re: For WWII buffs ... FDR and holocaust

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he military budget was cut to the bone.

Kind of like right now.

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Only it isn't cut to the bone at all. US spending is higher than the next 9 countries on the military spending list combined.

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I asked your thoughts on the exerpts from the book

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...And then I asked you for the excerpts from the book.

And then you called me slow.

These are not excerpts:

FDR knew that the Jews were getting exterminated in 1942. But the reason he would not denounce it publicly was because of the US/British invasion of Northern Africa.

He didn't want to piss off the Muslims who were being told by the Germans that US involvement in WWII was being driven by the hated Jews.

The historian also blamed the French.

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You want me to provide the whole text of an oral lecture

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No, I wanted you to provide excerpts - kind of like the example I showed you.

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That seems weird as before the creation of the modern state of Israel, Jews lived in harmony and were widespread throughout the Muslim world. I don't see why the Muslim's would care so much.

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Hhhhmmmmm.........

This thread was going well.















Then it turned very quickly. (No citations provided).

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Didja skip right over this?

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Nope. I clearly noticed it. It doesn't indicate that Roosevelt therefore had confirmed knowledge of a systematic extermination program. As I've already stated previously, it is clear that there were reports of Jewish genocide coming from occupied territories but often these were either believed to be exaggeration, outright false accounts, or otherwise unable to be confirmed. And in respect to shootings and other atrocities that occurred outside of the camp extermination process, there was absolutely nothing that could have been done.

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Finding out what the Allies knew at this point is not hard. You wouldn't be making the assertion that the Allies knew about it if you really had an in depth understanding of the way things were.

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So you have an in depth understanding of what the Allies knew and when? No you don't. You have accounts of reports that were received during the war. No one said they didn't have information coming in. The question is what they knew. The extent of their verifiable knowledge not just reports.

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I shouldn't have to hold your hand to lead you to that knowledge.

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Now you are just being petty. This is a discussion forum. If you are going to make assertions, it is completely reasonable for other posters to expect you to at least make reference to what sources you are referring to. To make some broad claims and then piss and moan when someone asks you to reference what information has led you to make such claims is asinine. Grow up.

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My point is that even without specifics, one should be able to figure out what the Allies knew. The exterminations didn't occur in a vacuum. Reports were leaking out from local eyewitness and Jews who escaped not long after it started in Russia and eastern Europe. The Germans used Hungarian soldiers in many of their killing squads and those soldier's observations were reported on. The knowledge of the status of Jews in Germany and the occupied countries was not a secret. It was done right out in the open. The knowledge of what went on in the ghettos was widely dispersed. The British in particular had a lot of info on the specifics of the situation.

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You are using hindsight to bias your conclusions. That atrocities against Jews were being committed in the East was known is one thing. To assert that FDR himself or American leadership was aware of the extermination camps and their systematic structure is something quite different.

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Our aerial recon was very thorough, and anything out of the ordinary like a death camp would have been scrutinized closely in order to figure out if it had strategic importance. To say that all the horrors that occurred were able to be effectively hidden, that enough people wouldn't have seen or endured things that they were able to report on, or that such a massive operation that the German's devoted so many resources to would have escaped our spies and intense scrutiny, is a conclusion that no reasonable person would come to.

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You keep mentioning the aerial recon. Can you illustrate to me accounts of our aerial recon identifying extermination at Auschwitz, Sobibor, Treblinka, etc? Are you asserting that our aerial recon analysis identified these camps as "death camps?" Are you claiming that there are documents to support this notion or were these reports kept secret?

And our information and intelligence was fallible enough post-war, when we had boots on the ground IN camps, to believe that Dachau was an extermination camp.

I've seen an aerial recon photo of Auschwitz and all that could be deduced from it was that it was a labor camp like many others.

That you are asserting that no one exhibiting reason could come to any conclusions but your own is rather ridiculous. Especially considering the amount of debate present now and past and among historians as well as the public in respect to what was known regarding the Holocaust.

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All of this is just part of the story. There's more out there if you care to look. But if you think you already know all there is to know on the issue and your mind is closed to new info, I'm guess I wasted my time. Wouldn't be the first instance that's happened.

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I've researched the issue previously. I'm not unfamiliar with the Second World War by any means. I'm always reading and learning new information. That you are so smug to believe that conclusions you've drawn from information are unassailable shows rather that perhaps it is your mind that is closed. There is a civil discussion and dissemination of ideas and information to be had on this topic without trying to declare hard conclusions from limited information.

You can infer whatever you wish from the sources you've provided but none of them prove your conclusions and that is quite clear. You may even be right, but that is not proven by anything you've yet posted. That there was evidence available in regard to German atrocities against Jews is undeniable, but that the scale and scope of the plan was understood and intentionally ignored by American and British leadership is not.

And surely if FDR and Churchill knew and chose to do nothing and to hide it from the press, then other military personnel, political officials, press members, etc. would have known as well and surely could have verified this information after the war. I'm not aware of any officials making such claims but perhaps you could enlighten me.

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Chewy, if ya go back and look I think you'll see I never said anything about what specifically FDR knew. I only mentioned the Allies in general.

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Well that wasn't the topic of the thread nor what I had been referring to with all my posts. Whether some people on the Allied side knew more or less or believed more or less was not pertinent to the discussion being had.

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Ya know, whenever I see something said about an aspect that I'm sure the about accuracy of yet don't have enough concrete knowledge myself to definitively argue the point, I usually dig around into the issue on my own before commenting or asking a bunch of questions. This whole issue of what was or wasn't known at the time is pretty interesting and there's a lot more to it than what little I posted on yesterday. Instead of me digging up all the answers, do a little of the heavy lifting yourself and let us know what you find about your specific questions. It's your turn.

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More superficial smugness. Color me not surprised. I research plenty on the war. If you are uninterested in supporting your thoughts in an online discussion forum then that's perfectly fine by me and I'll simply move on to other posters. Getting bent out of shape or defensive about it is perplexing to me though.

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It was many years ago that I learned what type of person is worthy of having an in depth conversation with on the 'net. That doesn't include those who make inane accusatory allegations with thinly veiled contempt. Nor does it include those who find offense in every post, those who are aggressive in their responses, or those who ignore the rules of polite conversation. People who can't follow the plot are on the list too.

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Riiiiiiiight.