid-1990s in defense the writing and teaching of history. of President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s response to the Holocaust. The first author in this group was Richard H. Levy, a retired nuclear engineer, who wrote articles claiming it was !4 I. ALTERING QUOTATIONS One source, a book of correspondence between Sara Roosevelt and First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt, stated that the 1. The Award That Never Was award was called “the Einstein Medal for Humanitarianism,” and was given The opening scene of FDR and the in honor of her “broad sympathy and Jews, by Professors Richard Breitman activities in elevating the conditions of and Allan Lichtman, dramatically all people throughout the world who presented FDR’s elderly mother, Sara suffer from poverty, oppression, and Roosevelt, just “four months before hatred.” Breitman and Lichtman’s her death,” addressing a Jewish other source, a news article in the New women’s group. Breitman and York Times in 1938, reported that the Lichtman informed their readers that award was given to Mrs. Roosevelt “in a Jewish organization once gave Mrs. recognition of ‘a lifetime of devoted Roosevelt an award for “service to the service to every communal cause in Jewish people.” They characterized the country.’” Neither the book nor the this information as evidence that Times mentioned anything about Mrs. “Franklin’s parents instilled in him Roosevelt’s supposed service “to the religious tolerance…” Such an award Jewish people.” demonstrated that FDR’s parents Remarkably, Prof. Breitman imparted to him “the wise counsel himself wrote in his 1987 book: “The needed to escape the anti-Semitism president’s mother was anti- that was so common among upper- Semitic...” What caused him to so class Protestants.” drastically change his position from Breitman and Lichtman called the his 1987 assessment? Why did award that Mrs. Roosevelt received Breitman and Lichtman misrepresent “the Einstein Medal for lifetime the name and nature of the award that humanitarian service to the Jewish Mrs. Roosevelt received? That people.” Evidently their point was that remains a mystery; they have declined an award from Jews for a “lifetime” of to respond to questions about it.1 “service to the Jewish people” is proof One might legitimately argue that of Sara Roosevelt’s philosemitism-- the views of a president’s mother are and, by extension, evidence that the not relevant, and therefore it does not future president was inculcated with matter if Sara Roosevelt was affection for the Jewish people. antisemitic or philosemitic or But the sources cited by Breitman somewhere in between. Professors and Lichtman actually said otherwise. Breitman and Lichtman evidently feel 1 Richard Breitman and Alan M. Kraut, American Refugee Policy and European Jewry, 1933-1945 (Bloomington and Indianapolis: Indiana University Press, 1987), p.245; Richard Breitman and Allan J. Lichtman, FDR and the Jews (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2013), pp.8, 245; Rafael Medoff email to Richard Breitman and Allan Lichtman, 11 November 2013; Breitman did not reply. In an email on 18 November 2013, Lichtman stated that he would not respond to questions about their sources. In their source notes, Breitman and Lichtman thanked one Richard J. Garfunkel as the source for their information about Sara Roosevelt. Garfunkel is not a historian; he is the former host of a weekly radio show in New Rochelle, NY, who has described himself as “a collector of FDR memorabilia for over 50 years,” and the owner of “over 5,000 pieces, that include buttons, books, pictures, campaign literature and ephemera of every imaginable type.” Breitman and Lichtman, p.332, n.1; for Garfunkel’s self-description, see http://www.richardjgarfunkel.com/2005/05/15/warm-springs-and-fdr-the-television- production-2005/ !5 otherwise, since they chose to make sound as if it was the president who Mrs. Roosevelt’s alleged came up with the idea for Ickes to give philosemitism the opening scene of such a speech, as a way of speaking their book, and they presented it as out for the Jews. In fact, Ickes wrote in evidence that she influenced FDR to his diary that he was the one who feel positively about Jews. Once they “accepted” an invitation to speak at a chose to make it a central issue, they celebration of the Jewish Courier’s should be prepared to defend their fiftieth anniversary. The diary claim--and to explain Prof. Breitman’s indicates that it was Ickes’ idea, not reversal from his 1987 position. Roosevelt’s, to speak out about the persecution of the Jews. Second, the disputed phrases in the 2. Censoring Harold Ickes draft of the speech were not just about “fascism” generally, as Breitman and Secretary of the Interior Harold L. Lichtman asserted. According to the Ickes was one of the few members of diary, President Roosevelt told Ickes Roosevelt’s cabinet who took a serious that Secretary Hull wanted to “cut out interest in the Nazi persecution of the the reference that I [Ickes] had made Jews. According to Breitman and to Naziism [sic] as well as references I Lichtman in FDR and the Jews, in had to current dictators.” FDR then 1938 “FDR authorized Ickes to deliver said to Ickes that he wanted him “to an address on the CBS radio network make Cordell happy.” Later in the blasting countries persecuting Jews. entry, Ickes indicated that the “current Ickes scheduled the speech for April 3, dictators” to whom he had intended to the fiftieth anniversary of the Chicago- refer were “Hitler and Mussolini.” based Daily Jewish Courier.” Thus we see that both Roosevelt and Breitman and Lichtman stated that Hull objected to any mention of Secretary of State Cordell Hull, seeing Hitler, Mussolini, or Nazism. Ickes a draft of the speech, wanted Ickes to was permitted by the president to delete “some specific references to refer to fascism only in a general way. fascism and current dictators.” Ickes Hull even insisted that one reference then “went directly to FDR, who said to the term “fascist” be removed, lest it criticizing fascism was fine.” As a be seen as implicitly referring to result, Ickes needed to make only “a Mussolini and thereby harm U.S.- few minor changes,” and those Italian relations.