By Keyword:   Chapter PROLOGUE 1933 1934 1935 1936 1937 1938 1939 1940 1941 1942 1943 1944 1945 1946 EPILOGUE Or, Page Number: Click on an image to see a larger, more detailed picture.		1941: Mass Murder  pg. 289    On December 7, 1941, the Japanese staged a surprise attack on the U.S. fleet that was stationed in Pearl Harbor, Hawaii. The assault brought the United States into not only the Pacific war but also the European war. American entry into the conflict raised the spirits of all the victims of Nazi aggression, including European Jews. Photo: Archive Photos Eminent historian Simon Dubnow espoused Jewish cultural nationalism, or Autonomism. In various books, including the massive World History of the Jewish People, Dubnow described Jews of the diaspora as linked through the centuries by their unique cultural and spiritual lives, an achievement that he argued should culminate in autonomy. Born in Belorussia, Dubnow moved to Berlin in 1922, but with Hitler's rise he left Germany in 1933 for Latvia. Confined in the Riga (Latvia) Ghetto, the 81-year-old historian was among those shot on December 8, 1941. Photo: Yad Vashem As part of an effort to attract German companies to the Warsaw Ghetto, German soldiers film Jewish women at work in a textile factory. Recognizing the need to bring money into the ghetto to pay for food and medical supplies, the Judenrat (Jewish Council) strove to provide the companies with skilled workers, an effort hampered by the unwillingness of the companies to pay even minimally acceptable wages. Photo: Bundesarchiv / United States Holocaust Memorial Museum Photo Archive Not until Hitler declared war on the United States did these office workers at the America First headquarters remove isolationist material. Formed in July 1940, the America First Committee was the major isolationist group of the time. Infiltrated by the Nazis and determined to prevent American entanglements in Europe, America First had ties with congressional isolationists and antisemites. The committee did not officially adopt antisemitism, although its membership list contained such prominent antisemites as Henry and Clara Ford, Charles Coughlin, Gerald Smith, Gerald Winrod, William Pelley, and American Nazi leader Fritz Kuhn. Photo: AP/Wide World   1941: Mass Murder  pg. 289  The Holocaust Chronicle © 2009 Publications International, Ltd.