Were Americans the heroic liberators of Nazi concentration camp victims in 1945, or were they knowing and apathetic bystanders to unspeakable brutality and annihilation for a dozen years? Historians have long debated what the United States knew about Hitler’s gruesome Final Solution, when they knew it, and whether they should have intervened sooner. Wrapping historical narrative around 60 primary sources — including news clippings, speeches, letters, magazine articles, and government reports — Abzug chronicles the unfolding events in Nazi Germany while tracing the resurgence of anti-Semitism and tightening immigration policies in the United States. He relies on the American journalistic sources through which U.S. citizens read about events in Europe to provide students a real context to understand Americans’ horror when they realized that the reports of the Holocaust were not exaggerations or fabrications. An epilogue examines the complexity of historical interpretations and moral judgments that have evolved since 1945. Useful apparatus includes photographs, a chronology, questions for consideration, a bibliography, and an index.
Presents a selection of original documents, including letters from Germany, journalistic accounts, diary entries, and other documents that illustrate the varied reactions of Americans as they witnessed the Holocaust. Documents are divided into three sections: the first years of the Nazi regime (1933-1935); exclusion, emigration, and war (1935-1941); and the development of popular American awareness (1942-1945). Annotation c. by Book News, Inc., Portland, Or.