“The Abandonment of the Jews” at 40: A Book That Saved Lives
by Rafael Medoff | November 26, 2024
This month marks the fortieth anniversary of the publication of David S. Wyman’s The Abandonment of the Jews, a book that changed the way we think about our nation’s history—and also saved lives. That is a rare achievement.
Wyman (1929-2018), a Harvard-trained historian and grandson of two Protestant ministers, did not set out to write about the Holocaust. But he was puzzled by the reluctance of other scholars to confront the question of how America responded to the Nazi genocide, so he decided to explore it himself. The Abandonment of the Jews: America and the Holocaust 1941-1945, was published by Pantheon in November 1984.



To understand the outcome of the next four years (and beyond) as we discuss on these pages, it is important to begin with the same baseline of information. One key element that is not going to be discussed anywhere else, is what you will read below.






