
The issue of why the
Allies did not act on early reports of atrocities in the
Auschwitz concentration camp
Auschwitz, or Oświęcim, was a complex of over 40 Nazi concentration camps, concentration and extermination camps operated by Nazi Germany in Polish areas annexed by Nazi Germany, occupied Poland (in a portion annexed into Germany in 1939) d ...
by destroying it or its railways by air during
World War II
World War II or the Second World War (1 September 1939 – 2 September 1945) was a World war, global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies of World War II, Allies and the Axis powers. World War II by country, Nearly all of the wo ...
has been a subject of controversy since the late 1970s. Brought to public attention by a 1978 article from historian
David Wyman, it has been described by
Michael Berenbaum as "a moral question emblematic of the Allied response to the plight of the
Jew
Jews (, , ), or the Jewish people, are an ethnoreligious group and nation, originating from the Israelites of ancient Israel and Judah. They also traditionally adhere to Judaism. Jewish ethnicity, religion, and community are highly inte ...
s during
the Holocaust
The Holocaust (), known in Hebrew language, Hebrew as the (), was the genocide of History of the Jews in Europe, European Jews during World War II. From 1941 to 1945, Nazi Germany and Collaboration with Nazi Germany and Fascist Italy ...
",
and whether or not the Allies had the requisite knowledge and the technical capability to act continues to be explored by historians. The U.S. government followed the military's strong advice to always keep the defeat of Germany the paramount objective, and refused to tolerate outside civilian advice regarding alternative military operations. No major American Jewish organizations recommended bombing.
Background
Allied intelligence on the Holocaust
File:1941 German camps in Polish White Book, German Occupation of Poland.png, German concentration camps: Auschwitz, Oranienburg, Mauthausen and Dachau in " The Polish White Book", New York (1941).
File:Krahelska Pamiętnik więźnia.jpg, Halina Krahelska report from Auschwitz ("Auschwitz: Diary of a prisoner"), 1942.
File:The Mass Extermination of Jews in German Occupied.pdf, " The Mass Extermination of Jews in German Occupied Poland", a paper issued by the Polish government-in-exile
The Polish government-in-exile, officially known as the Government of the Republic of Poland in exile (), was the government in exile of Poland formed in the aftermath of the Invasion of Poland of September 1939, and the subsequent Occupation ...
addressed to the United Nations
The United Nations (UN) is the Earth, global intergovernmental organization established by the signing of the Charter of the United Nations, UN Charter on 26 June 1945 with the stated purpose of maintaining international peace and internationa ...
, 1942
In 1942, Lieutenant
Jan Karski reported to the Polish, British and U.S. governments on the situation in
occupied Poland
' (Norwegian language, Norwegian: ') is a Norwegian political thriller TV series that premiered on TV 2 (Norway), TV2 on 5 October 2015. Based on an original idea by Jo Nesbø, the series is co-created with Karianne Lund and Erik Skjoldbjærg. ...
, especially the
liquidation of the Warsaw Ghetto and the general systematic extermination of the Poles and Jews nationally. He did not know about the murder by gas, repeating the common belief at the time that deported Jews were being exterminated with electricity. Karski met with the
Polish government-in-exile
The Polish government-in-exile, officially known as the Government of the Republic of Poland in exile (), was the government in exile of Poland formed in the aftermath of the Invasion of Poland of September 1939, and the subsequent Occupation ...
, including the
Prime Minister
A prime minister or chief of cabinet is the head of the cabinet and the leader of the ministers in the executive branch of government, often in a parliamentary or semi-presidential system. A prime minister is not the head of state, but r ...
,
Władysław Sikorski
Władysław Eugeniusz Sikorski (; 20 May 18814 July 1943) was a Polish military and political leader.
Before World War I, Sikorski established and participated in several underground organizations that promoted the cause of Polish independenc ...
, as well as with members of political parties such as the
Socialist Party,
National Party,
Labor Party,
People's Party,
Jewish Labour Bund and
Zionist Party. He also spoke to
Anthony Eden
Robert Anthony Eden, 1st Earl of Avon (12 June 1897 – 14 January 1977) was a British politician who served as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom and Leader of the Conservative Party from 1955 until his resignation in 1957.
Achi ...
, the British Foreign Secretary, and included a detailed statement on what he had seen in Warsaw and in
Bełżec
Belzec (English: or , Polish: , approximately ) was a Nazi German extermination camp in Occupation of Poland (1939–1945), occupied Poland. It was built by the SS for the purpose of implementing the secretive Operation Reinhard, the plan to ...
