Surviving the Americans tells the true story of how, after attending a liberation concert given by emaciated concentration camp survivors, two Jewish-American soldiers wrote a letter about the criminal neglect and anti-Semitism of American policy in occupied Europe. This letter turned into a crusade which saved untold numbers of lives when President Truman finally reversed U.S. policy.

An extraordinary autobiographical account by one of the letter-writers, Surviving the Americans is the first book to present the genocide-by-neglect suffered by Jews and other camp survivors at the hands of the Americans after the liberation, and the first as well to tell of the campaign that eventually saved many of them.

Hilliard and a fellow G.I. named Edward Herman wrote a letter and sent it to hundreds of American citizens requesting help for the starving, ill-clothed and sick survivors, who were not being helped by the U.S. government or Jewish relief organizations. The letter came to the attention of President Truman, who was skeptical but nonetheless ordered an inquiry.

Finally, on September 30, 1945, the front page of The New York Times carried the story, under the headline "President Orders Eisenhower to End New Abuse of Jews... Likens Our Treatment to That of the Nazis."