A Race Against Death ― Peter Bergson, America, and the Holocaust

In his landmark bestseller, The Abandonment of the Jews, David Wyman exhaustively detailed America’s failure to help rescue the victims of Nazi genocide. But one man, Peter Bergson, led a tireless battle against that tide of indifference, making it impossible for American leaders to plead ignorance of the German atrocities. Now, Wyman, along with Rafael Medoff, tells for the first time the story of the man who led America’s most effective campaign to rescue victims of the Holocaust.

A Race Against Death utilizes extensive firsthand interviews to present Peter Bergson’s own account of his remarkable life and struggles. Facing deportation from America and threats on his life, Bergson employed every conceivable method to influence policy and public opinion: he personally hounded Congressmen to support a rescue; placed controversial full-page ads in major newspapers demanding action; and drew a record crowd of 40,000 to a rally and memorial pageant at Madison Square Garden.

Award-winning historian David Wyman is the definitive authority on America’s action—and inaction—during the Holocaust. In A Race Against Death, he and Rafael Medoff return to this tragic era in American history and chronicle one of its few heroes.

Author of the bestselling Abandonment of the Jews, David Wyman is a special adviser to the United States Holocaust Memorial Council and professor emeritus of history at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst.
Rafael Medoff is a visiting scholar in the Jewish Studies program at the State University of New York at Purchase and author of The Deafening Silence: American Jewish Leaders and the Holocaust.