Jackie Trescott reports in the Washington Post that the US Holocaust Museum is planning to present an exhibit on the Bergson Group--featured in
Who Shall Live and Who Shall Die?, now available from Kino International on DVD
--during World War II:
The U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum has agreed to recast part of its permanent exhibition to include the story of the Bergson Group, a World War II citizens' group that called attention to the horrors facing European Jews and urged the American government to help.
The group was created in 1942 by a Lithuanian Jew who had immigrated to Palestine and taken the name Peter Bergson. He had come to Washington to represent a Zionist group and had visions of creating a Jewish army that would fight alongside the Allied armies. But on Nov. 25, 1942, he saw a story in The Washington Post reporting that the Nazis had killed 250,000 Polish Jews and planned the extermination of half of the Jewish population in that country by the end of the year.
From the Archives (pdf): On Nov. 25, 1942, Peter Bergson saw a story in The Washington Post that reported Nazis plans to kill 250,000 Polish Jews over the next year. The story ran on page 6. Bergson was so angry at the news and the placement of the story that he decided to start a massive lobbying effort. Read the full text of that story, headlined "Half of Jews Ordered Slain, Poles Report," here.
The story ran on Page 6.
Bergson was so angry at the news and the placement of the story that he decided to start a massive lobbying effort.
Some of his tactics were considered divisive and controversial at the time. The group, formally called the Emergency Committee to Save the Jewish People of Europe, bought newspaper ads pointing to the failure of the government and other efforts to save the Jews. There were also demonstrations, including a march of 400 rabbis in Washington.
He enlisted celebrities, including writers Ben Hecht and Moss Hart and actors Edward G. Robinson and Paul Muni. They created a dramatic pageant called "We Will Never Die," with music by Kurt Weill and readings praising the achievements of Jews throughout history, as well as describing the horrific plight of victims of the Nazis. The pageant traveled the country, drawing 40,000 people to Madison Square Garden. When it was performed at Washington's Constitution Hall on April 12, 1943, Eleanor Roosevelt and dozens of politicians watched it. When Mrs. Roosevelt wrote her next newspaper column about the pageant, according to the Holocaust Museum, "it was the first time [millions of American newspaper readers] heard about the Nazi mass murders."
At one point, Bergson advocated the bombing of Auschwitz and other concentration camps.
Finally, the group won the support of Congress, which prepared resolutions asking President Roosevelt to take action. Before the vote, Roosevelt created the War Refugee Board in 1944.
Museum officials said yesterday that at the urging of the David S. Wyman Institute for Holocaust Studies they would revise the segment on the board, a federal agency formed in the waning months of the war to help people flee Nazi oppression. It helped finance Raoul Wallenberg's work and saved about 200,000 people. The materials, which will be introduced next spring, will include wall text and photo reproductions and a new case for artifacts on the Bergson efforts.
While the permanent exhibition is often updated, this is the most extensive revision of one subject to date.
More background here.
