The Bergson Group was led by Hillel Kook, one of the heads of Irgun in America and nephew of the First Chief Rabbi of Mandatory Palestine, Rabbi Abraham Isaac Kook. He also called himself Peter Bergson, thus the name of the group. He established the Emergency Committee for the Rescue of European Jewry. The Committee, which included Jewish and non-Jewish American public figures, worked to publicize the facts of the Nazi’s annihilation of the Jews and lobby the President and Congress to take action to save the remnants of Europe's Jews.
The Rabbis March in Washington
One of the Committee's more well-known actions was a protest Kook organized, known as the “Rabbis' March.” The protest took place in Washington, D.C., on October 6, 1943, three days before Yom Kippur. The group of over 400 rabbis marched to the United States Capitol, Lincoln Memorial, and White House in Washington, DC. The March’s success was limited by the actions of some of FDR’s Jewish friends (who were more concerned about FDR and less concerned for their fellow Jews in Europe), including Reform leader Stephen Wise.
A few months later, on January 13, 1944. Treasury staff members John Pehle, Randolph Paul, Ansel Luxford, and Josiah DuBois presented Morgenthau with an 18-page memorandum entitled "Report to the Secretary on the Acquiescence of This Government in the Murder of Jews.” After reading it, Morgenthau’s immediate response was, “I am physically ill.”
As a result, three days later, on January 16, 1944, Morgenthau personally visited the White House and met with President Roosevelt. The following week, the president issued an executive order establishing the War Refugee Board on January 22, 1944.
Through the efforts of the War Refugee Board, steps were finally taken to save Jews in Europe. Refugee camps were prepared in North Africa, and safe havens were arranged in Palestine, Switzerland, and Sweden. The War Refugee Board also lobbied Roosevelt to publicly condemn the mass murder of Jews by the Nazis, which he did on March 24, 1944.
By attracting international attention to the desperate plight of Hungarian Jewry, the War Refugee Board contributed to the cessation of deportations of Hungarian Jews to Auschwitz. The Board also sent Swedish diplomat Raoul Wallenberg and others to protect the Jews of Budapest. The American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee funded Wallenberg's rescue work through the War Refugee Board. The work by Wallenberg in Hungary was one of the most successful and vital rescue efforts accomplished by the War Refugee Board.
It is difficult to determine the exact number of Jews rescued by the War Refugee Board. Professor David Wyman (1929-2018), a noted Christian Holocaust historian, credited the War Refugee Board with saving as many as 200,000 people; the War Refugee Board staff estimated they saved tens of thousands. At the end of the war, considering reports of ill-treatment of the Jews in the DP camps, Morgenthau and the War Refugee Board also convinced President Truman to send an American envoy, lawyer Earl Harrison, to examine the situation personally, and following his trip, the situation in the DP camps improved.
Yet, there was a time during the war when even Morgenthau hesitated.
