Rafael Medoff - America and the Holocaust: A Documentary History

This is an important and long-overdue bookexactly the material students need to understand this crucial chapter in American history and inform them as they consider issues related to genocide in our own time.

Bat-Ami Zucker, professor of American history at Bar Ilan University

Highly impressive. This expertly constructed documentary history is a major contribution to understanding Americas response to the Holocaust.

Steven T. Katz, Slater Chair in Jewish Holocaust Studies, Boston University

Provides a vital context by which to approach the American response to the Holocaust. America and the Holocaust: A Documentary History will be of direct benefit to educators and students engaged in Holocaust Studies, U.S. immigration history, the history of Jews in the United States, and those undertaking studies of human rights in the twentieth century.

Paul Bartrop, former professor and director, Center for Holocaust and Genocide Research, Florida Gulf Coast University

America and the Holocaust is a must-read for anyone, but especially students and educators who wish to learn how the United States responded to the growing avalanche of anti-Jewish measures culminating in the horrific extermination of millions of European Jews. Appropriate documents highlight the topics under discussion. Rafael Medoffs well-written book will apprise the reader of everything one needs to know on the response or lack of response of American officialdom and public figures to the danger posed by Nazi Germany, not only to the Jews, who constituted the principal target, but to civilization as a whole.

Mordecai Paldiel, former director, Department of the Righteous, Yad Vashem

Replacing slogans with facts, uninformed opinions with information, and hyperbole with solid historical documents, this documentary history will go a long way toward helping students and interested lay readers become better informed about the relationship between America and the Holocaust.

Alan Berger, Raddock Family Eminent Scholar Chair in Holocaust Studies, Florida Atlantic University

Rafael Medoff

University of Nebraska Press | Lincoln

The Jewish Publication Society | Philadelphia

2022 by Rafael Medoff

Cover designed by University of Nebraska Press; cover image is from the interior.

Author photo courtesy of the author.

All rights reserved. Published by the University of Nebraska Press as a Jewish Publication Society book.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Names: Medoff, Rafael, 1959, author.

Title: America and the Holocaust: a documentary history / Rafael Medoff.

Description: Philadelphia: The Jewish Publication Society [2022] | Includes bibliographical references and index.

Identifiers: LCCN 2021038227

ISBN 9780827615182 (paperback)

ISBN 9780827618923 (epub)

ISBN 9780827618930 (pdf)

Subjects: LCSH : Holocaust, Jewish (19391945)Foreign public opinion, AmericanSources. | Holocaust, Jewish (19391945)Sources. | Holocaust, Jewish (19391945)Influence. | World War, 19391945Sources. | Public opinionUnited StatesSources. | BISAC : HISTORY / Holocaust | HISTORY / United States / 20th Century

Classification: LCC D 804.45. U 55 M 43 2022 | DDC 940.53/180973dc23

LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2021038227

The publisher does not have any control over and does not assume any responsibility for author or third-party websites or their content.

I am grateful to Kirsten Carter, supervisory archivist at the Franklin D. Roosevelt Presidential Library; Mary Haegert of the Houghton Library at Harvard University; Bruce Kirby, reference librarian in the Manuscript Division of the Library of Congress; Timothy Rives, deputy director of the Eisenhower Presidential Library; Liz Perle and Elliott Wrenn of the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum; and the reference staff at the Harvard University Archives for their assistance in locating documents used in this book; Professors Stephen Norwood and Laurel Leff, for their helpful comments; Elizabeth Allard, for her superlative research assistance; and Liora Larsen, for her skillful assistance in the preparation of many of the documents reproduced herein.

I am honored that The Jewish Publication Society (JPS), the nations oldest Jewish publisher, invited me to contribute this manuscript to its important series of textbooks. It has been a pleasure to again work closely with its director, Rabbi Barry L. Schwartz, and the JPS staffin particular Joy Weinberg, JPS managing editor, whose extraordinary editing talents and keen insights improved this manuscript in countless ways. Likewise I am deeply grateful to the University of Nebraska Press, copublisher of this book.

The first comprehensive examination of Americas response to the Holocaust through visual media, America and the Holocaust: A Documentary History explores this complex subject through the lens of one hundred important documents that help to illuminate and amplify key episodes and issues.

The history of how America responded to the Nazi persecution of European Jewry revolves around the interplay between government officials, rescue advocates, and bystanders. The one hundred documents selected for this volume present a cross-section of perspectives reflecting the attitudes and actions of political leaders, activists who sought to influence policymaking, and ordinary individuals.

Each of the twenty chapters focuses on five key documents: two original images and three documents that have been recreated. The introduction to each chapter prepares the reader for understanding the context and back story of the documents. Explanatory text, analysis of historical implications, and suggestions for further reading follow.

Proceeding sequentially from the rise of Hitler to power, in 1933, until the end of World War II and the Holocaust, in 1945, the chapters cover a broad range of subjects, among them Americas response to Hitlers rise, U.S. immigration policy, Americans who rescued Jewish refugees, U.S. news coverage of Nazi atrocities, American Christian and Jewish responses to the Nazi genocide, obstacles to rescue, campaigns by American refugee advocates, the question of bombing Auschwitz, and the Allies liberation of Nazi concentration camps. By examining the period chronologically, rather than thematically, America and the Holocaust: A Documentary History will enable high school and college students as well as adult learners to explore responses to the news from Europe in the context of what was actually knownand which rescue options may have been feasibleat each point along the timeline. A concluding state of the field chapter documents the process by which scholars have arrived at the information presented in this book.

There is a broad consensus among the vast majority of scholars in this field as to the major findings of the research to date: that sufficient information about the mass murder was known in time for the the United States to have intervened; that President Franklin D. Roosevelt and his administration spurned opportunities to rescue Jews from the Holocaust; that major U.S. news media chose not to publish or give prominence to much of the available information about the genocide; and that political action by rescue advocates and dissidents within the government brought about limited U.S. aid to refugees near the end of the war. The documents comprising this book reflect that scholarly consensus.