America Views the Holocaust, 1933-1945: A Brief Documentary History (Bedford Series in History and Culture)

Were Americans heroic liberators of Nazi concentration camp victims at the end of World War II, or were they knowing and apathetic bystanders of unspeakable brutality and annihilation? This question has long haunted historians, who hotly debate 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--this volume's three part organization chronicles what was unfolding in Nazi Germany through the lens of American reporters and writers, traces the resurgence of anti-Semitism in the US as well as its increasingly tight immigration policies, and then reveals Americans' horror upon the realization that the reports and stories of the Holocaust were not exaggerations or fabrications. An epilogue examines the complexity of historical interpretations and moral judgments that have evolved since 1945.