Rescue, Relief, and Resistance: The Jewish Labor Committee's Anti-Nazi Operations, 1934-1945 is the English translation of Catherine Collomp's award-winning book on the Jewish Labor Committee (JLC). Formed in New York City in 1934 by the leaders of the Jewish Labor Movement, the JLC came to the forefront of American labor's reaction to Nazism and Anti-Semitism. Situated at the crossroads of several fields of inquiry--Jewish history, immigration and exile studies, American and international labor history, World War II in France and in Poland--the history of the JLC is by nature transnational. It brings to the fore the strength of ties between the Yiddish-speaking Jewish worlds across the globe. Rescue, Relief, and Resistance contains six chapters. Chapter 1 describes the political origin of the JLC, whose founders had been Bundist militants in the Russian empire before their emigration to the United States, and asserts its roots in the American Jewish Labor movement of the 1930s. Chapters 2 and 3 discuss how the JLC established formal links with the European non-communist labor movement, especially through the Labor and Socialist International and the International Federation of Trade Unions. Chapter 4 focuses on the approximately 1,500 European labor and socialist leaders and left-wing intellectuals, including their families, rescued from certain arrest and deportation by the Gestapo. Chapter 5 deals with the special relationship the JLC established with currents in the Resistance in France, partly financing its underground labor and socialist networks and operations. Chapter 6 is devoted to the JLC's support of Jews in Poland during the war: humanitarian relief for those in the occupied territory under Soviet domination and political and financial support of the combatants of the Warsaw ghetto in their last stand against annihilation by the Wermacht. The JLC has never commemorated its rescue operations and other political activities on behalf of opponents of Fascism and Nazism, nor its contributions to the reconstruction of Jewish life after the Holocaust. Historians to this day have not traced its history in a substantial way. Students and scholars of Holocaust and American studies will find this text vital to their continued studies.
"A careful historical account linked to personal narratives."-New York Times Book Review. Eighty-five percent of Italy's Jews survived World War II. Nevertheless, more than six thousand Italian Jews were destroyed in the Holocaust and the lives of countless others were marked by terror. Susan Zuccotti relates hundreds of stories showing the resourcefulness of the Jews, the bravery of those who helped them, and the inhumanity and indifference of others. For Zuccotti, the Holocaust in Italy began when the first "black-shirted thug" poured a bottle of castor oil down the throat of his victim, or when the dignity of a single human being was violated. She writes: "We might examine again how most Italians behaved from the onset of fascism. . . . Did they do as much as they could? Or should they, and the Jews as well, have recognized the danger sooner, with the first denial of liberty and free speech? We might also ask ourselves whether we, as creatures without prejudice, would act as well as most Italians did under similar pressures. Would we risk our lives for persecuted minorities? Would we be more sensitive to the first assaults upon our liberties, when the only ones really hurt in the beginning are Communists, Socialists, democratic anti-Fascists, and trade unionists? And finally, we might be more aware than we are of the horrors that a racist lunatic fringe can commit, even in the best of societies." Susan Zuccotti teaches modern European history at Columbia University. She is also the author of The Holocaust, the French, and the Jews. The introduction by Furio Colombo was translated into English for this Bison Books edition. The author of God in America: Religion and Politics in theUnited States, Colombo is professor of Italian Studies at Columbia.
During the Holocaust, many individuals and groups risked their lives to rescue Jews who had fled from the dangers of Nazi-occupied territory. They provided the refugees with hiding places, food and clothing, and forged documents to help them escape. When the Allies liberated the Holocaust camps at the end of the war, the world finally learned the truth about the atrocities committed by the Third Reich.
An amazing story of a missionary couple's journey into the toughest places on earth is combined with stories about remarkable people of faith they encountered to challenge and inspire those curious about the sufficiency of God.
Since antiquity, European Jewish diaspora communities have used formal appeals to secular and religious authorities to secure favors or protection. Such petitioning took on particular significance in modern dictatorships, often as the only tool left for voicing political opposition. During the Holocaust, tens of thousands of European Jews turned to individual and collective petitions in the face of state-sponsored violence. This volume offers the first extensive analysis of petitions authored by Jews in nations ruled by the Nazis and their allies. It demonstrates their underappreciated value as a historical source and reveals the many attempts of European Jews to resist intensifying persecution and actively struggle for survival.
