They Called Him Mike

Pt. 3 (pp. 232-306), "The War Years, " relates the involvement of Elemelech Gavriel Tress (1909-1965), through his work in the Agudath Israel Refugee and Immigration Division from late 1938, in efforts to obtain affidavits and procure U.S. emergency visas which saved thousands of European Jews. There was a prevailing anti-immigrant sentiment in the U.S. in the 1930s-early 1940s, in which antisemitism played a significant role. Discusses the indifference of State Department officials to the plight of European Jews and their tendency to set obstacles in the path of prospective immigrants, the general apathy of the American public, and the almost total absence of press coverage of the Holocaust in the U.S.