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Letters They Wouldn't Publish
July 31, 2005
Letters to the Editor
Washington Jewish Week
Dear editor:
Your July 27 museum review noted that the late Jo Davidson, whose sculptures are featured in a new exhibit at the National Portrait Gallery and Smithsonian American Art Museum, was an "often-political artist ... He was involved in the foundation of the Independent Voters Committee of the Arts and Sciences in 1944, which later became the Progressive Party."
Much of Davidson's political activity during the 1940s was devoted to another cause: rescuing Jews from the Nazis. Davidson played a leading role in the work of the Emergency Committee to Save the Jewish People of Europe (better known as the Bergson Group). He served as the group's vice-chairman and was involved in its leadership decisions. He used his social and political contacts to open doors for the Emergency Committee in the halls of power--for example, it was Davidson who introduced the Committee's leaders to Adlai Stevenson. He signed his name to dozens of the Bergson Group's full-page newspaper ads calling for rescue, thus lending the prestige of his celebrity status to that important cause. He took part in the Bergson Group's meetings with senior U.S. officials, including Secretary of State Cordell Hull and Assistant Secretary of State Breckinridge Long, to protest the Roosevelt administration's apathy towards European Jewry.
This month, Washington will remember Jo Davidson for his extraordinary bronze sculptures. But it was not so long ago that Washington saw another side of Davidson, the artist who became an activist to help save Europe's Jews from annihilation.
Sincerely,
Rafael Medoff
Director
The David S. Wyman Institute for Holocaust Studies
Washington, D.C.
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