War Refugee Board , established by President Franklin D. Roosevelt in January 1944 , was a U.S. executive agency to aid civilian victims of the Axis powers . The Board was , in the words of historian Rebecca Erbelding , " the only time in American history that the US government founded a non-military government agency to save the lives of civilians being murdered by a wartime enemy . " There was increasing and persistent significant publicity and pressure on the Roosevelt administration to help the abandoned Jews of Europe . The campaign was led by the Bergson Group led by Hillel Kook ( aka Peter Bergson ) . The activist group had significant support by many leading senators and congressmen mostly from states without significant Jewish voters , from Eleanor Roosevelt , famous Hollywood and Broadway personalities and other prominent citizens . President Roosevelt acted after considerable additional pressure from his friend , Secretary of the Treasury Henry Morgenthau , Jr. and his team at the Treasury . Roosevelt " stressed that it was urgent that action be taken at once to forestall the plan of the Nazis to exterminate all the Jews and other persecuted minorities in Europe "
exterminate
The Holocaust
War Refugee Board