The United States Holocaust Memorial Museum pledged to recognize the activities of the Bergson Group in its permanent exhibition.
The Bergson Group, also known as the Emergency Committee to Save the Jewish People of Europe, used newspaper ads and public rallies to draw attention to the plight of European Jewry during the Holocaust. Their activities were considered too radical at the time by the Jewish establishment, which preferred to exert influence more quietly.
Steven Luckert, the museum’s chief curator, said in a letter Monday that an overhaul of the exhibition segment dealing with the War Refugee Board would be completed by the spring of 2008. As part of that revision, the museum would “provide some visual materials and artifacts relating to the Bergson Group to better highlight its activities.”
The change comes after a public campaign by the David S. Wyman Institute for Holocaust Studies to pressure the museum that included two petitions, statements from members of Congress and a public by appeal by Nobel laureate Elie Wiesel. The institute had privately raised the issue years ago with the museum staff, and the institute’s director, Rafael Medoff, said the museum had promised as early as 2002 to make the adjustments.
