Roosevelt Rejects Advice to Condemn Vichy Persecution of Jews

Rep. Emanuel Celler (D-NY) wrote to President Roosevelt in October 1942 regarding the persecution of Jews in Vichy France. Celler asks the president to speak out, but the president, following consultation with Undersecretary of State Sumner Welles, says “giving true expression to American feelings…might imperil the admittedly limited but useful program which we have succeeded in working out with Vichy.”