41 The Holocaust and the United States

American Jewish Committee (AJC) is a Jewish advocacy group established on November 11, 1906. It is one of the oldest Jewish advocacy organizations and, according to The New York Times, is "widely regarded as the dean of American Jewish organizations". As of 2009, AJC envisions itself as the "Global Center for Jewish and Israel Advocacy".

The American Jewish Congress (AJCongress) is an association of American Jews organized to defend Jewish interests at home and abroad through public policy advocacy, using diplomacy, legislation, and the courts.

The American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee, also known as the Joint or the JDC, is a Jewish relief organization based in New York City.

The American Memorial to Six Million Jews of Europe, also referred to as the Warsaw Ghetto Memorial is a public Holocaust memorial situated at Warsaw Ghetto Memorial Plaza in Riverside Park, within the Upper West Side of Manhattan, New York City. It is a monument to the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising and the six million Jews who perished in the Holocaust. Dedicated on October 19, 1947, it is one of the first Holocaust memorials to the Holocaust in the United States.

Ben Hecht was an American screenwriter, director, producer, playwright, journalist, and novelist. A journalist in his youth, he went on to write 35 books and some of the most entertaining screenplays and plays in America. He received screen credits, alone or in collaboration, for the stories or screenplays of some seventy films.

Hillel Kook, also known as Peter Bergson, was a Revisionist Zionist activist and politician.

The Bermuda Conference was an international conference between the United Kingdom and the United States held from April 19 to 30, 1943, at Hamilton, Bermuda. The topic of discussion was the question of Jewish refugees who had been liberated by Allied forces and those who still remained in Nazi-occupied Europe. The only agreement reached was that the war must be won against the Nazis. US immigration quotas were not raised, and the British prohibition on Jewish refugees seeking refuge in Mandatory Palestine was not lifted.

The Days of Remembrance of the Victims of the Holocaust (DRVH) is an annual 8-day period designated by the United States Congress for civic commemorations and special educational programs that help citizens remember and draw lessons from the Holocaust. The annual DRVH period normally begins on the Sunday before the Israeli observance of Yom HaShoah, Holocaust Memorial Day, and continues through the following Sunday, usually in April or May. A National Civic Commemoration is held in Washington, D.C., with state, city, and local ceremonies and programs held in most of the fifty states, and on U.S. military ships and stations around the world. The United States Holocaust Memorial Museum designates a theme for each year's programs, and provides materials to help support remembrance efforts.

Josiah Ellis DuBois Jr. was an American attorney at the U.S. Treasury Department who played a major role in exposing State Department obstruction efforts to provide American visas to Jews trying to escape Nazi Europe. In 1944, he wrote the Report to the Secretary on the Acquiescence of This Government in the Murder of the Jews, which led to the creation of the War Refugee Board. After the war, he was a prosecutor at the Nuremberg Trials prosecuting Nazi war crimes, particularly in the prosecution of holocaust chemical manufacturer I.G. Farben.

The Working Group was an underground Jewish organization in the Axis-aligned Slovak State during World War II. Led by Gisi Fleischmann and Rabbi Michael Dov Weissmandl, the Working Group rescued Jews from the Holocaust by gathering and disseminating information on the Holocaust in Poland, bribing and negotiating with German and Slovak officials, and smuggling valuables to Jews deported to Poland.

The Évian Conference was convened 6–15 July 1938 at Évian-les-Bains, France, to address the problem of German and Austrian Jewish refugees wishing to flee persecution by Nazi Germany. It was the initiative of United States President Franklin D. Roosevelt who perhaps hoped to obtain commitments from some of the invited nations to accept more refugees, although he took pains to avoid stating that objective expressly. Historians have suggested that Roosevelt desired to deflect attention and criticism from American policy that severely limited the quota of Jewish refugees admitted to the United States.

The Fort Ontario Emergency Refugee Shelter, also known as "Safe Haven", located in Oswego, New York was the first and only refugee center established in the United States during World War II. From 1944 to 1945, the shelter housed almost 1000 European refugees, predominantly of Jewish descent. The effort was called "Safe Haven". The refugee shelter is now the Safe Haven Museum and Education Center.

Ruth Gruber was an American journalist, photographer, writer, humanitarian, and a United States government official.

Ben Hecht was an American screenwriter, director, producer, playwright, journalist, and novelist. A journalist in his youth, he went on to write 35 books and some of the most entertaining screenplays and plays in America. He received screen credits, alone or in collaboration, for the stories or screenplays of some seventy films.

HIAS is a Jewish American nonprofit organization that provides humanitarian aid and assistance to refugees and asylum seekers. It was originally established in 1881 to aid Jewish refugees. In 1975, the State Department asked HIAS to aid in resettling 3,600 Vietnam refugees. Since that time, the organization continues to provide support for refugees of all nationalities, religions, and ethnic origins. The organization works with people whose lives and freedom are believed to be at risk due to war, persecution, or violence..

Marvin Hier is the dean and founder of the Simon Wiesenthal Center, its Museum of Tolerance and of Moriah, the center's film division.