. In 1943 in London he met the author and journalist
Arthur Koestler
Arthur Koestler (, ; ; ; 5 September 1905 – 1 March 1983) was an Austria-Hungary, Austro-Hungarian-born author and journalist. Koestler was born in Budapest, and was educated in Austria, apart from his early school years. In 1931, Koestler j ...
. He then traveled to the United States and reported to President
Franklin D. Roosevelt
Franklin Delano Roosevelt (January 30, 1882April 12, 1945), also known as FDR, was the 32nd president of the United States, serving from 1933 until his death in 1945. He is the longest-serving U.S. president, and the only one to have served ...
. FDR reacted to Karski's report by inquiring jokingly into animal rights abuses (specifically, horses).
His report was a major source of information for the Allies.
Karski met also with many other government and civic leaders in the United States, including
Felix Frankfurter
Felix Frankfurter (November 15, 1882 – February 22, 1965) was an American jurist who served as an Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States from 1939 until 1962, advocating judicial restraint.
Born in Vienna, Frankfurter im ...
,
Cordell Hull,
William Joseph Donovan, and
Stephen Wise. Karski presented his report to media, to bishops of various denominations (including Cardinal
Samuel Stritch), to members of the
Hollywood film industry and artists, but without success. Many of those he spoke to did not believe him, or judged his testimony much exaggerated or saw it as propaganda from the
Polish government in exile
The Polish government-in-exile, officially known as the Government of the Republic of Poland in exile (), was the government in exile
A government-in-exile (GiE) is a political group that claims to be the legitimate government of a sovere ...
.
[E. Thomas Wood and Stanislaw M. Jankowski (1994), ''Believing the Unbelievable, Karski: How One Man Tried to Stop the Holocaust'']
In 1942, members of the Polish government in exile launched an official protest against systematic murders of Poles and Jews in occupied Poland, based on
Karski's report. The Poles addressed their protest to the 26 Allies who had signed the
Declaration by United Nations on January 1, 1942.
[Engel (2014)]
In response, the
Allied Powers issued
an official statement on December 17, 1942, condemning the known German atrocities.
The statement was read to the
British House of Commons
The House of Commons is the lower house of the Parliament of the United Kingdom. Like the upper house, the House of Lords, it meets in the Palace of Westminster in London, England. The House of Commons is an elected body consisting of 650 memb ...
in a debate led by the Foreign Secretary
Anthony Eden
Robert Anthony Eden, 1st Earl of Avon (12 June 1897 – 14 January 1977) was a British politician who served as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom and Leader of the Conservative Party from 1955 until his resignation in 1957.
Achi ...
, and published on the front page of ''
The New York Times
''The New York Times'' (''NYT'') is an American daily newspaper based in New York City. ''The New York Times'' covers domestic, national, and international news, and publishes opinion pieces, investigative reports, and reviews. As one of ...
'' and by many other newspapers such as ''
The Times
''The Times'' is a British Newspaper#Daily, daily Newspaper#National, national newspaper based in London. It began in 1785 under the title ''The Daily Universal Register'', adopting its modern name on 1 January 1788. ''The Times'' and its si ...
''. At the end of the debate the House of Commons stood for a minute in silence. Eden commented that:
On December 13, 1942, the
Chief Rabbi of the United Kingdom Joseph Hertz ordained a day of mourning to mark the suffering of "the numberless victims of the Satanic carnage". The
Archbishop of Canterbury
The archbishop of Canterbury is the senior bishop and a principal leader of the Church of England, the Primus inter pares, ceremonial head of the worldwide Anglican Communion and the bishop of the diocese of Canterbury. The first archbishop ...
,
William Temple, wrote a letter to ''The Times'' to condemn "a horror beyond what imagination can grasp". These responses were mentioned in BBC Radio broadcasts to Europe in several languages that were made on December 17.
In 1942,
Szmul Zygielbojm, a Jewish-Polish
socialist
Socialism is an economic ideology, economic and political philosophy encompassing diverse Economic system, economic and social systems characterised by social ownership of the means of production, as opposed to private ownership. It describes ...
politician, leader of the
General Jewish Labor Bund in Poland, and member of the National Council of the
Polish government in exile
The Polish government-in-exile, officially known as the Government of the Republic of Poland in exile (), was the government in exile
A government-in-exile (GiE) is a political group that claims to be the legitimate government of a sovere ...
, wrote in English a booklet titled ''Stop Them Now. German Mass Murder of Jews in Poland'', with a foreword by
Lord Wedgwood.
