Rescue board : the untold story of America's efforts to save the Jews of Europe / Rebecca Erbelding.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Erbelding, Rebecca, author.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

United States. War Refugee Board.

United States.

World War, 1939-1945--Refugees.

World War, 1939-1945.

Refugees.

World War, 1939-1945--Jews--Rescue--Europe.

United States--Politics and government--1933-1945.

Politics and government.

Europe.

Local Subjects:

Europe.

United States.

Genre:

Nonfiction.

History.

Physical Description:

368 pages, 8 unnumbered pages of plates : illustrations ; 25 cm

Edition:

First edition.

Other Title:

Untold story of America's efforts to save the Jews of Europe

Place of Publication:

New York : Doubleday, [2018]

Summary:

"America has long been criticized for refusing to give harbor to the Jews of Europe as Hitler and the Nazis closed in. Now a U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum scholar tells the extraordinary story of the War Refugee Board, President Franklin D. Roosevelt's little-known effort late in the war to save the Jews who remained. In January 1944, a young Treasury lawyer named John Pehle accompanied his boss to a meeting with the president. For more than a decade, the Jews of Germany had sought refuge in the United States and had been stymied by Congress's harsh immigration policy. Now the State Department was refusing to authorize relief funds Pehle wanted to use to help Jews escape Nazi territory. At the meeting, Pehle made his best case--and prevailed. Within days, FDR created the War Refugee Board, empowering it to rescue the victims of Nazi persecution, and put John Pehle in charge. Over the next twenty months, Pehle pulled together a team of D.C. pencil pushers, international relief workers, pirates, diplomats, millionaires, confidence men, and rabble-rousers to run operations across four continents and a dozen countries. Together, they tricked the Nazis, forged identity papers, smuggled food into concentration camps, recruited spies, leaked news stories, negotiated ransoms, and funneled millions of dollars into Europe. They bought weapons for the French Resistance and ships to transport Romanian refugees to Palestine. Altogether, they saved tens of thousands of lives. In Rescue Board, U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum scholar Rebecca Erbelding uses unrivaled access to archival materials and fresh interviews with survivors to tell the dramatic unknown story of America's last-ditch effort to save the Jews of Europe"-- Provided by publisher.

January 1944. For more than a decade, the Jews of Germany had sought refuge in the United States and been stymied by Congress's harsh immigration policy. At the meeting treasury lawyer John Pehle made his best case-- and FDR created the War Refugee Board. Over the next twenty months a team of D.C. pencil pushers, international relief workers, pirates, diplomats, millionaires, confidence men, and rabble-rousers tricked the Nazis, forged identity papers, smuggled food into concentration camps, recruited spies, leaked news stories, negotiated ransoms, and funneled millions of dollars into Europe. Erbelding uses archival materials and interviews with survivors to tell the dramatic unknown story of America's last-ditch effort to save the Jews of Europe. -- adapted from jacket.

Contents:

Two wars

Revelation

John Pehle

State Department hubris

On the acquiescence of this government

A War Refugee Board

Getting started

Hirschmann in Turkey

Warnings

Protective papers

Blood for goods

Free ports

Whether to bomb, whether to ransom

The Horthy offer

Adrift

Midnight sun

What kind of peace

A coup in Hungary

McClelland's report

War at Christmas

Prisoner exchanges

Packages

Liberation

Afterword.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references (pages 289-346) and index.

National Jewish Book Awards - Writing Based on Archival Material, Winner, 2018

Other Format:

Online version: Erbelding, Rebecca. Rescue Board.

ISBN:

9780385542517

0385542518

OCLC:

994368113

Publisher Number:

40028084471