Holocaust
A selected bibliography of materials in the Wirtz Labor Library Collection

Holocaust Issues

Fraser,Steven
Labor Will Rule: Sidney Hillman and the Rise of American Labor.
New York, Free Press, 1991
A comprehensive work on one of America's great "labor statesman." There is more information here on the conditions facing Jews in pre-holocaust Europe, but this illustrates why Hitler was able to conduct his extermination policies and why so many Jews fled to America.

Gould, Jean
Sidney Hillman: Great America. New York, Houghton Mifflin, 1952
Written following Hillman's death, it pales in comparison to Fraser's work. Nonetheless, it also illustrates Europe's environment before the war. In the later chapters, it becomes evident that Hillman shied from focusing on the Holocaust, attempting to be American's labor statesman and resolving problems diplomatically.

Josephson, Mathew
Sidney Hillman: Statesman of American Labor. New York, Doubleday, 1952
The standard biography of Hillman before Fraser's work.

Danish, Max
The World of David Dubinsky. New York, World Pub. Co., 1957
Through the American Jewish Labor Committee, Dubinsky, even more than Hillman, used the media to denounce fascism. His "Ghetto Heroes and Martyrs" speech about the German crusade against Jews and unionists is highlighted in this work.

Fink, Gary, ed.
Biographical Dictionary of American Labor Leaders. Westport, Greenwood Press, 1974
Comprehensive collection of brief sketches of major U.S. labor leaders, including more than a dozen on the Jewish-Americans that emigrated from Europe and Russia.

Union Publications

Advance
The official publication of the Amalgamated Clothing and Textile Workers Union. It focused on fascist atrocities in Europe while still attending to the needs of U.S. workers during the turbulent 1930s and 1940s.

Justice
Official publication of the International Ladies Garment Workers union. Unlike Sidney Hillman's union publication, which was somewhat constrained because of his role as key advisor to Franklin Roosevelt, this paper condemned all discrimination in both Europe and the United States.

News of the UAW, changed later to Solidarity.
This publication of the UAW constantly warned American workers of the perils of Nazism and Italian fascism. With a large constituency of Slavic-Americans and African-Americans, this paper constantly reminded the respective groups of Hitler's intentions Hitler's intentions for their ethnic relations in Europe.

The Daily Worker.
Although not technically a "union paper", this publication of the Communist Party USA, focussed on the anti-Semitism and anti-worker policies of the Third Reich.

There are several German-language union periodicals in the Department of Labor Library holdings, which are very critical of the Nazi regime. Most of these ceased publication after German authorities destroyed the publication facilities.

Jews in Europe

Bull, Patch
"Nazi Objectives in Eastern Europe," Research Reports, vol. 1, 1939
Very lucid observation of the German intent to subjugate all of Europe and eliminate "inferior" people through genocidal practices.

Heiden, Konrad
A History of National Socialism. Methuen & Co., 1934
Translation of 2 books on the political philosophy of early Nazism. Along with Hitler's Mein Kampf, works like this made it clear that the Jewish population of Europe were targets for severe discrimination and extermination.

Shub, Boris, ed.
Hitler's Ten-Year War on the Jews. New York, American Jewish Congress, 1943
Series of collected articles on the reign of terror the Nazis leveled against the Jewish population of Europe.

Stone, Shepard
Shadow Over Europe: The Challenge of Nazi Germany. New York, Foreign Policy Association, 1939
This publication portended what was to come to Europe during the Second World War.

Adamic, Louis
"Shall We Send Them Back to Hitler," Nation, vol. 142, 1936
An article critical of the immigration-restrictive laws passed in the 1920's to prevent non-nordic people from entering the U.S. in significant numbers. Recent studies have shown that many victims of concentration camps would have been saved if we had lifted quotas. Many popular periodicals of the period such as Nation, New Republic, and others, often published articles on the situation in Nazi Germany.

Palyi,Melchior
Germany Rampant: A Study in Economic Militarism, New York: Carrick & Evans, Inc.,1939
This publication traces the philosophy of Nazism to the German mythological figures of ancient times.

American Connections

Perlman, Selig
"Jews and American Trade Unions," (reprint from the Journal of the American Jewish Historical Society, vol. XL, June, 1952)
One of the great early labor historians, Perlman focusses on the influences Jewish immigrants, particularly from Eastern Europe, had on the development of American trade unionism.

Handlin, Oscar and Handlin, Mary
Danger in Discord: The Origins of Anti-Semitism in the U.S. New York, Anti-Defamation Society of B'nai B'rith, 1948
America had its own race-thinking philosophies in the 1920s and 1930s, and a close examination of these trends bears frightful comparisons to the developments in Germany leading up to Nazism.

The Immigrant
House organ of the immigrant inspectors at Ellis Island Receiving Station, 1926-36.

Strong,Donald
Organized Anti-Semitism. Washington, American Council on Public Affairs, 1941
Article on the pro-Nazi forces in the U.S. just before our entry into World War II.

Ross,Edward A.
The Old World in the New. New York, Century Co., 1914
Classic edition of "race-typing" literature popular in the U.S. after the turn of the century. A pseudo-science named "Eugenics" purported to classify ethnic groups by stereotyped physical, mental, and social characteristics.

Fairchild, Henry
The Melting-Pot Mistake. Boston, Little, Brown and Co., 1926
A publication to support the Immigration Quota Acts of 1921 and 1924, which targeted the restriction of immigration from Southern and Eastern Europe in favor of that from Nordic and Anglo-Saxon nations.

U.S. Congress
Report of the U.S. Immigration Commission 1907-1911. Washington, GPO, 1912
Known as the Dillingham Commission, this body perpetuated the eugenical theories popular at the time. It covered all immigrant groups, including East-European Jews.

U.S. Congress, House, Committee on Immigration and Naturalization
Hearings to Admit German Refugee Children. Washington, GPO, 1939
Attempts were made to increase quotas of German Jewish Children, but nativistic and anti-Semitic feelings in Congress defeated the proposed legislation.

Post Holocaust

Dinnerstein, Leonard
America and the Survivors of the Holocaust. New York,
Columbia University Press, 1982
Comprehensive study of the Displacement Persons Act of 1948 that allowed war refugees--the author's concentration is on the Jewish element--to emigrate to the U.S., and the socio-political workings of the creation of Israel.)

U.S. Congress. House Committee on Foreign Affairs
Hearings on the Resettlement of Displaced Persons. Washington, GPO, 1947
The hearings cover all of the nations in disruption after WWII, and there is considerable content on the emigration of Jewish refugees.

Please check the Library Catalog for additional resources.