From April 19, 1943, through April 30, 1943, during the
Warsaw Ghetto Uprising of April 19 to May 16, representatives of the governments of the
United Kingdom
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, commonly known as the United Kingdom (UK) or Britain, is a country in Northwestern Europe, off the coast of European mainland, the continental mainland. It comprises England, Scotlan ...
and the
United States
The United States of America (USA), also known as the United States (U.S.) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It is a federal republic of 50 U.S. state, states and a federal capital district, Washington, D.C. The 48 ...
held an international conference at
Hamilton, Bermuda
Hamilton is the capital city of the British Overseas Territory of Bermuda, and the main settlement of Pembroke Parish. A port city, Hamilton is Bermuda's financial and commercial centre, and a popular tourist destination. Its population of ...
. They discussed the question of
Jew
Jews (, , ), or the Jewish people, are an ethnoreligious group and nation, originating from the Israelites of ancient Israel and Judah. They also traditionally adhere to Judaism. Jewish ethnicity, religion, and community are highly inte ...
ish
refugee
A refugee, according to the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), is a person "forced to flee their own country and seek safety in another country. They are unable to return to their own country because of feared persecution as ...
s who had been liberated by
Allied forces and of those who still remained in
German-occupied Europe
German-occupied Europe, or Nazi-occupied Europe, refers to the sovereign countries of Europe which were wholly or partly military occupation, militarily occupied and civil-occupied, including puppet states, by the (armed forces) and the governmen ...
. The only agreement made was that the war against the Nazis must be won. The US did not raise its immigration quotas. A week later, the American
Zionist
Zionism is an Ethnic nationalism, ethnocultural nationalist movement that emerged in History of Europe#From revolution to imperialism (1789–1914), Europe in the late 19th century that aimed to establish and maintain a national home for the ...
Committee for a Jewish Army ran an advertisement in ''The New York Times'' condemning the United States efforts at Bermuda as a mockery of past promises to the Jewish people and of Jewish suffering under German Nazi occupation.
Szmul Zygielbojm, a member of the Jewish advisory body to the
Polish government-in-exile
The Polish government-in-exile, officially known as the Government of the Republic of Poland in exile (), was the government in exile of Poland formed in the aftermath of the Invasion of Poland of September 1939, and the subsequent Occupation ...
, committed suicide in protest.
Allied intelligence on Auschwitz-Birkenau

From April 1942 to February 1943, British Intelligence intercepted and decoded radio messages sent by the
German Order Police, which included daily prisoner returns and death tolls for ten concentration camps, including Auschwitz.
The United States
Office of Strategic Services
The Office of Strategic Services (OSS) was the first intelligence agency of the United States, formed during World War II. The OSS was formed as an agency of the Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS) to coordinate espionage activities behind enemy lines ...
(the predecessor of the
Central Intelligence Agency
The Central Intelligence Agency (CIA; ) is a civilian foreign intelligence service of the federal government of the United States tasked with advancing national security through collecting and analyzing intelligence from around the world and ...
(CIA) and which had been established in 1941–1942 to coordinate intelligence and espionage activities in enemy territory) received reports about Auschwitz during 1942.
Auschwitz prisoners reports
The Polish underground reports
At the beginning of
Operation Reinhard
Operation Reinhard or Operation Reinhardt ( or ; also or ) was the codename of the secret Nazi Germany, German plan in World War II to exterminate History of the Jews in Poland, Polish Jews in the General Government district of German-occupied ...
, the principal source of intelligence for the
Western Allies about the existence of Auschwitz was the
Witold's Report, forwarded via the Polish resistance to the
British government
His Majesty's Government, abbreviated to HM Government or otherwise UK Government, is the central government, central executive authority of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland. in
London
London is the Capital city, capital and List of urban areas in the United Kingdom, largest city of both England and the United Kingdom, with a population of in . London metropolitan area, Its wider metropolitan area is the largest in Wester ...
. It was written by the Polish Army Captain
Witold Pilecki who spent a total of 945 days at the camp – the only known person to volunteer to be imprisoned at Auschwitz. He forwarded his report about the camp to
Polish resistance headquarters in
Warsaw
Warsaw, officially the Capital City of Warsaw, is the capital and List of cities and towns in Poland, largest city of Poland. The metropolis stands on the Vistula, River Vistula in east-central Poland. Its population is officially estimated at ...
through the underground network known as
ZwiÄ…zek Organizacji Wojskowej which he organized inside Auschwitz.
