So did the world remain silent?
Information regarding the repression of the Jews,
first in Nazi Germany, later in the Greater Reich, occupied
Poland, Western European countries, and all over Europe,
was described in press and radio coverage as of 1933.
Though the Jewish plight was different
in its ideological origins, in its enormous extent,
and its radical implementation, it
was understood, by many at the time,
at least until 1942, as being part
of the so-called regular war atrocities,
not demanding any exceptional attitude.
Even after the systematic mass murder began,
long months would pass until what the Allies grasped
as valid information would arrive,
and the true destructive meaning of the final solution
would be understood.
The German radio communication reports
of mass shootings of the Jews, in the summer of 1941,
were intercepted by the British, who decoded the German enigma
transmission code, the full terrifying meaning
was not clearly understood, and didn't
provoke any practical measures.
More could've been understood by the end of 1941,
and the beginning of 1942.
As part of the Soviet counter-offensive,
some territories were recaptured,
in which Germany's special atrocities towards the Jews
were very evident.
Yet, while making those crimes public,
the Soviets concealed the fact that the Jews
had been the major target.
In May 1942, a detailed report, written
by a Polish Jewish worker, part of The Bund,
reached the Polish government in Exile in Britain,
and its main themes were broadcast over the BBC World
Service, saying hundreds of thousands of Polish Jews
were murdered.
Yet as research has shown, those who heard them
in the free world, saw them as part of the propaganda war,
not really to be believed.
First shifts toward comprehension
and internalisation of the total annihilation of European Jewry
can be observed only in the summer of 1942
with the so-called Riegner telegram sent
on August the 8th, 1942, from Geneva, by Gerhart Riegner,
to the World Congress in New York.
"Received alarming report that in the Fuehrer's Headquarters,
plan discussed, and under consideration,
all Jews in countries occupied or controlled by Germany,
numbering 3 1/2 to 4 million, should after deportation
and concentration in East, at one blow be exterminated,
to resolve, once and for all Jewish question in Europe.
Stop.
Action reported planned for autumn;
methods under discussion including prussic acid.
Stop.
We transmit information with all necessary reservation
as exactitude cannot be confirmed.
Stop.
Informant stated to have close connections with highest
German authorities, and his reports generally
speaking reliable."
Although this information, coming from the German
industrialist, Edward Schulte, contained some inaccuracies,
especially the very fact that, at this stage,
the mass murder of the Jews was already in full force,
it was grasped by Jewish organisations as reliable.
Yet, at the same time, it was hindered and disbelieved
by the Allies.
The British Foreign Office delayed forwarding it
to the intended Jewish recipients,
and the US State Department rejected its credibility,
and asked Jewish leaders not to make its contents public
until it could be verified.
Significant reinforcements for this terrifying information
came, among other things, at the end of November, 1942,
from Jan Karski, a Polish underground courier
to the Polish government in Exile in London.
Karski had left occupied Europe after, among other things,
entering the Warsaw ghetto and visiting, what he thought,
was a death camp.
He carried with him the sights, and the sounds,
and became one of the clearest voices, which
made public the murderous character of the Holocaust.
Thus, it was only on the 17th of December, 1942,
a year and a half after the beginning of the murder
campaign, that an authoritative joint statement on behalf
of the Allies was declared.
"The attention has been drawn to numerous reports
from Europe that the German authorities are now
carrying into effect Hitler's oft-repeated intention
to exterminate the Jewish people in Europe."
As you can see, the full version of the declaration below,
the estimated number of victims was very low,
and the declaration ended in a condemnation of the atrocities,
a promise to end them by defeating Hitler,
and a threat to those responsible for them.
But no concrete action was mentioned.
Following the Allied Joint Declaration of December 17th,
1942, in which the Allies condemned the Nazis
for the murder of the Jews, tremendous public pressure
grew within the United States and in the United Kingdom
on the Allied governments.
And this was not only Jewish pressure.
And that pressure, public and internal, within the government
led President Roosevelt to create a new agency
in the government that would be a rescue agency, the War
Refugee Board, which he created in January 1944.
And according to most historians,
the War Refugee Board, during the last year of the war,
contributed to the rescue of tens of thousands of Jews
in Europe, particularly in Hungary, and particularly
in Budapest.
And that brings us to a related subject-- the controversy
around the bombing of Auschwitz or the lack
of the bombing of Auschwitz by the Western Allies.
As we know, on April 7th of 1944,
two Jews from Slovakia escaped from Birkenau,
the murder centre of Auschwitz, and succeeded in making
their way to Slovakia.
They wrote a detailed report about Auschwitz.
This was translated and sent out to the West.
It reached the Allies in mid-June of 1944,
arriving together with a request from those who were passing it
on to bomb the rail lines leading
from Hungary to Auschwitz-- Hungarian Jews were then being
deported to Auschwitz-- and also to bomb
the crematoria at Birkenau.
The Allies consistently, over the following months,
refused to bomb either the rail lines or the camp.
They argued that bombing rail lines, from Allied experience,
was inefficient as a war tactic, and therefore they
would not do that.
And they argued that bombing the camp
itself was, first of all, technically not
possible because Allied airplanes could not
reach Birkenau from where their bases were
in Italy or in other parts of Europe,
which we know today was actually not true.
They could reach them.
They were actually in the vicinity at the time.
But they also argued-- the Allies argued-- that bombing
the camp would be only a symbolic gesture
and would not really rescue the Jews
because after all, the Nazis had many methods for killing Jews,
and this would therefore not really rescue people.
How could they rescue people, they argued.
Only by a speedy Allied victory.
And hence, the Allies argued, the only way to really rescue
the Jews would be to pour all Allied energies into the war
effort, meaning no diversion from the war effort.
And this policy was consistent by the Allies right
to the end of the war.
We could conclude by asking what would've happened
had the Allies said yes to bombing the camp.
Of course, we have no idea what would've happened.
Yet at the same time, we know that had they
said yes, it would have taken them many weeks at the very
least to organise the operation, by which time
the camp was already beginning to be dismantled by the Nazis.
In other words, they could not have rescued most of the Jews
in this camp.
But by the same token, they did not know that.
They also did not offer any alternatives to the Jews.
