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Pressure to Act
In October 1943, a group of 400 Orthodox rabbis marched on Washington to demand an organized US effort to rescue Jews. The march was co-sponsored by Peter Bergson's organization, the Emergency Committee to Save the Jews of Europe.
Thomas D. McAvoy/The LIFE Picture Collection/Getty Images.
As details of the Nazis' murderous plans trickled out to the public in 1943, American Jews remained divided about how much pressure to exert on the federal government to take special action to rescue Jews. Two non-Americans, Jan Karski and Peter Bergson, played prominent roles in trying to mobilize a US government response.
Eyewitness in the White House
Jan Karski, a member of the Polish underground resistance, witnessed the horrors suffered by Jews in the Warsaw Ghetto and in a transit camp. Karski met Roosevelt at the White House on July 28, 1943, and told the president about the dire situation in occupied Poland. Karski later recalled that FDR promised the Allies "shall win the war" but made no mention of rescuing Jews.
"Action, Not Pity"
After news of the "Final Solution" became public, Peter Bergson, born in Lithuania and raised in the British Mandate of Palestine, openly challenged both the US government and American Jewish leaders to take decisive action to save European Jews. Bergson and his prominent supporters, including many Hollywood and Broadway stars, staged the We Will Never Die pageant to call attention to the ongoing murder of Europe's Jews. In November 1943, Bergson persuaded members of Congress to introduce a resolution intended to pressure President Roosevelt to formulate a plan for rescuing Jews in Europe. |