The World Jewish Congress and the Institute of Jewish Affairs in Yad Vashem Studies, Volume 36:1

The World Jewish Congress and the Institute of Jewish Affairs at Nuremberg: Ideas, Strategies, and Political Goals, 1942–1946

A recent debate on whether the Holocaust was marginalized at the first Nuremberg trial fails to consider actual Jewish demands and whether recognition of mass murder was the only Jewish goal. Based on untapped archives of the World Jewish Congress and its research wing, the Institute of Jewish Affairs, this study argues that the groups wanted to influence Allied war crimes policy to secure post-war rehabilitation and a possible reconstruction of international minorities protections in addition to exposing the variety of anti-Jewish crimes and the specificity of Jewish victimhood. Documentary evidence also indicates that the Institute had greater impact on the U.S. Office of Strategic Services than previously recognized, while newly discovered correspondence during the Nuremberg trial indicates that the Institute’s influence on the U.S. prosecution’s case declined once the trial began.