Rebecca Erbelding Gives First Helen Cohen Memorial Lecture on The US War Refugee Board and JDC

Dr. Rebecca Erbelding gave the First Helen Cohen Memorial Lecture on the US War Refugee Board and JDC. This public lecture was endowed by Jerry and Linda Spitzer in memory of his beloved aunt, Helen Cohen. Dr. Erbelding’s talk examined the following question: How did this collaboration between the US government and an NGO primarily funded by the Jewish community come to be? Based on research from her new book, Rescue Board, Erbelding shared details of this mutually beneficial cooperation

Dr. Rebecca Erbelding is the author of the well-reviewed Rescue Board: The Untold Story of America’s Efforts to Save the Jews of Europe (Doubleday, April 2018). She has worked as a historian, curator, and archivist at the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum for fifteen years, and served as a historian for the Museum’s newest exhibition, Americans and the Holocaust. She holds a PhD in American history from George Mason University.

Explore JDC Archives materials in our topic guide, JDC and the U.S. War Refugee Board.