[ Jozef Garlinski, ''Fighting Auschwitz: the Resistance Movement in the Concentration Camp'', Fawcett, 1975, , reprinted by Time Life Education, 1993. ] Pilecki hoped that either the Allies would drop weapons for the
Armia Krajowa
The Home Army (, ; abbreviated AK) was the dominant resistance movement in German-occupied Poland during World War II. The Home Army was formed in February 1942 from the earlier ZwiÄ…zek Walki Zbrojnej (Armed Resistance) established in the ...
(AK) to organize an assault on the camp from the outside, or bring in the
Polish 1st Independent Parachute Brigade troops to liberate it. A spectacular escape took place on June 20, 1942, when
Kazimierz Piechowski (prisoner no. 918) organized a daring passing through the camp's gate along with three friends and co-conspirators, Stanisław Gustaw Jaster, Józef Lempart and Eugeniusz Bendera.
[Kazimierz Piechowski, Eugenia Bozena Kodecka-Kaczynska, Michal Ziokowski, ''Byłem Numerem: swiadectwa z Auschwitz''. Wydawn. Siostr Loretanek, hardcover, .] The escapees were dressed in stolen uniforms as members of the
SS-, fully armed and in an SS staff car. They drove out the main gate in a stolen
Steyr 120 with a smuggled first report from Pilecki to
Polish resistance. The Germans never recaptured any of them.
By 1943 however, Pilecki realized that no rescue plans existed in the West. He escaped from the camp on the night of April 26–27, 1943.
The first written accounts of Auschwitz concentration camp were published in 1940/41 in the Polish underground newspapers ("Poland lives") and . From 1942 members of the
Bureau of Information and Propaganda of the Warsaw Area
Home Army
The Home Army (, ; abbreviated AK) was the dominant resistance movement in German-occupied Poland during World War II. The Home Army was formed in February 1942 from the earlier ZwiÄ…zek Walki Zbrojnej (Armed Resistance) established in the ...
also began to publish short booklets based on the experiences of escapees. The first was the fictional ''Auschwitz: Memories of a Prisoner'' written by
Halina Krahelska and published in April 1942 in
Warsaw
Warsaw, officially the Capital City of Warsaw, is the capital and List of cities and towns in Poland, largest city of Poland. The metropolis stands on the Vistula, River Vistula in east-central Poland. Its population is officially estimated at ...
. The second publication was also produced in 1942 in the
PPS WRN book ("Camp of Death") written by
Natalia Zarembina. In the summer of 1942 a book about Auschwitz titled ("In Hell") was written by the Polish writer, social activist and founder of
Żegota,
Zofia Kossak-Szczucka
Polish reports about Auschwitz were also published in English versions. A booklet titled Zarembina was translated into English and published by the Polish Labor Group in New York in March 1944 with the title "Oswiecim, Camp of Death (Underground Report)" with a foreword by
Florence Jaffray Harriman. In this report from 1942, the gassing of prisoners was described.
Auschwitz site plans, originating from the Polish government, were passed on to the British Foreign Office on August 18, 1944.
Władysław Bartoszewski, himself a former Auschwitz inmate (camp number 4427), said in a speech: "The Polish resistance movement kept informing and alerting the free world to the situation. In the last quarter of 1942, thanks to the Polish emissary Jan Karski and his mission, and also by other means, the Governments of the United Kingdom and of the United States were well informed about what was going on in Auschwitz-Birkenau."
The Jewish escapees' reports
On April 7, 1944, two young Jewish inmates,
Rudolf Vrba and
Alfréd Wetzler, had escaped from the
Auschwitz camp with detailed information about the camp's geography, the gas chambers, and the numbers being killed. The information, later called the
Vrba-Wetzler report, is believed to have reached the Jewish community in
Budapest
Budapest is the Capital city, capital and List of cities and towns of Hungary, most populous city of Hungary. It is the List of cities in the European Union by population within city limits, tenth-largest city in the European Union by popul ...
by April 27. Roswell McClelland, the U.S.
War Refugee Board representative in
Switzerland
Switzerland, officially the Swiss Confederation, is a landlocked country located in west-central Europe. It is bordered by Italy to the south, France to the west, Germany to the north, and Austria and Liechtenstein to the east. Switzerland ...
, is known to have received a copy by mid-June, and sent it to the board's executive director on June 16, according to
Raul Hilberg.
[ Hilberg, Raul. '' The Destruction of the European Jews'', ]Yale University Press
Yale University Press is the university press of Yale University. It was founded in 1908 by George Parmly Day and Clarence Day, grandsons of Benjamin Day, and became a department of Yale University in 1961, but it remains financially and ope ...
