The Bergson Group had sponsored rallies, placed hundreds of newspaper ads, and lobbied extensively on Capitol Hill (it was really the first “Jewish lobby”) – yet it was not mentioned in Holocaust museums.
Journalist Varian Fry and rogue U.S. diplomat Harry Bingham smuggled over 2,000 Jews out of Vichy France – yet their names were almost completely unknown.
A handful of courageous American athletes risked their careers by boycotting the 1936 Berlin Olympics – yet they were forgotten.
Ten years later, the landscape has changed, thanks to the Wyman Institute’s appeals, petitions, and educational efforts.
The U.S. Holocaust Museum finally installed materials about the Bergson Group – and a photo of the rabbis’ march – in its permanent exhibit. Numerous recent Holocaust history books and reference volumes have also mentioned Bergson and the rabbis’ march. Yad Vashem hosted a joint Wyman-Yad Vashem conference celebrating the 70th anniversary of the Bergson Group’s creation. Former speaker of the house Nancy Pelosi praised the Bergson Group in her recent autobiography. The Chicago City Council agreed to name a street after writer Ben Hecht, a key Bergson Group ally. Harry Bingham was honored with his likeness on a U.S. postage stamp. The boycotters of 1936 have been honored at numerous events in the Jewish community, and their children and grandchildren followed in their footsteps by taking part in human rights protests related to the 2008 Olympics in China.
Teaching the Holocaust Through Cartoons
The Institute’s goal was not merely to attain overdue recognition of these men and women but to present them to today’s younger generation as moral role models. The goal was to inspire today’s students – tomorrow’s leaders – to avoid the mistakes of the Roosevelt era. Hence the Wyman Institute’s collaboration with Disney Educational Productions on a DVD, just released this summer, called “They Spoke Out: American Voices Against the Holocaust.” It features six 12-minute “motion comics” episodes, blending cartoon animation with authentic newsreel footage and photographs.
Documenting the Eyewitnesses
Everyone worries about how Holocaust education will be impacted when there are no longer survivors to talk about their experiences firsthand. To that end, Steven Spielberg and others have done invaluable work in videotaping interviews with those who experienced the Holocaust. But who will record the endangered eyewitness testimony of the activists of the 1940s, and others connected to America’s response to the Shoah?
The Wyman Institute has conducted a series of interviews with rabbis who took part in the 1943 march. The Institute has also interviewed numerous Auschwitz prisoners who saw American planes flying overheard in 1944 (on their way to bomb German oil factories adjacent to the camp).
The cochairman of the Institute’s board, Sigmund Rolat, and filmmakers Stuart Erdheim and Chaim Hecht, flew to South Dakota to conduct a landmark interview with 1972 Democratic presidential nominee George McGovern, who was one of the U.S. pilots on bombing raids near Auschwitz. McGovern sharply criticized Roosevelt’s failure to order the bombing of the death camp or the railways leading to it. The Institute screened the interview at a hearing of a Congressional task force.
Wyman Institute researchers also uncovered documents exploding the Roosevelt Institute’s claim that David Ben-Gurion and many other Jewish leaders opposed bombing Auschwitz (for fear of civilian casualties). The U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum, after weighing the evidence, agreed with the Wyman Institute that Ben-Gurion, Golda Meir, and other Jewish leaders in fact supported, and lobbied for, bombing the death camp.
