WHO KNEW WHAT WHEN?

It is a shame you did not assign a historian to review “The Holocaust in History” by Michael Marrus. Rabbi Polish endorses Marrus’ spurious claim that “Jewish leaders in Europe and the United States . . . did not know, while events were overwhelming them, what we now know in the light of a kindlier day.”

This statement is demonstrably false, and Rabbi Polish is wrong to endorse it in his review.

The American Jewish Commission on the Holocaust--chaired by former Supreme Court Justice Arthur Goldberg--issued its official findings in March, 1984. This was widely covered in the national press, including the Los Angeles Times. The report states on page 43: “ All major Jewish leaders knew or had access to the grim truth by autumn 1942 (emphasis theirs).”

LAURENCE JARVIK

LOS ANGELES

Editor’s Note: Jarvik produced and directed “Who Shall Live and Who Shall Die?,” a documentary about American responses to the Nazi extermination of European Jewry during World War II.