, 2003, p. 1215. Information based on the report was broadcast on June 15 by the
BBC
The British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) is a British public service broadcaster headquartered at Broadcasting House in London, England. Originally established in 1922 as the British Broadcasting Company, it evolved into its current sta ...
and on June 20 by ''
The New York Times
''The New York Times'' (''NYT'') is an American daily newspaper based in New York City. ''The New York Times'' covers domestic, national, and international news, and publishes opinion pieces, investigative reports, and reviews. As one of ...
''. The full report was first published on November 25, 1944, by the U.S.
War Refugee Board, the same day that the last 13 prisoners, all women, were killed in Auschwitz (the women were —killed immediately—leaving open whether they were gassed or otherwise killed).
Allied reconnaissance and bombing missions

Auschwitz was first overflown by an Allied reconnaissance aircraft on April 4, 1944, in a mission to photograph the synthetic oil plant at
Monowitz forced labor
Forced labour, or unfree labour, is any work relation, especially in modern or early modern history, in which people are employed against their will with the threat of destitution, detention, or violence, including death or other forms of ...
camp (Auschwitz III).
[Gilbert, Martin (January 27, 2005)]
"Could Britain have done more to stop the horrors of Auschwitz?"
''The Times''. Accessed December 15, 2022.
On June 26, seventy-one
B-17 heavy bombers on another bombing run had flown above or close to three railway lines to
Auschwitz.
On July 7, shortly after the U.S. War Department refused requests from Jewish leaders to bomb the railway lines leading to the camps, 452 bombers of the
Fifteenth Air Force
The Fifteenth Air Force (15 AF) is a numbered air force of the United States Air Force's Air Combat Command (ACC). It is headquartered at Shaw Air Force Base. It was reactivated on 20 August 2020, merging the previous units of the Ninth Air Forc ...
flew along and across the five deportation railway lines on their way to bomb
Blechhammer oil refineries nearby.
Buna-Werke, the I.G. Farben industrial complex adjacent to the Monowitz forced labor camp (Auschwitz III) located from the Auschwitz I camp, was bombed four times between August 20, 1944, and December 26, 1944.
On December 26, the U.S. 455th Bomb Group bombed Monowitz and targets near
Birkenau (Auschwitz II); an
SS military hospital
A military hospital is a hospital owned or operated by a military. They are often reserved for the use of military personnel and their dependents, but in some countries are made available to civilians as well. They may or may not be located on a m ...
was hit and five SS personnel were killed.
The Auschwitz complex was photographed accidentally several times during missions aimed at nearby military targets.
[Dino Brugioni and Robert Poirier, ''The Holocaust revisited: A retrospective analysis of the Auschwitz-Birkenau extermination complex'']
CIA report 1978
. However, the photo-analysts knew nothing of Auschwitz, and the political and military hierarchy did not know that photos of Auschwitz existed.
[Dino Brugioni (January–March 1983)]
''Military Intelligence'', vol. 9, no. 1: pp. 50–55. For this reason, the photos played no part in the decision whether or not to bomb Auschwitz.
Photo-interpretation expert Dino Brugioni believes that analysts could have easily identified the important buildings in the complex if they had been asked to look.
Chances of success
The issue of bombing Auschwitz-Birkenau first attracted wide public attention in May 1978 with the publication in ''
Commentary'' of the article "Why Auschwitz Was Never Bombed" by historian
David S. Wyman
David Sword Wyman (6 March 1929 – 14 March 2018) was the Josiah DuBois professor of history at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst.[The Abandonment of the Jews
''The Abandonment of the Jews: America and the Holocaust 1941–1945'' is a 1984 nonfiction book by David Wyman, David S. Wyman, former Josiah DuBois professor of history at the University of Massachusetts Amherst. Wyman was the chairman of the ...]
''). Since then, several studies have explored the question of whether the Allies had the requisite knowledge and technical capability to bomb the killing facilities at Auschwitz-Birkenau.
In 2000, the edited collection ''The Bombing of Auschwitz: Should the Allies Have Attempted It?'' appeared. In the introduction, editor Michael Neufeld wrote: "As David Wyman was able to show at the outset, it is impossible to claim that Auschwitz-Birkenau could not have been bombed. In fact, the Fifteenth Air Force did drop bombs on it by accident on 13 September 1944, when SS barracks were hit by bombs falling short of their intended industrial targets. The question rather becomes one of the likelihood of hitting the four main gas chamber/crematoria complexes along the west side of Birkenau, and the likelihood that bombs would have fallen in profusion on the rows and rows of adjacent prisoner barracks. Accuracy is thus the central issue".
