I am a historian of the U.S. and the Holocaust, and the author of the authoritative history of the War Refugee Board, Rescue Board: The Untold Story of America’s Efforts to Save the Jews of Europe (Doubleday, 2018), winner of the 2018 National Jewish Book Award for Writing Based on Archival Material (the JDC-Herbert Katzki Award). I served as a historical advisor and an on-camera expert in Florentine Films’ The U.S. and the Holocaust, directed by Ken Burns, Lynn Novick, and Sarah Botstein. The film will debut on PBS in September 2022.

I am also a historian, educator, curator, and archivist at the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum. As part of my work at the Museum, I have presented on US immigration policy during the 1930s; Holocaust-era diaries; Anne Frank; and the “Hoecker album,” a photograph album owned by Karl Hoecker, the final adjutant to the commandant of Auschwitz-Birkenau. My work on the Hoecker album has been adapted into a theatrical production, Here There are Blueberries, written by Moisés Kaufman and Amanda Gronich, and developed by the Tectonic Theater Project. Views expressed here are my own and do not necessarily represent those of the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum.

I earned a PhD in American history from George Mason University. I present frequently on the War Refugee Board, the wide range of American responses to the Holocaust, and other Holocaust-related issues.