What Allied Leaders Said About the Holocaust

Dr. Richard Breitman, eminent historian of the Holocaust, examines why Churchill, Roosevelt, and Stalin, though faced with mounting evidence of the Nazi extermination of Jews, were reluctant to speak out against the atrocities.

Through close readings of public and private statements, Breitman pieces together the competing motivations that drove each leader’s response to the atrocities. Join us for a conversation that sheds new light on the relationship between World War II, the Holocaust, and the political and military exigencies that drove Allied leaders' decisions.

Richard Breitman is Distinguished Professor Emeritus at American University. His many books include The Berlin Mission: The American Who Resisted Nazi Germany from Within; FDR and the Jews, coauthored with Allan J. Lichtman; Official Secrets: What the Nazis Planned, What the British and Americans Knew; and The Architect of Genocide: Himmler and the Final Solution.