"To kill the Jews, the Nazis were willing to weaken their capacity to fight the war. The United States and its allies, however, were willing to attempt almost nothing to save them- (Pp 5). If we would have put half as much energy into loving the Jews as Hitler spent hating the Jews we could have made a great difference.
Wyman's book, The Abandonment of the Jews was very intriguing to me. Although I found it very thorough it left me wanting to know how something this horrible could have been allowed to happen. Although Wyman does discuss why more was not done, I am still horrified that this was allowed to happen. Wyman proves that the US should and could have done more to help the dying Jews. .
I found a reoccurring theme to be that a large problem was that Jewish people had nowhere to go. No one wanted them. .
The book begins by giving a brief background into the setting of America at the onset of the war. It details an anti-Semitic America. It also explains most of the anti-Semitism as passive, which ordinarily would do little harm, but during a holocaust crisis became a reason for America's inaction. .
The book then jumps right into the emergence of information that became available. The first major report was the Bund report. This estimated the number of victims to already be over 700,000. .
This report and the ones to follow were hard to believe. The state departments skepticism kept the news from reaching the media for several months. They were convinced that the deportations were for slave labor even though this explanation has huge flaws. As more reports of the mass murders developed they were finally confirmed, 17 months after the first killing began. .
One of the first steps taken was that seven different Jewish organizations came together to form the Temporary Committee. They decided on 5 steps of action and after obtaining them they dissolved the committee without much accomplished.