Submitted proposals to bomb Auschwitz and reactions
The first proposal to bomb Auschwitz was made on May 16, 1944, by a Slovak rabbi,
Michael Dov Weissmandl, a leader in an underground Slovak organization known as the
Working Group
A working group is a group of experts working together to achieve specified goals. Such groups are domain-specific and focus on discussion or activity around a specific subject area. The term can sometimes refer to an interdisciplinary collab ...
to the Jewish Agency. According to Israeli historian
Yehuda Bauer
Yehuda Bauer (; 6 April 1926 – 18 October 2024) was a Czech-born Israeli historian and scholar of the The Holocaust, Holocaust. He was a professor of Holocaust studies at the Avraham Harman Institute of Contemporary Jewry at the Hebrew Univer ...
, Weissmandl's proposal is the basis of subsequent proposals. At about the same time, two officials of the Jewish Agency in Palestine separately made similar suggestions.
Yitzhak Gruenbaum
Yitzhak Gruenbaum (, Hebrew language, Hebrew and Yiddish: ; 1879–1970) was a Polish and later Israeli politician. He was a leader of the Bloc of National Minorities and one of the top Zionist leaders in Second Polish Republic, interwar Poland. ...
made his to the U.S. Consul-General in Jerusalem, Lowell C. Pinkerton, and Moshe Shertok made his to George Hall, the British under secretary of state for foreign affairs. However, the idea was promptly squashed by the Executive Board of the Jewish Agency. On June 11, 1944, the Executive of the Jewish Agency considered the proposal, with
David Ben-Gurion
David Ben-Gurion ( ; ; born David Grün; 16 October 1886 – 1 December 1973) was the primary List of national founders, national founder and first Prime Minister of Israel, prime minister of the State of Israel. As head of the Jewish Agency ...
in the chair, and it specifically opposed the bombing of Auschwitz. Ben Gurion summed up the results of the discussion: "The view of the board is that we should not ask the Allies to bomb places where there are Jews."
[William D. Rubinstein, ''The Myth of Rescue'', London, Routledge 1997, especially Chapter 4, "The Myth of Bombing Auschwitz".]
In the meantime,
George Mantello distributed the
Auschwitz Protocols (including the
Vrba–Wetzler report) and
triggered a significant grass roots protest in Switzerland, including Sunday masses, street protests and the Swiss Press Campaign. On June 19, 1944
the Jewish Agency in Jerusalem received the reports summary. David Ben-Gurion and the Jewish Agency had reversed its opposition immediately upon learning that Auschwitz was indeed a death camp, and urged U.S. President Franklin Delano Roosevelt to bomb the camp and the train tracks leading to the camp.
Shortly thereafter,
Benjamin Akzin, a junior official on the War Refugee Board staff made a similar recommendation. It was put in writing in an inter-office memorandum dated June 29 to his superior, a senior staff member, Lawrence S. Lesser. These recommendations were totally rejected by leading Jewish organizations. On June 28, Lesser met with A. Leon Kubowitzki, the head of the Rescue Department of the World Jewish Congress, who flatly opposed the idea. On July 1, Kubowitzki followed up with a letter to War Refugee Board Director
John W. Pehle, recalling his conversation with Lesser and stating:
The American reactions
In June 1944,
John Pehle of the
War Refugee Board and
Benjamin Akzin, a
Zionist
Zionism is an Ethnic nationalism, ethnocultural nationalist movement that emerged in History of Europe#From revolution to imperialism (1789–1914), Europe in the late 19th century that aimed to establish and maintain a national home for the ...
activist in America, urged the
United States Assistant Secretary of War
The United States assistant secretary of war was the second–ranking official within the American Department of War from 1861 to 1867, from 1882 to 1883, and from 1890 to 1940. According to thMilitary Laws of the United States "The act of Augus ...
John J. McCloy to bomb the camps. McCloy told his assistant to "kill" the request,
as the
United States Army Air Forces
The United States Army Air Forces (USAAF or AAF) was the major land-based aerial warfare service component of the United States Army and ''de facto'' aerial warfare service branch of the United States during and immediately after World War II ...
had decided in February 1944 not to bomb anything "for the purposes of rescuing victims of enemy oppression", but to concentrate on military targets. However, Rubinstein says that Akzin was not involved in discussions between Pehle and McCloy, and that Pehle specifically told McCloy that he was transmitting an idea proposed by others, that he had "several doubts about the matter", and that he was not "at this point at least, requesting the
War Department to take any action on this proposal other than to appropriately explore it".
