The Allied governments in World War II, and Jewish leadership itself in the free world, failed to do enough to help halt the holocaust by the Nazi regime, Dr. Nahum Goldmann, president of the World Zionist Organization, charged here last night.
In an address at a meeting commemorating the 20th anniversary of the Warsaw Ghetto revolt, Dr. Goldmann alleged that Jews in the free world “failed the test” during the Nazi holocaust. “I don’t know, ” he said, “whether the Allied Powers could have prevented the murder of millions of Jews, but I do know that tens of thousands could have been saved by more active reaction on the part of democratic governments.”
Rejecting charges that the Jews under the Nazi regime “lacked the fortitude for revolt, ” he stated: “If there is room for accusations, these should be directed against the Jews of the free world. All of us failed in the test through lack of determination and unlimited readiness to employ every measure appropriate in the face of the terrible events. Jews in the free world and, particularly, in the United States, did not go beyond the limits of Jewish politics practiced in normal times.”
“I will never forget, ” he continued, “the day a cable arrived from the Warsaw Ghetto to the late Rabbi Stephen S. Wise and myself, asking why the Jews of the United States had not decided to hold day-and-night vigils on the White House steps until the President would order the bombing of the extermination camps or death trains. We refrained from doing this because most of the Jewish leadership, then, was of the opinion that we must not disturb the war effort by stormy protests.
“The only community that had the courage to employ unconventional methods, by dispatching parachutists to Eastern Europe, was the Jewish community of Palestine, ” Dr. Goldmann stressed.
The Archive of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency includes articles published from 1923 to 2008. Archive stories reflect the journalistic standards and practices of the time they were published.
