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.