America Views the Holocaust 1933-1945: A Brief Documentary History, edited by the noted historian Robert Abzug, is the latest book published as part of the Bedford Series in History and Culture, a series "designed so that readers can study the past as historians do" ( v). As Abzug states in the Preface, the book "offers a selection of original documents that illustrate the varied texture of Americans' reactions as they witnessed what we now call the Holocaust…. [I]t follows the story from 1933 and the rise of Hitler to the liberation of the concentration camps in 1945" (vii-viii).
The book is divided into three parts: The First Years of the Nazi Regime, 1933-1935; Exclusion, Emigration, and War, 1935-1941; and, Imagining the Unimaginable, 1942-1945. Each part is comprised of various documents (e.g., primarily magazine and newspaper articles, but also excerpts from reports, diaries, and letters as well as complete letters) that address important aspects of how the United States viewed the unfolding of events in Nazi Germany and beyond during the Holocaust years. Even a short list of the over fifty pieces included herein provide the reader with a good sense of the breadth of issues addressed: "The Official Decrees and Measures Against the Jews"; "The Effect of the Anti-Jewish Measures"; "Anti-Nazi Boycott Circular Letter"; "NAACP Asks AAU to Abandon Olympics"; "The Anti-Semitic Problem in America"; and "Polish Death Camp." A succinct introduction accompanies each section of the book as well as each piece in the book. All such introductions are informative and provide key information that assists one to place the piece in its historical context.
Most, if not all, of the pieces included in this volume are ideal for use in the classroom. Most are short (ranging from one to seven pages) and can be read and discussed in a single classroom session. The collective pieces provide a good sense of the wide variety of reactions, views and positions that various individuals and groups took during this period. What is evident throughout, is that the world outside Nazi Germany had a real sense of the discrimination, injustice, terror and ultimately, the horrific mass murder that the Germans were implementing, in various stages, from 1933 onward. Yet, in certain cases, the discrimination and injustices were ignored. In regard to the allegations of mass killings, many, at least early on, found such assertions too astounding to be believable.
Among the most powerful documents is Varian Fry's "The Massacre of the Jews," originally published in The New Republic, December 1942. This was during the period when several of the death camps began operation and Western European Jews were beginning to be rounded up for deportation to the east where they were to be mass murdered. Fry not only delineates what was known at the time of the massacres but comments on his distress that such stories might be misconstrued as propaganda. He also suggests what the Allies should do in response to the mass killings. In part, he says: "Finally, and it is a little thing, but at the same time a big thing, we can offer asylum now, without delay or red tape, to those few fortunate enough to escape from the Aryan paradise…" (133).
Two other documents that deserve mention for their powerful descriptions are Tosha Bialer's "Behind the Wall (Life - and Death - in Warsaw's Ghetto)" and Edward R. Murrow's "Broadcast from Buchenwald." The first, written by an escapee of the Warsaw ghetto and originally published in Collier's (one of the leading mass-circulation magazines of the era), provides a graphic description of the horrific, degrading, and life-threatening circumstances that the Jews faced on a daily basis in the Nazi-devised ghetto. Murrow's description of Buchenwald provides a shocking view of what the first reporters confronted upon their initial entrance into such camps.
The book concludes with an Epilogue entitled "The Changing Historical Perspective," a chronology of events related to the Holocaust (1933-1945), "Questions for Consideration," and a Selected Biography. The epilogue, basically an historiography, is particularly valuable in that it delineates the evolution of key research findings in the field, particularly as they relate to what was known when and by whom in the United States as the events of the Holocaust unfolded. Teachers should find the "Questions for Consideration" helpful as they prepare to use the book with their students. Among those posited by Abzug are: "In what ways have these primary sources altered your thoughts about America's relation to the Holocaust?" and "How would you list anti-Semitism in importance among the factors that shaped responses to the plight of Europe's Jews?" (218).
While the editor provides explanations and annotations for certain key terms and pieces of information, many other terms and key information with which "average" students are unlikely to be conversant are neither explained nor annotated. For example, while annotations are provided for Franz von Papen, Horst Wessel, the London Conference, Leon Trotsky, and Untermensch, terms such as Aryan, Aryanized, the S.A. versus the SS, Zionists, and The Protocols of the Elders of Zion are not annotated or explained. This is a curious oversight. Indeed, the inclusion of more explanatory information or a glossary of terms would have made this useful book all that more useful.
This is a book that should find an appreciative audience among both educators and their students. Indeed, the contents are likely to provide students with a unique lens into the history of the Holocaust, and particularly how the U.S. government and its citizens viewed the events from afar, and, in certain cases, close-up