“A Calculated Restraint — What Allied Leaders Said About the Holocaust”
By Richard Breitman
Almost all of us in 2025 carry a TV news studio in our pocket. Whether you use an iPhone, a Google Pixel or a Samsung Galaxy, you have the power to instantly communicate what you see to the entire world through social media. It’s hard to imagine a time when atrocities on the scale of the Holocaust could be kept out of the public dialogue. In 2022, cell phones caught the images of mass graves and bodies on the streets of Ukraine from what is now known as “The Bucha Massacre.” Even though Putin denied it happened, the world had the cell phone photos along with our modern satellite photos as proof. But the Holocaust happened over eighty years ago in a different time that didn’t have cell phones or precision bunker buster bombs that could pinpoint a ventilation shaft. Even though our technology has evolved and improved over the past eighty years, antisemitism is still here and at the forefront of our lives after October 7th.
Holocaust historian Richard Breitman documents a war of information in his book, “A Calculated Restraint — What Allied Leaders Said About the Holocaust.” Breitman transports us behind the scenes in the White House with FDR in the 1940s. We witness the struggle that Rabbi Stephen Wise and others go through to bring proof of the Holocaust to our leaders. We see Winston Churchill as he carefully chooses his words not to give away secrets to the enemy. Once our leaders had the proof they needed, why did it take them so long to use the word “Jews” in their public statements? It took until March of 1944 for FDR to release a statement that called out the Nazis for “the wholesale systematic murder of the Jews of Europe.” By then, it was estimated that over 5 million Jews had been lost.
The author wrote, “My aim in this book is to connect analysis of what Churchill, Stalin, and Roosevelt knew about the Holocaust to what they said about it in their most important statements on the subject.” Breitman stressed the importance of writing the book now. He said, “Such assessment also offers important perspective and guidance today, when antisemitism has again spread widely. Other genocides, too, have taken place even as government officials and politicians have refrained from speaking out. The history remains far too relevant, if often disputed or misunderstood.”
The book begins uncomfortably in 1939 with a speech by Hitler. Breitman pointed out that even though Hitler was clear on what he intended to do to the Jews, leaders and observers of the time focused more on the danger of war in Europe and less on what were perceived as “empty rhetorical threats to foreign Jews.”
Next, we read about Winston Churchill, starting with his radio broadcast on August 24, 1941. This broadcast had what many thought was a warning about the Holocaust when he said, “We are in the presence of a crime without a name.” But Breitman outlined how Churchill was most likely referring to the invasion of German police troops into Russia. Breitman wrote that Churchill hoped to “create a more favorable public view of the Soviet Union.”
We learn about the role of British Intelligence and how Churchill had to choose his words carefully in public statements. You may remember the 2014 movie, “The Imitation Game,” about the British cryptographers who worked in secret at Bletchley Park to crack the Nazi’s uncrackable Enigma code machine. The movie followed the life of genius Alan Turing, who many consider the father of modern computing. He constructed an early type of computer that was used to decode German messages. The British wanted to use the information they intercepted for as long as possible before the Germans could discover that the Allies had broken their unbreakable code. Churchill was careful not to give away facts that he could have only learned by intercepting German secret codes.
Churchill was focused on building his alliance with the USSR and the United States. His public statements were written to help forge these alliances as well as give comfort to his British people, who were being pounded by German bombs. Breitman debated whether Churchill was an early voice “for conscience during the Holocaust.”
One of the most frustrating realizations for me was that Hitler’s propaganda was working. It was working so well that FDR chose to refrain from using the word “Jews” in his speeches. He avoided talking specifically about the crimes committed against the Jewish people. Hitler’s propaganda spread the narrative that the Jews were the puppet masters of the war and that the Allies were fighting on behalf of the Jews. FDR and other leaders didn’t want to appear to be fighting on behalf of the Jews, which could have given Hitler more ammunition to spread his hate. Instead of mentioning the Jews by name, FDR, Churchill and even Stalin spoke in generalities by using phrases such as “atrocities committed against innocent civilians” without giving the specifics of their nationality.