Imaginary Witness: Hollywood and the Holocaust is a 2004 documentary film directed by Daniel Anker and narrated by Gene Hackman that examines the treatment of the Holocaust in Hollywood films over a period of sixty years and the impact of the films on public perception and thinking, and vice versa. The film was originally produced for the American cable network, American Movie Classics.

Holocaust Memorial is a public artwork by American artist Claire Lieberman located on the Jewish Museum Milwaukee lawn, which is near downtown Milwaukee, Wisconsin, United States. It is located at 1360 North Prospect Ave. This piece is 10 ft x 24 ft x 20 ft. The materials used are Corten steel, black granite, and brick. The Holocaust Memorial was created in 1983.

The Holocaust Memorial Park is a public Holocaust memorial park located at the water's edge between Emmons Avenue and Shore Boulevard in Sheepshead Bay Brooklyn. The nearby communities of Sheepshead Bay, Manhattan Beach, and Brighton Beach were settled after World War II by a large Jewish population, many of whom were immigrants and survivors of the Holocaust.

Imaginary Witness: Hollywood and the Holocaust is a 2004 documentary film directed by Daniel Anker and narrated by Gene Hackman that examines the treatment of the Holocaust in Hollywood films over a period of sixty years and the impact of the films on public perception and thinking, and vice versa. The film was originally produced for the American cable network, American Movie Classics.

The Jewish Transmigration Bureau was a relief agency created by the American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee (JDC) in the early years of World War II to provide funds for the emigration of Jews from European countries where they faced persecution. From 1940-56, the Bureau received donations from tens of thousands of American donors to cover the travel costs of prospective emigrants. These funds allowed Jewish beneficiaries from Germany, Austria, Czechoslovakia, the Netherlands, Belgium and Luxembourg to settle in over 40 countries in Western Europe, the Americas, the Middle East, and Asia. "Deposit cards," thousands of which are extant and publicly searchable, link the names of emigrants with the depositor who provided the funds to cover the cost of their relocation.

Avraham Kalmanowitz was an Orthodox rabbi and rosh yeshiva of the Mir yeshiva in Brooklyn, New York from 1946 to 1964. Born in Belarus, he served as Rav of several Eastern European Jewish communities and escaped to the United States in 1940 following the German occupation of Poland. In the U.S. he became a tireless rescue activist on behalf of the millions of Jews trapped in Nazi Europe and in the Soviet Union. He is credited with the successful transfer of the entire Mir yeshiva from Lithuania to Shanghai, providing for its support for five years, and obtaining visas and travel fare to bring all 250 students and faculty to America after World War II. He established the U.S. branch of the Mir in 1946. In the 1950s he aided North African and Syrian Jewish youth suffering from persecution and pogroms, and successfully lobbied for the passage of a bill granting "endangered refugee status" to Jewish emigrants from Arab lands.

Hillel Kook, also known as Peter Bergson, was a Revisionist Zionist activist and politician.

Rabbi Aharon Kotler (1891–1962) was an Orthodox Jewish rabbi and a prominent leader of Orthodox Judaism in Lithuania, and later the United States, where he founded Beth Medrash Govoha in Lakewood Township, New Jersey.

Liberation is a bronze Holocaust memorial created by the sculptor Nathan Rapoport, located in Liberty State Park in Jersey City, in Hudson County, New Jersey, United States. Officially dedicated on May 30, 1985, the monument portrays an American soldier, carrying the body of a Holocaust survivor out of a Nazi concentration camp.

The Long Beach Holocaust Memorial Monument is a public Holocaust memorial situated in Kennedy Plaza at the Long Beach City Hall W. Park Ave between Center St. and National Blvd.

Henry Morgenthau Jr. was the United States Secretary of the Treasury during most of the administration of Franklin D. Roosevelt. He played a major role in designing and financing the New Deal. After 1937, while still in charge of the Treasury, he played the central role in financing United States participation in World War II. He also played an increasingly major role in shaping foreign policy, especially with respect to Lend-Lease, support for China, helping Jewish refugees, and proposing to prevent Germany from again being a military threat.

The Rabbis' March was a demonstration in support of American and allied action to stop the destruction of European Jewry. It took place in Washington, D.C. on October 6, 1943, three days before Yom Kippur. It was organized by Hillel Kook, nephew of the chief rabbi of Mandatory Palestine and head of the Bergson Group, and involved more than 400 rabbis, mostly members of the Union of Orthodox Rabbis of the United States and Canada, from New York and cities throughout the Eastern United States. It was the only such protest in Washington during the Holocaust.

The Riegner Telegram was a telegraph message sent on 8 August 1942 from Gerhart Riegner, then Secretary of World Jewish Congress (Geneva), to its New York and London offices. The cable confirmed the alarming reports that had reached the West previously about the German intention to mass murder the European Jews.

Gerhart Moritz Riegner was the secretary-general of the World Jewish Congress from 1965 to 1983. On August 8, 1942, he sent the famous Riegner Telegram through diplomatic channels to Stephen Samuel Wise, president of the World Jewish Congress. (However, Wise did not receive it until the end of the month. The source of the information was Eduard Schulte, the anti-Nazi chief executive officer of the prominent German company Giesche that employed high-level Nazi officials.

