In early 1939, in response to the Kristallnacht pogrom, U.S. Senator Robert Wagner (D-New York) and Rep. Edith Rogers (R-Massachusetts) introduced legislation to admit 20,000 German--presumably Jewish--children to the United States, outside America's strict immigration quotas. The Wagner-Rogers bill...
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U.S. Senator Elbert D. Thomas (1883-1953), Democrat of Utah and former Mormon missionary, was an outspoken advocate of rescue of Jews from the Holocaust. Thomas grew up in Salt Lake City in the late 1800s, where his family experienced prejudice because of their Mormon beliefs, an experience that...
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U.S. Senator Robert A. Taft (1889-1953), Republican of Ohio, played a leading role in congressional initiatives promoting the rescue of Jewish refugees and the creation of a Jewish state. Taft opposed the 1939 Wagner-Rogers bill to admit 20,000 German Jewish refugee children, arguing that the United...
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Andrew L. Somers (1895-1949), a twelve-term congressman from New York, was an active supporter of the Bergson Group's campaigns for rescue and statehood. Somers, a Democrat, was first elected to Congress in 1924, representing the 11th district in Brooklyn. He took a liking to the Bergson Group from...
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Congressman Will Rogers, Jr. (1911-1993) was a vigorous advocate of U.S. action to rescue Europe's Jews, and was closely associated with the Bergson Group. Rogers, the son of the famous entertainer, was elected to the U.S. House of Representatives in 1942, representing California's 16th District,...
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In the autumn of 1943, members of Congress introduced a Bergson Group-authored resolution urging creation of a government agency to rescue Jews from the Holocaust. The battle over the resolution played a major role in bringing about the establishment of the War Refugee Board. Stymied by the Roosevelt...
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