Making "Peter Bergson:" Historical Memory and a Forgotten Holocaust Hero

The work of Revisionist Zionist Hillel Kook, alias Peter Bergson, and his followers, known as the Bergsonites, was instrumental in alerting American public awareness to the horrors of the Holocaust. By the end of 1943 the Bergsonites generated enough congressional support for a resolution to create a government agency to rescue European Jews. Not wanting to appear forced into saving the persecuted, President Franklin Roosevelt created the War Refugee Board (WRB) in January 1944 to pre-empt the congressional resolution. The WRB was subsequently credited with saving as many as 200,000 European Jews. It is therefore possible to trace the creation of the WRB to the Bergonsites and to give them credit for rescuing these Jews.