Franklin D. Roosevelt's relationship with Civil Rights was a complicated one. While he was popular among African Americans, Catholics and Jews, he has in retrospect received heavy criticism for his internment of Japanese Americans during the Second World War.

The Safe Haven Museum and Education Center is a museum in Oswego, New York that tells the story of 982 mainly Jewish refugees who fled Europe in the U.S. Government "Safe Haven" program. They came to the Fort Ontario Emergency Refugee Shelter in Oswego, New York, in August 1944.

Eliezer Silver was the President of the Union of Orthodox Rabbis of the U.S. and Canada and among American Jewry's foremost religious leaders. He helped save many thousands of Jews in the Second World War and held several Rabbinical positions in New York, Pennsylvania, Massachusetts and Ohio.

The Simon Wiesenthal Center (SWC) is a Jewish, pro-Israel, human rights organization established in 1977 by Rabbi Marvin Hier. The Center is known for Holocaust research and remembrance, hunting Nazi war criminals, combating anti-Semitism, tolerance education, defending Israel, and its Museum of Tolerance.

During the build-up to World War II, the Motorschiff St. Louis was a German ocean liner which carried more than 900 Jewish refugees from Nazi Germany in 1939 intending to escape anti-Semitic persecution. The refugees tried to disembark in Cuba but were denied permission to land. The captain, Gustav Schröder, went to the United States and Canada, trying to find a nation to take the Jews in, but both nations refused. He finally returned the ship to Europe, where various countries, including the United Kingdom, Belgium, the Netherlands and France, accepted some refugees. Many were later caught in Nazi roundups of Jews in the occupied countries of Belgium, France and the Netherlands, and some historians have estimated that approximately a quarter of them were killed in death camps during World War II. These events, also known as the "Voyage of the Damned", have inspired film, opera, and fiction.

USC Shoah Foundation – The Institute for Visual History and Education, formerly Survivors of the Shoah Visual History Foundation, is a nonprofit organization dedicated to making audio-visual interviews with survivors and witnesses of the Holocaust and other genocides, a compelling voice for education and action. It was established by Steven Spielberg in 1994, one year after completing his Academy Award-winning film Schindler's List. The original aim of the institute was to record testimonies of survivors and other witnesses of the Holocaust as a collection of videotaped interviews. In January 2006, the foundation partnered with and relocated to the University of Southern California (USC) and was renamed the USC Shoah Foundation – The Institute for Visual History and Education. In March 2019, the institute celebrated the grand opening of their new Global Headquarters on USC's campus.

The United States Holocaust Memorial Museum (USHMM) is the United States' official memorial to the Holocaust. Adjacent to the National Mall in Washington, D.C., the USHMM provides for the documentation, study, and interpretation of Holocaust history. It is dedicated to helping leaders and citizens of the world confront hatred, prevent genocide, promote human dignity, and strengthen democracy.

USC Shoah Foundation – The Institute for Visual History and Education, formerly Survivors of the Shoah Visual History Foundation, is a nonprofit organization dedicated to making audio-visual interviews with survivors and witnesses of the Holocaust and other genocides, a compelling voice for education and action. It was established by Steven Spielberg in 1994, one year after completing his Academy Award-winning film Schindler's List. The original aim of the institute was to record testimonies of survivors and other witnesses of the Holocaust as a collection of videotaped interviews. In January 2006, the foundation partnered with and relocated to the University of Southern California (USC) and was renamed the USC Shoah Foundation – The Institute for Visual History and Education. In March 2019, the institute celebrated the grand opening of their new Global Headquarters on USC's campus.

We Will Never Die, a dramatic pageant dedicated to the 2 million Civilian Jewish Dead of Europe staged before an audience of 40,000 at Madison Square Garden on March 9, 1943, to raise public awareness of the ongoing mass murder of Europe's Jews. It was organized and written by screenwriter and author Ben Hecht and produced by Billy Rose and Ernst Lubitsch. The musical score was composed by Kurt Weill (1900–1950), and staged by Moss Hart (1904–1961), a leading Broadway producer. The pageant starred Edward G. Robinson, Edward Arnold, John Garfield, Sam Levene, Paul Stewart, Sylvia Sidney and Paul Muni and subsequently traveled to other cities nationwide.

The World Jewish Congress (WJC) was founded in Geneva, Switzerland in August 1936 as an international federation of Jewish communities and organizations. According to its mission statement, the World Jewish Congress' main purpose is to act as "the diplomatic arm of the Jewish people." Membership in the WJC is open to all representative Jewish groups or communities, irrespective of the social, political or economic ideology of the community's host country. The World Jewish Congress headquarters are in New York City, US, and the organization maintains international offices in Brussels, Belgium; Jerusalem; Paris, France; Moscow, Russia; Buenos Aires, Argentina; and Geneva, Switzerland. The WJC has special consultative status with the United Nations Economic and Social Council.