While apathetic Americans resisted involvement in German politics, one group of American Jews was busy assisting resistance fighters in the Warsaw Ghetto. They Were Not Silent: The Jewish Labor Movement and the Holocaust explores how the Jewish Labor Committee fought against Nazism and worked to save Jewish lives.

“When Hitler came to power most people had one of two feelings,” explains one member of the JLC. Most Americans were either apathetic to German politics because of domestic issues, or they thought that “Hitler was a clown—he’s going to take over power and everyone is going to see he’s a blooming idiot.’”

As Hitler was coming to power in Germany in the 1930s, most Americans, struggling with the Great Depression, were preoccupied with their own concerns. Many had an isolationist attitude toward foreign affairs. But many Jewish trade-unionists took notice of the troubling goings-on in Germany, and established the Jewish Labor Committee in New York City to respond to the rise of Nazism. Many of its members were Jewish immigrants who still spoke Yiddish and remained intensely connected to their Eastern European homelands. These concerned individuals united to fight against Nazi anti-Semitism for their friends and relatives across the ocean.
They Were Not Silent follows the activities of the JLC through the rise, devastation and eventual fall of the Nazi party. It memorably depicts both the politics behind the Second World War and personal accounts of those affected by it. Archival footage shows candid clips of political leaders, while survivor interviews, salvaged photographs, and recited diary entries reinforce the personal horrors of the Holocaust.

The president of the JLC, B.C. Vladeck, was celebrated as a passionate orator who could rally a crowd with his enthusiasm. As Hitler ascended to power, Vladeck told audiences, “A great silence is descending upon Europe — a silence, like a sinister shroud of death. The instruments of torture that Hitler has prepared for the Jews have been turned on the labor unionists.”

As the JLC grew in size and influence it continued to challenge Nazi power. Even before the war began, Jewish leaders worked to send an anti-Nazi message to the American public and organized boycotts against German goods. United in the struggle, mothers and little old ladies held giant cardboard signs to picket stores selling products that were produced under the Third Reich.

In 1936, the organization petitioned against America’s participation in the Olympic games in Germany. When the petition failed and American athletes traveled across the ocean to compete, the JLC organized the “Counter-Olympics” at Randall’s Island in New York City. Amateur athletes from across the country participated and, perhaps more importantly, the event received extensive nationwide press coverage.

The JLC also smuggled Jewish families out of Europe and aided the underground resistance movement there. At the same time that apathetic, anti-war Americans were saying things like, “Let the Germans fight their battle, they mean nothing to us,” the JLC was busy shipping aid to the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising.

Even after the Holocaust was over, the JLC continued to help uprooted Jews, sending aid to survivors in refugee camps across the globe.

The enormous loss of life during the Holocaust that came despite the JLC’s best efforts left many members of the JLC feeing dejected. One former member laments in retrospect that it was “Too little, too late,” but takes some solace from the fact that “nonetheless, it was an expression of fraternity and solidarity.”

Ultimately, They Were Not Silent captures this sense of solidarity between Jews in America and Jews in Europe and is a testament to the Jewish strength of spirit that demands accountability for one another – even when an ocean apart.