So, there’s a perception in the historiography–in the books historians write–of divides during the Holocaust. There was The American Government. There was Jewish Organizations. There was The Public. As if these things are monoliths. As if no one ever breached the divide.
But these were real people, who had relationships. People who got along, or needed each other, gravitated to each other. Across the divide. It wasn’t just Stephen Wise and FDR–as if these were the only two personalities who breached the American Government and Jewish Organizations divide. When John Pehle had a question about refugee matters, he called Moe Leavitt of the Joint. Pehle trusted Leavitt to give him a straight answer to things. Edward Stettinius, Undersecretary of State, trusted Nahum Goldmann, of the World Jewish Congress. These were give-and-take relationships. They consulted with each other. In this letter, Goldmann reflects on his morning meeting with Stettinius, who had advised him of the Joel Brand ransom negotiation. Stettinius didn’t need to do this (though Goldmann probably would have–or had already–heard about this from London) and Goldmann definitely didn’t need to give the advice that he did, advice that he must have known would doom the prospect of accepting the offer: he told Stettinius the US had to tell the Soviet Union.
