After World War II 1.2 million Eastern European displaced persons refused to return home, creating a large-scale refugee crisis.

When President Franklin Roosevelt created the War Refugee Board in January 1944, he tasked this new government agency with rescuing and providing relief for Jews and other groups facing Nazi persecution and murder in Europe. By that time, more than five million European Jews had already been murdered. The War Refugee Board staff used creativity and the near-certainty of Allied victory to aid hundreds of thousands of people in the final seventeen months of World War II.

A week before American units liberated their first concentration camp, the US 2nd Infantry Division uncovered one of the killing centers of the Nazi regime's so-called "euthanasia" program at Hadamar, Germany.

The Marshall Plan was a massive commitment to European recovery after World War II that was largely supported by Americans.

While Rosie the Riveter manned the wartime industries, the Annie Oakleys patrolled prisons as the first female guards.