Presenters – The Allied Powers’ Response to the Holocaust Conference

View the conference’s esteemed list of featured speakers and panelists. (in order of presentation):

Dr. Rafael Medoff

The David S. Wyman Institute for Holocaust Studies

Topic: Jews and Zionism in the Mind of Franklin D. Roosevelt: New Research, New Controversies

Dr. Rafael Medoff is founding director of The David S. Wyman Institute for Holocaust Studies, in Washington, D.C. The Wyman Institute is the only institution in the world devoted to studying and teaching specifically about America’s response to the Holocaust. Dr. Medoff is also the author of 15 books about the Holocaust, Zionism, and Jewish history.

Primary Sources Referenced:

1944 DuBois Report

Professor Robert Wistrich

Hebrew University of Jerusalem

Topic: Nazi Antisemitism and its Consequences During World War II

Robert Wistrich holds the Neuberger chair for Modern European History at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem and has been Head of the Vidal Sassoon International Center for the Study of Antisemitism since 2002. He was recently awarded a prize for Lifetime Achievement by the New-York based Journal for the Study of Antisemitism which described him “as the leading scholar in the field of antisemitism study today”. His books include Socialism and the Jews (Oxford University Press, 1985) which received the American Jewish Committee award, The Jews of Vienna in the Age of Franz Joseph (OUP, 1991) which won the Austrian State Prize for Danubian History and Antisemitism, the Longest Hatred (Pantheon, 1992) which received the H.H. Wingate Prize for non-fiction in the UK. It was also the basis for the PBS film documentary which Professor Wistrich scripted and co-edited. Among his other books are: Hitler and the Holocaust (Random House, 2001), which has been translated into 25 languages.

Professor Stephen Norwood

University of Oklahoma

Topic: American Responses to the Cold Pogrom

Stephen H. Norwood received his PhD from Columbia University in 1984 and is Professor of History and Judaic Studies at the University of Oklahoma. He is the author of five books, most recently Antisemitism and the American Far Left (Cambridge University Press, 2013) and The Third Reich in the Ivory Tower (Cambridge University Press, 2009), which was a Finalist for the National Jewish Book Award for Holocaust Studies. He is co-editor (with Eunice G. Pollack) of the prize-winning two-volume Encyclopedia of American Jewish History (2008). His articles have appeared in numerous journals, including American Jewish History, Modern Judaism, and Journal for the Study of Antisemitism.

Professor Monty Noam Penkower

Machon Lander Graduate School of Jewish Studies

Topic: The Jews Were Expendable: Free World Diplomacy and the Holocaust – 30 Years Later

Professor Monty Noam Penkower, Professor Emeritus of Jewish History at the Machon Lander Graduate School of Jewish Studies, Jerusalem, has been called one of the foremost historians of the modern Jewish experience. His many books include The Jews Were Expendable, Free World Diplomacy and the Holocaust; The Holocaust and Israel Reborn ; Decision on Palestine Deferred: America, Britain and Wartime Diplomacy, 1939-1945; Twentieth Century Jews ; The Swastika’s Darkening Shadow ; and Palestine in Turmoil, The Struggle for Sovereignty, 1933-1939. His recent works include The Swastika’s Darkening Shadow: Voices before the Holocaust (2013) and Palestine in Turmoil: The Struggle for Sovereignty, 1933-1939 (2014). He is currently completing research for a book on Palestine in the international arena, 1945-1948.

Primary Sources Referenced:

Professor Michael Fleming

Polish University Abroad, London

Topic: The Holocaust: The Politics of Response in Britain

Michael Fleming is a graduate of the University of London and the University of Oxford. He has taught at Jesus College and Pembroke College, Oxford, and at the Academy of Humanities and Economics, Łódź. He is currently a professor at the Polish University Abroad, London, and conference secretary to the Institute for Polish Jewish Studies. His most recent book is Auschwitz, the Allies and Censorship of the Holocaust.

Primary Sources Referenced:

1943 (May) Zygielbojm Suicide Letter

Professor Dariusz Stola

Warsaw University

Topic: More Than Reactions to the Holocaust: the Polish Government-In-Exile Policy in Jewish Matters

Dariusz Stola is a historian, professor at the Institute of Political Studies, Polish Academy of Sciences, fellow at the Center for Migration Research, Warsaw University. Since March 2014 he has been the director of the Museum of the History of Polish Jews. He has published ten books and more than hundred articles on the history Polish-Jewish relations, the communist regime in Poland and on international migrations in the 20th century. He has lectured in history for many years and served on advisory boards of several Polish and international institutions and journals.

