Rafi Medoff's Letter on Churchill

Good work!

William Kristol (“The Jewish State at 60,” column, May 12) recalls that as the Nazis prepared for war, “the civilized world was helpless. Churchill’s pleas to act were ignored. The world was plunged into war,” and six million Jews were murdered.

It is true that Churchill’s pre-World War II warnings about the Nazi menace were generally ignored. It is also true, however, that Churchill had the opportunity to save the lives of many Jews from the Holocaust, but failed to do so.

By upholding the White Paper policy of closing the doors of Palestine to all but a handful of Jewish refugees, Churchill shut off one of the few havens for those fleeing Hitler.

Moreover, Churchill assigned refugee rescue matters to his Foreign Office, which repeatedly sabotaged rescue opportunities because it feared what one official called “the difficulties of disposing of any considerable number of Jews should they be rescued from enemy occupied territory.”

Treasury Secretary Henry Morgenthau Jr. characterized the Churchill government’s attitude as “a satanic combination of British chill and diplomatic double-talk, cold and correct and adding up to a sentence of death.”

Rafael Medoff
Washington, May 12, 2008