On August 2, General
Carl Andrew Spaatz, commander of the
United States Strategic Air Forces in Europe, expressed sympathy for the idea of bombing Auschwitz.
Several times thereafter, in the summer and early autumn of 1944, the War Refugee Board relayed to the War Department suggestions by others that Auschwitz and/or the rail lines could be bombed. It repeatedly noted that it was not endorsing anything. On October 4, 1944, the War Department sent (and only this time) a rescue-oriented bombing proposal to General Spaatz in England for consideration. Although Spaatz's officers had read Mann's message reporting acceleration of extermination activities in the camps in Poland, they could perceive no advantage to the victims in smashing the killing machinery, and decided not to bomb
Auschwitz. Nor did they seem to understand, despite Mann's statement that "the Germans are increasing their extermination activities", that wholesale massacres had already been perpetrated.
Finally, on November 8, 1944, having half-heartedly changed sides, Pehle ordered McCloy to bomb the camp. He said it could help some of the inmates to escape and would be good for the "morale of underground groups". According to
Kai Bird,
Nahum Goldmann apparently also changed his mind. Sometime in the autumn of 1944, Goldmann went to see McCloy in his
Pentagon
In geometry, a pentagon () is any five-sided polygon or 5-gon. The sum of the internal angles in a simple polygon, simple pentagon is 540°.
A pentagon may be simple or list of self-intersecting polygons, self-intersecting. A self-intersecting ...
office and personally raised the bombing issue with him. However, by November 1944, Auschwitz was more or less completely shut down.
President Franklin D. Roosevelt, sensitive to the importance of his Jewish constituency, consulted with Jewish leaders. He followed their advice to not emphasize the Holocaust for fear of inciting anti-semitism in the U.S. Historians Richard Breitman and Allan J. Lichtman argue that after Pearl Harbor:
Breitman and Lichtman also argue:
The British reactions
The British Prime Minister,
Winston Churchill
Sir Winston Leonard Spencer Churchill (30 November 1874 – 24 January 1965) was a British statesman, military officer, and writer who was Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 1940 to 1945 (Winston Churchill in the Second World War, ...
, did not see bombing as a solution, given that bombers were inaccurate and would also kill prisoners on the ground. The land war would have to be won first. Bombers were used against German cities and to carpet-bomb the front lines. According to
Martin Gilbert
Sir Martin John Gilbert (25 October 1936 – 3 February 2015) was a British historian and honorary Fellow of Merton College, Oxford. He was the author of 88 books, including works on Winston Churchill, the 20th century, and Jewish history inc ...
,
Churchill pushed for bombing. Concerning the concentration camps, he wrote to his Foreign Secretary on July 11, 1944: "all concerned in this crime who may fall into our hands, including the people who only obeyed orders by carrying out these butcheries, should be put to death". The British
Air Ministry
The Air Ministry was a department of the Government of the United Kingdom with the responsibility of managing the affairs of the Royal Air Force and civil aviation that existed from 1918 to 1964. It was under the political authority of the ...
was asked to examine the feasibility of bombing the camps and decided not to for "operational reasons", which were not specified in wartime. In August 1944, 60 tons of supplies were flown to assist the
uprising in Warsaw and, considering the dropping accuracy at that time, were to be dropped "into the south-west quarter of Warsaw". For various reasons, only seven aircraft reached the city.
[Churchill, 2005. pp. 115–117.]
Post-war analysis
Michael Berenbaum has argued that it is not only a historical question, but "a moral question emblematic of the Allied response to the plight of the
Jew
Jews (, , ), or the Jewish people, are an ethnoreligious group and nation, originating from the Israelites of ancient Israel and Judah. They also traditionally adhere to Judaism. Jewish ethnicity, religion, and community are highly inte ...
s during
the Holocaust
The Holocaust (), known in Hebrew language, Hebrew as the (), was the genocide of History of the Jews in Europe, European Jews during World War II. From 1941 to 1945, Nazi Germany and Collaboration with Nazi Germany and Fascist Italy ...
".
[Berenbaum, Michael. "Why wasn't Auschwitz bombed?" ''Encyclopædia Britannica''.] David Wyman has asked: "How could it be that the governments of the two great Western democracies knew that a place existed where 2,000 helpless human beings could be killed every 30 minutes, knew that such killings actually did occur over and over again, and yet did not feel driven to search for some way to wipe such a
scourge from the earth?"