Dr. Laurence Weinbaum

Israel Journal of Foreign Affairs

Topic: Introduction of the film Jan Karski Report by Claude Lanzmann

Laurence Weinbaum is the director of the the Israel Council on Foreign Relations, which operates under the auspices of the World Jewish Congress, and is founding chief editor of its Israel Journal of Foreign Affairs. Dr. Weinbaum is a graduate of the Edmund Walsh School of Foreign Service of Georgetown University in Washington, DC, where he was the assistant of the late Prof. Jan Karski. He earned his PhD in history at Warsaw University. His dissertation, focusing on relations between the Zionist Revisionist Movement and the Polish Government in the late 1930s, was published in book form in 1993. His latest book, Bohaterowie, Hochsztaplerzy, Opisywacze, Wokol Żydowskiego Związku Wojskowego [Heroes, Hucksters and Storytellers: On the Jewish Military Union in the Warsaw Ghetto], co-authored with historian Dariusz Libionka, was published at the end of 2011 by the Polish Center for Holocaust Research of the Polish Academy of Sciences.

Professor Laurel Leff

Northeastern University

Topic: Explanation or Excuse: Assessing Fears of an Antisemitic Backlash in the American Response to the Holocaust

Laurel Leff is an Associate Professor of Journalism and the Stotsky Professor of Jewish Historical and Cultural Studies at Northeastern University. She is also Associate Director of Northeastern’s Jewish Studies program. She was formerly a reporter for The Wall Street Journal and The Miami Herald and an editor with American Lawyer Media Inc. and The Hartford Courant. Leff has a masters in the study of law from Yale University, a masters in communications from the University of Miami, and an A.B. from Princeton University. Her book, Buried by The Times: The Holocaust and America’s Most Important Newspaper, was published by Cambridge University Press. She is currently working on a book on the response of American elites to the refugee crisis of the 1930s and early 1940s.

Primary Sources Referenced:

Professor Bat-Ami Zucker

Bar-Ilan University

Topic: Immigration and Refugee Policy of the U.S. on the Eve of World War II

Bat-Ami Zucker(LL.B, Ph.D) is a Senior Lecturer at Bar-Ilan University, Israel. Her books include United States Aid to Israel and Its Reflection in the New York Times and the Washington Post, 1948-1973 (1991) and In Search of Refuge: Jews and United States Consuls in Nazi Germany, 1933-1941 (2000).

Primary Sources Referenced:

Dr. Wojtek Rappak

University College London

Topic: Rescue and the Polish Wartime State: Karski brings the dire news to Roosevelt

Wojtek Rappak was born in Gdańsk and studied philosophy and history in Canada, Warsaw, Paris and London. He has a doctorate from the University of London for research on the foundations of logic in the early philosophy of Ludwig Wittgenstein and is currently working on a post-doctoral history research project on Jan Karski at the Hebrew and Jewish Studies Department of University College London (UCL). He is also a director of a software company in London. He has presented papers on Jan Karski at conferences and seminars in London, Chicago and in Poland. His most recent publication, which appeared in the latest edition of the Polish journal Holocaust Studies and Materials (Zagłada Żydów, Studia i Materiały), presented a historical study of what is often called ‘the Karski report’; an English language version is forthcoming.

Professor Kenneth Werrell

Radford University

Topic: Distant, Difficult, but Doable? Could the Allies Have Bombed Auschwitz?

Kenneth P. Werrell graduated from the USAF Academy and served as an Air Force pilot before earning his degrees as a military historian from Duke University. He then taught military and recent U.S. history at Radford University for 26 years as well held temporary teaching and research assignments with the US Army (Command and General Staff College, Fort Leavenworth, KS) and US Air Force (Air University, Montgomery, AL) before his retirement. He has written seven books, many articles, and delivered numerous presentations on aviation history. This is his first foray into the fields of Holocaust studies and counterfactual history.

Primary Sources Referenced:

Professor Yehuda Bauer

Hebrew University of Jerusalem

Topic: Could the US Have Rescued the Jews of Europe During the Holocaust?

Yehuda Bauer is a professor of Holocaust Studies at the Avraham Harman Institute of Contemporary Jewry at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. He is the founding chair of the Vidal Sassoon Center for the Study of Antisemitism and founding editor of the Journal for Holocaust and Genocide Studies. He is the author of over a dozen books on the Holocaust including American Jewry and the Holocaust , The Holocaust as Historical Experience, and Rethinking the Holocaust.