A recurring theme was that when confronted with evidence of the Holocaust, our leaders chose to focus on their war plans instead of taking action to come to the aid of the Jews. One example was when the Allies were planning a strategy for the battlefields of North Africa. There was concern that doing anything to specifically help the Jews could alienate the Muslim and Arab populations and drive them to take Germany’s side. The thought was that the quickest way to help the Jews was to end the war, so they should stay focused on their war plans. It was hard to read that our leaders felt that taking action to help the Jews could be a distraction from the war effort.
The book highlighted several courageous people and groups who advocated for providing relief to the Jews and providing safe havens for refugees. Just to name a few, the book talked about the importance of the World Jewish Congress in bringing information about the Holocaust to FDR and Churchill through Rabbi Stephen Wise. We learn about the Rabbi March when a group of four hundred orthodox rabbis marched up to the Capitol in 1943. Assistant Solicitor General Oscar Cox was a major influencer of the time. Breitman wrote that Cox “worked to convince Roosevelt that fighting the war effectively was by itself insufficient to act against genocide.” Cox arranged for Jan Karski to have an audience with the President. Karski was a member of the Polish Underground who had eyewitness accounts of German atrocities in the Warsaw Ghetto and deportations to death camps. The culmination was when FDR established the War Refugee Board in 1944, which was a vehicle for providing aid to the Jews and publicizing Nazi war crimes. I encourage people to read about the politics happening behind the scenes, which I found both fascinating and infuriating.
Breitman discussed the dilemma of bombing the railroad tracks to Auschwitz and the gas chambers. He stated that entire books were written on the subject. There is an excellent discussion about the pros and cons. One of the arguments was that the Germans could quickly repair the tracks, and it wasn’t worth the risk. A more compelling argument to me was that bombs were nothing like today’s precision smart bombs. Many would fall miles away from their target, and the high altitudes required to avoid enemy fire made the mission even more challenging. But perhaps just hearing bombs explode in the distance could have brought some hope to those in the camps.
Breitman wrote two extensive chapters on Hungary that included a chronological history of Hungary and the Holocaust. In January 1944, the War Refugee Board began its initial project to smuggle Jewish refugees from Poland and Czechoslovak territory into Hungary, which they thought would be a safe destination. But shortly after, Hitler ordered the Germans to occupy Hungary, putting almost 800,000 Jews at risk. Breitman wrote, “From late April to mid-July 1944, the deportations in Hungary turned Auschwitz into the most destructive of the Nazi extermination camps.”
Breitman sums up his thoughts in his final chapter, where he brings history to the present day. He reminds us of the realities of antisemitism in our own country and how antisemitism in the United States and Congress back in World War II affected FDR’s decision-making. Earlier in the book, he stated that General Patton was antisemitic. He said it very matter-of-factly in one sentence, like everyone knew it was true. I didn’t. I always thought of Patton as the heroic George C. Scott from the movie. But after researching Patton’s antisemitic statements, I could see it was true. Reading books like “A Calculated Restraint” can be an eye-opening experience about the realities of our Jewish history and our own time.
Breitman does a masterful job of analyzing the thoughts of our leaders based on their speeches and writings. It was like I was sitting right next to President Roosevelt and Winston Churchill as they made their decisions. I felt like I had a seat at the table. I haven’t said much about Stalin, but we also learn about Stalin’s thoughts as well as details about his atrocities against his own people. We see up close the challenges Churchill faced, having to form an alliance with the Russian army to help push back the Germans.
I highly recommend this book to a wide audience. For those well-versed in Holocaust history, I think you will learn even more about what was happening behind the scenes. This book is packed with details. I took notes and reread several chapters to make sure I caught all of the players and the politics involved. For those newer to Holocaust history, just reading the chapters on Hungary will give you incredible insight into what was happening.
“A Calculated Restraint” is timely and current. In our present-day world with Hamas, the Russian war in Ukraine and ongoing antisemitism in our country and around the world, history unfortunately has much to teach us.
