Benjamin Akzin (1904-1985) was a staff member of the War Refugee Board and advocate of U.S. air strikes on the Auschwitz death camp. After completing doctorates in political science and law at the universities of Vienna and Paris, the Latvian-born Akzin traveled to the United States in the 1930s...
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Beginning in the late spring of 1944, representatives of Jewish organizations in the United States, Europe, and British Mandatory Palestine began urging Allied officials to take military action to interrupt the mass murder of Jews in Auschwitz. About thirty different Jewish officials were involved,...
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As secretary of state under President Franklin D. Roosevelt, Cordell Hull (1871-1955) faithfully implemented the Roosevelt administration's policy of refraining from any substantial action to aid Jews who were persecuted by the Nazis. Hull was a first-term Senator from Tennessee at the time of his appointment...
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During World War II, future U.S. senator and Democratic presidential nominee George McGovern flew bombing missions near Auschwitz. McGovern (1922-2012), a pilot of a B-24 “Liberator” plane in the 455th Bomb Group, was stationed at Cerignola, an Allied air base in the Italian province of Foggia....
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Golda Meir (1898-1978), as a leader of the Palestine Jewish community, was on several occasions involved in significant episodes related to America's response to the Holocaust. In 1938, Meir, then known as Goldie Myerson, attended the Evian refugee conference as an observer from Palestine. At a press...
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Rabbi Michael Dov Weissmandl (1903-1957) was the first European Jewish leader to urge Allied leaders to bomb Auschwitz and the railway lines leading to it. Weissmandl (1903-1957) grew up in Slovakia and became a prominent figure in the famous Nitra Yeshiva. When the Germans began deporting Slovakia's...
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