Forgotten victims

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One common explanation for the world's failure to prevent the Holocaust is that the Nazi extermination program seemed too incredible to believe. Fifty years later, many Americans may find it hard to accept that their fellow citizens were among the twelve million murdered by the Nazis, abandoned by their own government. The outbreak of war in Europe put tens of thousands of American civilians, particularly Jews, in peril, yet the State Department failed to assist them, leading to suffering and death. When the U.S. joined the war, many brave young Americans were captured, with Jewish soldiers facing special risks due to identifying "H" (for "Hebrew") on their dog tags, which made them targets for mistreatment. Some Jewish GIs were sent to the brutal Berga labor camp, which had the highest fatality rate among POW facilities, while others ended up in concentration camps as victims of the "Final Solution." Despite the existence of numerous books on the Holocaust, the fate of Americans who fell into Nazi hands remains largely unexplored. This oversight may stem from the relatively small number of American victims or the assumption that the Holocaust was a purely European tragedy. However, Mitchell Bard argues that much of the evidence has been concealed by the U.S. government, which had reasons to cover up the mistreatment of American citizens and soldiers. This book provides documentary evidence that U.S. officials were aware of th