Featured historian in the Ken Burns documentary The U.S. and the Holocaust on PBS • WINNER OF THE NATIONAL JEWISH BOOK AWARD • In this remarkable work of historical reclamation, Holocaust historian Rebecca Erbelding pieces together years of research and newly uncovered archival materials to tell the dramatic story of America’s little-known efforts to save the Jews of Europe. “An invaluable addition to the literature of the Holocaust.” —Andrew Nagorski, author of The Nazi Hunters and Hitlerland “Brilliantly brings to life the gripping, little-known story of [a] transformative moment in American history and the crusading young government lawyers who made it happen.” —Lynne Olson, New York Times bestselling author of Last Hope Island For more than a decade, a harsh Congressional immigration policy kept most Jewish refugees out of America, even as Hitler and the Nazis closed in. In 1944, the United States finally acted. That year, Franklin D. Roosevelt created the War Refugee Board, and put a young Treasury lawyer named John Pehle in charge. Over the next twenty months, Pehle pulled together a team of D.C. pencil pushers, international relief workers, smugglers, diplomats, millionaires, and rabble-rousers to run operations across four continents and a dozen countries. Together, they tricked the Nazis, forged identity papers, maneuvered food and medicine into concentration camps, recruited spies, leaked news stories, laundered money, negotiated ransoms, and funneled millions of dollars into Europe. They bought weapons for the French Resistance and sliced red tape to allow Jewish refugees to escape to Palestine. “A landmark achievement, Rescue Board is the first history of the War Refugee Board. Meticulously researched and poignantly narrated, Rescue Board analyzes policies and practices while never losing sight of the human beings involved: the officials who sought to help and the victims in desperate need. Top-notch history: original and riveting.” —Debórah Dwork, founding director of the Strassler Center for Holocaust and Genocide Studies, Clark University, and coauthor of Flight from the Reich: Refugee Jews, 1933–1946
This little book has been written at the suggestion of the Society for the Protection of Science and Learning. That body was the successor of the Academic Assistance Council which was formed in 1933 by heads of British Universities and learned Societies to assist scholars and scientists and investigators "who, on grounds of religion, political opinion or race, were unable to carryon their work in their own country". They were, at the time of the formation of the Society, particularly, but not exclusively, refugees from Nazi oppression, and deprived of their academic posts on one of these grounds. But they soon embraced refugees from other tyrannies. The British example was followed by similar efforts in many countries. The National and International effort, initiated in 1933 on behalf of academic freedom, is still far from completed. For the persecution of free thought and research has become an endemic ill of our time, and calls for a continuous activity of the free Universities. The major task, however, of saving for science and scholar ship the victims of Nazi persecution has been accomplished, and most of the academic societies which were formed in the Thirties to take up the challenge have been dissolved. It seems opportune then to place on record this effort of cultural soli darity for the displaced scholars, and the contribution which has been made to the world's intellectual life by those who were rescued.
The extraordinary story of a few non-Jews who risked their lives to rescue and protect Jews from Nazi persecution in Europe during World War II is told in The Courage to Care. It features the first person accounts of rescuers and of survivors whose stories address the basic issue of individual responsibility: the notion that one person can act—and that those actions can make a difference. These rescuers are true heroes, but modest ones. They did a thousand ordinary things—opening doors, hiding and feeding strangers, keeping secrets—in an extraordinary time. For this, they are known as "Righteous Among the Nations of the World." The rescuers and survivors are from many countries in Europe—Italy, the Netherlands, Denmark, Norway, France, Bulgaria, Poland, Germany—and they tell their stories with simplicity and dignity. Each story is interwoven with old snapshots of rescuers and survivors, their homes, their hiding places, and the communities in which they lived. Noted author, teacher, and human rights activist, Elie Wiesel, helps us to ask: "what made these people different?" He points out how those who helped Jews during the Holocaust "changed history" by their actions. The Courage to Care reminds readers of the power of individual action. This compelling book is the companion volume to the award-winning film, The Courage to Care, and includes the personal narratives of the same persons in the film and many others.