Date
12-16-2025
Department
College of Arts and Sciences
Degree
Doctor of Philosophy in History (PhD)
Chair
Allen C. York
Keywords
Holocaust, Refugee crisis, Jewish refugee crisis, American aid, Jewish aid, Initiative, Rescue, Relief, Aid, Second World War, World War II, Nazi Germany, Nazism, Racial persecution, 1930s, 1940s, President Franklin D. Roosevelt, American Unitarian Church, Humanitarianism, Jewish crisis, American response to Holocaust, America and the Holocaust, American Jews, American history, American Jewish history, genocide, extermination, religious organizations, humanitarian organizations, FDR, American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee, Holocaust history, Office of the Historian, United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, State Department, Roosevelt administration, Henry Morgenthau Jr., John Pehle, Donald Lowrie, ERC, IRC, Peter Bergson, Frances Perkins, Eleanor Roosevelt, Breckinridge Long, War Refugee Board, WRB, Ben Hecht, humanity, inhumanity, faith, America, United States, Treasury Department, Wagner-Rogers, Wagner-Rogers Bill
Disciplines
History
Recommended Citation
Sproule, Holly Ann, "Resolutions, Radio, Razzle Dazzle, Resilience, and Rachamim: An American Initiative for the Jews during the Jewish Refugee Crisis and the Holocaust" (2025). Doctoral Dissertations and Projects. 7770.
https://digitalcommons.liberty.edu/doctoral/7770
Abstract
Since the 1960s, historians have focused on American inaction during the Holocaust, concluding that the War Refugee Board (WRB) was the definitive involvement of the United States in aiding the Jews in Nazi occupied Europe. Consequently, American aid efforts preceding the creation of the WRB remain unfamiliar and underexplored. By examining the Foreign Relations Diplomatic collections of the Office of the Historian, the databases of the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, and qualitative research, this dissertation argues that there was a dynamic American initiative in Jewish aid and rescue preceding the War Refugee Board. Through analysis of government and organizational primary sources, this dissertation reveals that there were significant American efforts of Jewish relief during the Jewish refugee crisis and the Holocaust, specifically the years 1937 to early 1944. These findings challenge the dominant scholarly consensus of American involvement in Jewish relief in Nazi occupied Europe, offering a new understanding of how, despite American indifference, there was a dynamic American effort of Jewish rescue during the Holocaust.
