America and the Holocaust

A Documentary History

Rafael Medoff

• Publisher: The Jewish Publication Society
• Year: 2022
• ISBN:
  9780827618923
• Topic: History
• Subtopic: Holocaust History
• Index: History

2023 Choice Outstanding Academic Title The first comprehensive volume to teach about America's response to the Holocaust through visual media, America and the Holocaust: A Documentary History explores the complex subject through the lens of one hundred important documents that help illuminate and amplify key episodes and issues. Each chapter pivots on five key documents: two in image form and three in text form.Individual introductions that contextualize the documents are followed by explanatory text, analysis of historical implications, and suggestions for further reading.A concluding state-of-the-field essay documents how scholars have arrived at the presented information. A complementary teacher's guide with questions for discussion is available online. The twenty chapters address a broad range of subjects and events, among them America's response to Hitler's rise, U.S. public opinion about Jews, immigration policy, the Wagner-Rogers bill to save children, American rescuers, news coverage of atrocities, American Jewish and Christian responses to the Holocaust, the campaign for U.S. rescue action, the question of bombing Auschwitz, and liberation. Viewing real documents as a means to understanding core issues will deepen reader involvement with this material. High school and college students as well as general readers of all levels of knowledge will be engaged in understanding this crucial chapter in American history and weighing questions regarding mass atrocities in our own era.

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Contents
• Acknowledgments
• Introduction
• 1. Responses to Hitler’s Rise
• 2. The American Mood
• 3. Doing Business with Hitler
• 4. The Universities and the Nazis
• 5. U.S. Immigration Policy
• 6. Searching for a Haven
• 7. The Doomed Journey of the St. Louis
• 8. The Wagner-Rogers Bill to Save Children
• 9. American Rescuers
• 10. Genocide Confirmed
• 11. All the News the Media Could Fit
• 12. American Christian Responses
• 13. American Jewish Responses
• 14. The Bermuda Conference
• 15. Obstacles to Rescue
• 16. The Campaign for Rescue
• 17. Zionism and the Holocaust
• 18. The War Refugee Board
• 19. Bombing Auschwitz
• 20. Liberation
• State of the Field
• Notes
• Bibliography
• Index
• About Rafael Medoff