Primary Sources Referenced:

Professor Xu Xin

Nanjing University

Topic: Response from Afar – Chinese Responses to the Holocaust

Xu Xin is Professor of the Department of Religious Studies and Dean of the Institute of Jewish Studies at Nanjing University, China He is President of the China Judaic Studies Association, Editor-in-Chief and a major contributor of the Chinese edition Encyclopedia Judaica (Shanghai: The Shanghai People’s Publishing House, 1993). He is author of Legends of the Chinese Jews of Kaifeng (with Beverly Friend, KTAV Publishing House, Inc., 1995), Anti-Semitism: How and Why (Shanghai Shanlian Books, 1996), A History of Western Culture (Peking University Press, 2002), and The Jews of Kaifeng, China: History, Culture, and Religion (KTAV Publishing House, Inc., 2003) and A History of Jewish Culture (Peking University Press, 2006). He has also written numerous articles on Judaic topics. In 1995, he was honored “James Friend Memorial Award.” In 2002, Bar-Ilan University’s Board of Trustees and Senate in Israel awarded him the degree of Doctor of Philosophy, Honoris Causa in recognition of the extremely important work he has done on research of the Jewish people in China.

Professor Alexander Groth

University of California-Davis

Topic: Denial: Four Themes of Holocaust Literature Revisited

Alexander Groth is Emeritus Professor of Political Science, University of California, A graduate of City College of New York (B.A._ and Columbia University (M,A., Ph.D.), his interests include Comparative Politics, Public Policy, Political Change, East Europe, and the Holocaust. He serves as a member of the Editorial Advisory Board of the Israel Journal of Foreign Affairs. His recent publications include Holocaust Voices: An Attitudinal Survey of Survivors and Accomplices: Churchill, Roosevelt and the Holocaust.

Primary Sources Referenced:

Mr. Tony Tanke, L.L.M.

University of Santa Clara Law School

Tony Tanke is an attorney with a private practice in Davis, California specializing in civil appeals and complex litigation. He is a Certified Appellate Specialist and a member of the California Academy of Appellate Lawyers. Mr. Tanke received his J.D. from the University of Minnesota in 1975 and an LL.M. from Cambridge University in 2005. As a Senior Fellow and Distinguished Research Lecturer in Law at Santa Clara University, he has taught courses in civil litigation and developed a course in class actions and complex litigation. His research interests include legal history and religious property disputes.

Topic: Jewish Legal Rights in The League of Nations: The British White Paper of 1939 and the Palestine Mandate

Primary Sources Referenced:

Professor Edward Rabin

University of California-Davis School of Law

Topic: Jewish Legal Rights in The League of Nations: The British White Paper of 1939 and the Palestine Mandate

Edward H. Rabin is an Emeritus Professor of Law at the School of Law, University of California, Davis where he has taught since 1966. At various times he has also served as Acting Dean and Associate Dean at the UC Davis School of Law. He is the 1990 recipient of the school’s Distinguished Teaching Award. He has served a chairman of the Real Property Section of the Association of American Law Schools and has been elected to the American Law Institute (ALI) and to the American College of Real Estate Lawyers. He is the senior author of Fundamentals of Modern Property Law, now in its sixth edition and a co-author of California Real Estate Finance Law. His law review articles and reviews have been published in such prestigious law reviews as Columbia, Cornell, New York University, Texas, UCLA, Hastings, Michigan, and Stanford.

Mr. Peter Hansen, L.L.M.

Law Offices of Peter C. Hansen, Washington D.C.

Topic: A Positivist Legal Framework for Confronting Genocide

Mr. Hansen is an investment law specialist with a practice in Washington, D.C. He took his JD at American University’s Washington College of Law, and his LLM at Cambridge University. He holds his BA in international affairs (magna cum laude), and his MA in international economic policy, from the American University School of International Service in Washington, DC. Mr. Hansen is the author of seminal articles on World Bank employment law, as well as of scholarly and occasional pieces on African investment issues. From 1999 to 2001, Mr. Hansen was Editor in Chief of International Legal Materials at the American Society of International Law. Mr. Hansen is an active lecturer on African and other topics, and was for many years Adjunct Professor of International Law at the American University School of International Service.

Dr. Eunice Pollack

University of North Texas

Topic: Perspectives On the Allied Powers’ Holocaust Response: Contributions and New Frontiers

Eunice G. Pollack (Ph.D. Columbia University) is a Lecturer of History in the University of North Texas Jewish and Israel Studies Program and a member of the Academic Council of the David S. Wyman Institute for Holocaust Studies. Her research interests include American Social and Cultural History; Jewish history; history of Antisemitism; history of gender; and the U.S. in the 20th century. Her published works include The Childhood We Have Lost: When Siblings Were Caregivers, 1900-1970, the ACTA booklet Racializing Antisemitism: Black Militants, Jews and Israel, 1950 – Present (2013), and The Encyclopedia of American Jewish History, which she co-edited with Professor Stephen Norwood (2008). Dr. Pollack is also the editor of the book series Antisemitism in the English-Speaking World (Boston: Academic Studies Press), as well as Antisemitism on the Campus: Past & Present (2011) and Anti-Zionism and Antisemitism in the English-Speaking World (2015).