The Rev. Waitstill and Martha Sharp, a Unitarian couple from Massachusetts, traveled to Europe in the 1930s to rescue Jews and other refugees from the Nazis. Working in German-occupied Czechoslovakia in 1939, the Sharps helped Jewish refugees and anti-Nazi activists escape from the Gestapo. In on instance,...
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Proposals by refugee advocates to bring European Jews to the United States during World War II were often rejected by Roosevelt administration officials on the grounds that ships were not available. One official told Congressman Emanuel Celler in 1943 that to rescue Jews, the U.S. would have to “divert...
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Rabbi Joseph B. Soloveitchik (1903-1993), longtime head of Yeshiva University's rabbinical school and the preeminent figure in shaping of Modern Orthodox Judaism, was one of the 400 rabbis who marched to the White House in 1943 to plead for rescue of European Jewry. Although his participation is not mentioned...
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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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In the aftermath of Kristallnacht, large numbers of Jews sought to flee Nazi Germany. A ship called the St. Louis, carrying 930 German Jewish refugees, set sail from Hamburg in May 1939. The passengers held visas to enter Cuba. But Cuban public opinion was turning sharply against immigration, and when...
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U.S. diplomat Laurence Steinhardt (1892-1950) helped impede the immigration of East European Jews to America in 1940-1941, although he later helped facilitate the escape of Jewish refugees from Hitler Europe via Turkey. The son of wealthy German Jewish immigrants, Steinhardt rose to become the highest-ranking...
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Barbara McDonald Stewart chronicled the efforts of her father, James G. McDonald, to aid refugees from Nazism and also assisted him in his post as ambassador to Israel. In 1933, McDonald, a foreign policy scholar, was named League of Nations High Commissioner for Refugees from Germany. Dr. Stewart,...
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Henry Stimson (1867-1950) served as secretary of war under President Franklin D. Roosevelt from 1940 to 1945. He often opposed U.S. action to aid Europe's Jews during the Holocaust. Stimson justified withholding equal rights from Jewish residents of Allied-liberated North Africa in 1943, citing the need...
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English author Jan Struther (1901-1953), on a visit to the United States in 1943, publicly challenged the American public to take a greater interest in the plight of Jewish refugees. Struther created the character of Mrs. Miniver, who was the subject of a popular series of newspaper columns in the Times...
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Painter and illustrator Arthur Szyk (1894-1951) used his art both to aid the Allied war effort and to promote the rescue of Jews from the Holocaust. In the 1930s, Szyk created a Passover Haggadah which infused the ancient exodus story with anti-Nazi imagery. His Egyptian taskmasters wore swastika armbands,...
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