NOT IDLY BY—PETER BERGSON
AMERICA AND THE HOLOCAUST

Best Documentary, Toronto Jewish Film Festival

A forceful contribution to our understanding of
the American reaction to the Holocaust
—and of the American Jewish response.

NOT TO BE MISSED!
Museum of Jewish Heritage Exhibition
“Art of Freedom: The Life and Work of Arthur Szyk”

Arthur Szyk worked closely with the Bergson Group
to make rescue of the Jews of Europe a priority,
as conveyed in the documentary Not Idly By

Not Idly By will be available in 2026.
Password currently needed for the full video below.

3-minute promo
Not Idly By takes a sledgehammer to the widely accepted notion that we did what we could.

About Not Idly By
and The U.S. and the Holocaust

Excerpts from The U.S. and the Holocaust Reveals the Dark Limits of Democracy
by Dara Horn (The Atlantic, Sept. 16, 2022)

Not Idly By, an hour-long work by the filmmaker Pierre Sauvage, addresses a similar subject as The U.S. and the Holocaust, but with a very different style. It’s about, and almost entirely narrated by, Peter Bergson, a Jewish activist from British-occupied Palestine who came to the U.S. during World War II to shout himself hoarse about the Holocaust. The U.S. and the Holocaust includes Bergson’s story too—his dozens of full-page ads in major newspapers highlighting massacres that those papers buried in inside pages; his star-studded, stadium-filling pageants; his 400-rabbi march on Washington. But

The U.S. and the Holocaust is sad, whereas Not Idly By is angry. Bergson, interviewed in 1978, rages with a Hebrew prophet’s fury.

Nobody rages in The U.S. and the Holocaust, because nobody rages on PBS. A subtle condescension is built into melancholic discussions of what might have been done to save more Jews, because in the final analysis, America saving more Jews was an optional, high-minded choice that would have been made only out of charity.

The Allies’ defeat of Hitler supposedly lets us off the moral hook for all this. One of the reasons that World War II films have such broad appeal is because many follow a Hollywood trajectory: Good triumphs over evil. Unfortunately, this version of events is false. As one of the historians in Burns’s series puts it, “We do rally as a nation to defeat fascism. We just don’t rally as a nation to rescue the victims of fascism.” The Nazis lost their war against the Allies, but they won their war against the Jews.

Dara Horn, The Atlantic, Sept. 16, 2022, The U.S. and the Holocaust Reveals the Dark Limits of Democracy

“It’s odd to recommend a film that’s unbearable to watch. But Not Idly By fits into that category.  The film left me wrestling with a series of questions I can’t quite shake.”
Jonathan Freedland, Widening the lens of blame, The [London] Jewish Chronicle

"The material is very powerful and vitally important.  Presenting Bergson's story in his words, with his evidence, through his frustrated anguish, is a continuation of his effort."
Dr. Ruth R. Wisse

A provocative film about a provocative man who is finally given his full say for history on one of the enduring questions of the Shoah: What could have been done by the U.S. and its allies and by American Jews to save the Jews of Europe—and why wasn’t it done.  Bergson presents his views boldly and Pierre Sauvage has empowered him for posterity.
Dr. Michael Berenbaum, Holocaust scholar, served as project director in the creation of the U. S. Holocaust Memorial Museum

This provocative film will open festering wounds that need to be pierced to form a scab of healing.  No one who witnesses this cautionary tale will leave unmoved.
Rabbi Harold M. Schulweis

The film—of the utmost importance—shines a bright light on a shamefully neglected aspect of the tormented and at the same time uplifting story of the Jewish people.
Sir Martin Gilbert, Winston Churchill's official biographer, and one of Britain's leading historians

