SOURCE: "The Holocaust in American Jewish Fiction: A Slow Awakening," in The Resonance of Dust: Essays on Holocaust Literature and Jewish Fate, Ohio State University Press, 1979, pp. 121-46.

In the following essay, Alexander discusses the Holocaust as a long-neglected subject among Jewish-American writers not truly addressed in literature until the late 1960s.

During World War II, American policy toward rescuing Jews from Europe could have been the occasion of a tragic conflict of loyalties for the American Jewish community. Yehuda Bauer has succinctly described that policy as follows: "Every humanitarian consideration was dropped, and the slogan 'rescue through victory' became the statement of official policy. This policy did not take into account that few Jews would remain to be rescued after victory." The conflict never occurred: the Jews of Europe were left to be murdered, and their brethren in the United States, who barely thought of allowing their...