The American response to Nazi persecution of the Jews, first of Germany and then most of Europe, brings to mind Winston Churchill’s famous evaluation of democracy: the worst system of government except for every other one. Before World War II, the U.S. admitted more Jewish refugees than any other nation on the globe, but left many more would-be entrants to their fates; after the war began, our country tried harder than other than other countries who were engaged in the war to aid Jews, but belatedly and halfheartedly. Professor Hayes will examine the principal causes of this pattern and address its relevance to the contemporary surge of anti-Semitism in America.
Peter Hayes ’68 is professor emeritus of history and Holocaust studies at Northwestern University, a former chair of the Academic Committee of the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, and the author or editor of thirteen books, including Why? Explaining the Holocaust, which has been or is about to be translated into Chinese (complex), German, Portuguese, Spanish, and Slovak; How Was It Possible? A Holocaust Reader; and The Oxford Handbook of Holocaust Studies. He lectures widely in Europe and North America on German history and the Holocaust and has appeared in numerous documentaries, including most recently the Ken Burns production of The U.S. and the Holocaust.