Bergson’s voice resounds, his passion challenges anew, as he warns that massive abuses of human life will rage with impunity as long as people of all kinds are silent, fearful, and busy with other news.  By remembering the past, Bergson and Sauvage rightly hold all of us accountable in the present and for the future.
Dr. John K. Roth, Edward J. Sexton Professor Emeritus of Philosophy; Founding Director, The Center for the Study of the Holocaust, Genocide, and Human Rights, Claremont McKenna College

This brilliant, galvanizing, and profoundly moving documentary celebrates Peter Bergson's vigorous efforts to end the silence and the slaughter that defined the Holocaust.
Dr. Blanche Wiesen Cook, historian

Pierre Sauvage's new documentary means much to all those who work for remembering the Tragedy.  [Peter Bergson was the best friend and ally abandoned European Jews had in wartime America.]
Elie Wiesel

During World War II, Peter Bergson led the single most effective public campaign to press the U. S. government to try to rescue Jews from the Holocaust.  This excellent film, meticulously assembled by Pierre Sauvage, presents Bergson’s own powerful testimony about the obstruction that he and his group met—and about the very limited commitment to rescue that was finally extracted from the Roosevelt Administration.
Dr. David S. Wyman, historian, author, The Abandonment of the Jews and co-author, with Rafael Medoff, of A Race Against Death: Peter Bergson, America, and the Holocaust
See also Farewell to David Wyman, the Great Historian of American Silence in the Face of the Holocaust by Pierre Sauvage, Tablet

A fascinating and powerful film about a man whose words and actions were, tragically, ignored.
Bernard Weinraub, author, The Accomplices, a play about Peter Bergson and those times in America

Very powerful and compelling, especially coming directly from Peter Bergson's mouth.
Zev Yaroslavsky, former Los Angeles County Supervisor

Packs quite a punch.  Hillel Kook, otherwise known as Peter Bergson, was a driven person who was committed to saving Jews in peril during the Holocaust.  Pierre Sauvage’s indignant film, derives its title from a comment uttered by Bergson. “We stood idly by,” he declared, charging that mainstream Jewish organizations did precious little to try to rescue their brethren in Europe.
Sheldon Kirshner, Canadian Jewish News

The fascinating story of Peter Bergson has never been told in such depth.  "I know why I found him a riveting figure.  I was raised with taboos," says Sauvage.  "There will be some concern along the lines of, Is this good for the Jews.  What's good for the Jews is self-knowledge.  If you live with lies you won't be able to make informed choices."
Hannah Brown, The Jerusalem Post

Tightly edited.  Fascinating materials that have been largely forgotten for 40 years.  Bergson's statements are still highly provocative, which makes Sauvage's film sometimes tough to endure; it's frequently an onslaught of barbed words buffered by choral extracts from the symphonic "We Will Never Die" lament, but that's likely the point: stir up thought and action, and make those words timeless and thereby cautionary when another genocide is in play, and avoid repeating mistakes that led to millions of deaths.
Mark R. Hasan, KQEK.com DVD review 

Riveting.
Susan Freudenheim, Jewish Journal

Documents the agonizing efforts by Bergson, a militant Palestinian Jew, to arouse America in the early 1940s to the Nazi extermination of Europe’s Jews.  Sauvage, noting current threats facing the Jewish people, observed “How can we meet the challenges of the future, if we don’t examine the failures of the past?”
Tom Tugend, Jewish Journal

Three Lies. "Filmmaker Pierre Sauvage and the daughter of Holocaust rescuer Peter Bergson talk about people who put their lives at risk to save others."
David Samuels, Tabletmag.com

Two New Films on U.S. Jewry's Response to the Holocaust
Dr. Rafael Medoff

See also:

David S. Wyman Institute for Holocaust Studies: The Bergson Group—A History in Photographs

See additional comments, reviews, and panel discussions below.

First panel discussion of Not Idly By with Dr. Rebecca Kook (daughter of Peter Bergson), scholar Laurel Leff, author and journalist David Samuels, and documentary filmmaker Pierre Sauvage. Initially offered by the Boulder Jewish Film Festival, March 4, 2021.