The United States: A Promised Land Behind the Barrier of Affidavits

Drawing on her book Case Closed: Holocaust Survivors in Postwar America, historian Beth B. Cohen examines the reception and resettlement of Holocaust survivors in the United States in the aftermath of World War II. Through extensive archival research, she explores how immigration policy, American Jewish organizations, and broader social attitudes shaped survivors' efforts to rebuild their lives. By bringing institutional records into conversation with personal testimony, the talk illuminates the lived experience of refugee resettlement.

This event is part of Many Promised Lands?, LBI's 2026 lecture series covering migration of German-Jewish refugees after 1946.

This programming is made possible through the generous support of the Levi-Thalheimer Fund for Research and Public History.

Beth B. Cohen is a historian specializing in the Holocaust, with a focus on survivors’ postwar experiences in the United States. She is the author of two books; Case Closed: Holocaust Survivors in Postwar America (2007), supported by a USHMM postdoctoral fellowship and Child Survivors of the Holocaust: The Youngest Remnant and the American Experience, finalist for the Wiener Library’s Fraenkel Prize (2018) as well as numerous other publications. She has been the recipient of grants and fellowships from DAAD, the Hadassah-Brandeis Institute, the Holocaust Education Foundation, Feinstein Center for American Jewish History and others. Cohen has taught at California State University, Northridge, UCLA, Loyola Marymount University, and Chapman University. She has also served as a consultant to documentary filmmakers, educational organizations, and museums, including PBS's Frontline, the BBC's Auschwitz: The Nazis and The Final Solution, the Tenement Museum, the United Nations, and the Jewish Foundation for the Righteous. Cohen received her PhD from Clark University’s Strassler Center for Holocaust and Genocide Studies and her master’s degree from Harvard University. She currently serves as Director of Education at the JFCS Holocaust Center in San Francisco.