The Abandonment of the Jews

America and the Holocaust, 1941–1945

The bestselling classic on America’s response to the Nazi assault on European Jews

“Shocking, disturbing, and unforgettable. . . . [Wyman] subjects the American record during the Holocaust to the closest scrutiny it has yet received.” —The New York Times Book Review

The Abandonment of the Jews received enormous critical and commercial attention when it was first released in 1984, appearing on the New York Times bestseller list for five weeks as well as on its Best Books of the Year list. A selection of the History Book Club and the Jewish Book Club, it has sold over 100,000 copies in its various editions.

In this landmark work, David S. Wyman argues that a substantial commitment to rescue European Jews on the part of the United States almost certainly could have saved several hundred thousand of the Nazis’ victims. Widely considered to be the definitive book on the subject, The Abandonment of the Jews won the National Jewish Book Award, the Anisfield-Wolf Award, the Present Tense Literary Award, the Stuart Bernath Prize from the Society for Historians of American Foreign Relations, and the Theodore Saloutos Award of the Immigration History Society, and was nominated for the National Book Critics Circle Award.

This edition includes a new preface by the author discussing the ongoing controversy aroused by the book since its original publication.

Praise

“Never before has the evidence been marshaled so painstakingly, with such meticulous scholarship and to such effect.”
The Washington Post Book World
“A monumental volume: sweeping in its scope, stunning in its insight, and enduring in its importance. . . . A damning indictment.”
The Wall Street Journal
“We will not see a better book on this subject in our lifetime.”
—Leonard Dinnerstein, The Journal of American History

Books by David S. Wyman

A Race Against Death
Peter Bergson, America, and the Holocaust

David S. Wyman, Rafael Medoff

Goodreads Reviews