Whistleblowers: Four Who Fought to Expose the Holocaust to America, with Rafael Medoff and Ruth Landy

Click here to register for this free virtual event, co-presented by New Lehrhaus and the JFCS Holocaust Center.

A compelling nonfiction graphic novel written by Rafael Medoff and illustrated by Dean Motter, Whistleblowers is the true story of courageous individuals who risked their careers—or their lives—to confront the unfolding Holocaust.

Figures include future U.S. Senator Alan Cranston, who as a young journalist exposed the truth of Hitler’s plans; American civil servant Josiah E. DuBois Jr., who blew the whistle on colleagues inside the Roosevelt administration who were blocking the rescue of refugees; and Jan Karski, a Polish eyewitness to Nazi atrocities who met with American and British officials to alert them about the death camps.

Author Rafael Medoff will discuss the stories captured in the book and the process of translating them into the graphic novel format. San Francisco author Ruth Landy will highlight the chapter on the St. Louis, the infamous ship carrying 930 German Jewish refugees fleeing Nazi Germany, which was turned away by the governments of Cuba and the United States. Her family members were passengers on the ship.

Dr. Rafael Medoff is founding director of The David S. Wyman Institute for Holocaust Studies, lecturer at Yeshiva University, and author of more than 20 books about Jewish history, Zionism, and the Holocaust, including The Jews Should Keep Quiet: Franklin D. Roosevelt, Rabbi Stephen S. Wise, and the Holocaust and America and the Holocaust: A Documentary History.

Ruth Landy is a communicator who worked for UNICEF and WHO on five continents, advocating for women and children. Now based in San Francisco, she is harnessing her skills as an award-winning filmmaker and writer to tell her German-Jewish family’s story, thus helping preserve memory and inspire tolerance.