[Wyman, David S. "Why Auschwitz wasn't bombed", in Gutman, Yisrael & Berenbaum, Michael. ''Anatomy of the Auschwitz Death Camp''. Indiana University Press, 1998, p. 583.] Kevin Mahoney, in an analysis of three requests submitted to the allies to bombard railway lines leading to Auschwitz, concludes that:
See also
*''
The Abandonment of the Jews
''The Abandonment of the Jews: America and the Holocaust 1941–1945'' is a 1984 nonfiction book by David Wyman, David S. Wyman, former Josiah DuBois professor of history at the University of Massachusetts Amherst. Wyman was the chairman of the ...
''
*
Functionalism–intentionalism debate
The functionalism–intentionalism debate is a Historiography, historiographical debate about the reasons for the Holocaust as well as most aspects of the Third Reich, such as foreign policy. It essentially centres on two questions:
*Was there a ...
*
History of the Jews in Hungary
The history of the Jews in Hungary dates back to at least the Kingdom of Hungary, with some records even predating the Hungarian conquest of the Carpathian Basin in 895 CE by over 600 years. Written sources prove that Jewish communities lived i ...
*
International response to the Holocaust
*
Operation Jericho
*
Outside support during the Warsaw Uprising
*
Witold's Report
Notes
References
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Further reading
* Beir, Robert L. (2013). ''Roosevelt and the Holocaust: How FDR saved the Jews and brought hope to a nation''. Simon and Schuster.
* Neufield, Michael J. and Michael Berenbaum, eds. (2000) ''The Bombing of Auschwitz: Should the Allies Have Attempted It?'' St Martins Press.
*
*Erdheim, Stuart (1997). "Could the Allies Have Bombed Auschwitz-Birkenau?" ''Holocaust and Genocide Studies'', vol. 11, no. 2, pp. 129–170.
* Fleming, Michael (2014). ''Auschwitz, the Allies and Censorship of the Holocaust''. Cambridge University Press.
* Fleming, Michael (2020). "The reassertion of the elusiveness narrative: Auschwitz and Holocaust knowledge". ''Holocaust Studies'' 26.4: 510–530.
* Foregger, Richard (1990). "Technical Analysis of Methods to Bomb the Gas Chambers at Auschwitz". ''Holocaust and Genocide Studies'' 5#4: 403–421.
* Foregger, Richard (October 1995). "Two Sketch Maps of the Auschwitz-Birkenau Extermination Camps". ''Journal of Military History'' 59#4: pp. 687–696.
* Friedman, Max Paul (Spring 2005). "The U.S. State Department and the Failure to Rescue: New Evidence on the Missed Opportunity at Bergen-Belsen". ''Holocaust and Genocide Studies'' 19#1: pp. 26–50.
*
* Groth, Alexander J. (2014). "Absolving the Allies? Another Look at the Anglo—American Response to the Holocaust". ''Israel Journal of Foreign Affairs'' 8.1: 115–130.
*
*
*
* Levy, Richard H. (1996). "The Bombing of Auschwitz Revisited: A Critical Analysis". ''Holocaust and Genocide Studies'' 10.3: 267–298.
*
* Mahoney, Kevin A. (2011). "An American operational response to a request to bomb rail lines to Auschwitz". ''Holocaust and Genocide Studies'' 25.3: 438–446.
* Medoff, Rafael (1996)
"New perspectives on how America, and American Jewry, responded to the Holocaust" ''American Jewish History'' 84.3: 253–266.
* Pomakoy, Keith (2011). ''Helping Humanity: American Policy and Genocide Rescue''. Lexington Books.
*
* Westermann, Edward B. (2001). "The Royal Air Force and the Bombing of Auschwitz: First Deliberations, January 1941". ''Holocaust and Genocide Studies'' 15.1: 70–85.
* White, Joseph Robert (2002)
"Target auschwitz: Historical and hypothetical German responses to allied attack" ''Holocaust and Genocide Studies'' 16.1: 54–76.
*
Bibliography
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*
External links
"The Auschwitz Bombing Controversy in Context"– online lecture by Dr. David Silberklang of
Yad Vashem
Yad Vashem (; ) is Israel's official memorial institution to the victims of Holocaust, the Holocaust known in Hebrew language, Hebrew as the (). It is dedicated to preserving the memory of the Jews who were murdered; echoing the stories of the ...
"Why didn't the Allies bomb Auschwitz?"''
BBC News
BBC News is an operational business division of the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) responsible for the gathering and broadcasting of news and current affairs in the UK and around the world. The department is the world's largest broad ...
'', 23 January 2005
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1940s controversies
Auschwitz concentration camp
Holocaust historiography
International response to the Holocaust
Aerial bombing
Cancelled military operations involving the United States
Historical controversies
Strategic bombing