There have been a number of public controversies concerning the ways in which some historians and museums have portrayed the life and work of refugee advocate James G. McDonald. McDonald kept extensive personal diaries in the early and mid-1930s, portions of which have long been housed, along with...
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James G. McDonald (1886-1964), scholar, journalist, and diplomat, served as the League of Nations High Commissioner for Refugees Coming from Germany from 1933 to 1935, was a member of the U.S. delegation to the Evian refugee conference in July 1938, and chaired the President's Advisory Committee on Political...
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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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During World War II, the Roosevelt administration established a government commission, nicknamed the Monuments Men, to rescue historic paintings and monuments in war zones. Refugee advocates urged the administration to take a similar interest in rescuing Jews from the Nazis. In May 1943, shortly after...
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Henry Morgenthau, Jr. (1891-1967), the only Jewish member of President Franklin D. Roosevelt's cabinet and FDR's closest Jewish friend, enjoyed regular access to the president and belatedly used it to advance the cause of rescue. Morgenthau was the son of Henry Morgenthau, Sr., who had served as America's...
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Actor Paul Muni (1895-1967) was an active supporter of the Bergson Group's campaigns for Holocaust rescue and Jewish statehood. A native of Austria, Muni (born Frederich Weisenfreund) came to the United States as a child and quickly became a mainstay in the Yiddish theater. He made his Broadway debut...
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U.S. Senator James E. Murray (1876-1961), Democrat of Montana, strongly supported the Bergson Group's campaign for U.S. action to rescue European Jewry. Murray was an unlikely ally of the Jews. He was elected to the senate on a platform pledging "one hundred per-cent support" for President Franklin...
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