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...
Read more →
A telegram from the World Jewish Congress representative in Geneva to Western leaders played a significant role in revealing the Holocaust to the Free World. During the spring and summer of 1942, the WJC official, 30 year-old attorney Gerhart Riegner, received reports about the Nazis deporting tens...
Read more →
Actor Edward G. Robinson (1893-1973) was a supporter of the Bergson Group's campaign for Holocaust rescue. Robinson, whose original name was Emanuel Goldenberg, was born in Romania. Fleeing antisemitic violence, his family settled in New York City in 1903. As a film star, he is best known for his role...
Read more →
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,...
Read more →
First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt (1884-1962) tried on several occasions, without success, to persuade President Franklin D. Roosevelt to soften his positions regarding Jewish refugees. Mrs. Roosevelt, like many members of her extended family, is known to have made antisemitic remarks as a young adult....
Read more →
Franklin Delano Roosevelt (1882-1945) served as the 32nd president of the United States from 1933 to 1945, a period coinciding with the Nazi persecution of European Jewry. Roosevelt's response to the plight of the Jews was influenced by political and diplomatic considerations, as well as his personal...
Read more →
Samuel I. Rosenman (1896-1973), a justice of the New York State Supreme Court and prominent member of the American Jewish Committee, was a senior speechwriter and adviser to President Franklin D. Roosevelt, and in 1943 became the first White House Counsel. Rosenman believed it was inappropriate for American...
Read more →
During the 1930s, boxing champion Barney Ross (1909-1967) became wildly popular among American Jews, who saw him as an antidote to the stereotypical image of Jews as physically unfit. Later Ross publicly championed the cause of rescuing Jews from the Holocaust and establishing a Jewish state. When...
Read more →
George Herman "Babe" Ruth, the legendary baseball slugger, participated in a protest by German-Americans against the Nazi persecution of Europe's Jews. The protest was organized by Dorothy Thompson (1893-1961), the first American journalist to be expelled from Nazi Germany, who was once described...
Read more →