Alben W. Barkley (1877-1956), Democrat of Kentucky, served as Senate Majority Leader from 1937 and 1947 and then as vice president under Harry Truman from 1948 to 1952. Rabbi Meyer Berlin, a leader of the Religious Zionist movement, met with Barkley in February 1943 and was disappointed to find that the senator was, in his view, “quite unfamiliar” with the plight of the Jews in Europe and the Jewish case for a state in Palestine. Barkley told the rabbi, however, that he had already been consulting with colleagues about a resolution condemning the Nazi massacres.

The draft of the resolution deplored “the mass murder of Jewish men, women, and children” in Europe and asserted that the killers should “be held accountable and punished,” but made no reference to the possibility of U.S. action to rescue refugees. Representatives of the Joint Emergency Committee for European Jewish Affairs tried, but failed, to persuade Barkley and other members of Congress to add a paragraph urging the Allies to help rescue Jews. The resolution was unanimously adopted by both houses in March 1943.

Sources: Wyman, The Abandonment of the Jews

Medoff, A Race Against Death, p.153.