Auschwitz and the Allies

by Martin Gilbert

Book Overview

When Hitler announced that the result of the war in Europe would be "the complete annihilation of the Jews," he did so in 1942, not only in public, but before an enormous crowd in Berlin. The Allies heard, but astonishingly, they did not listen. Why? In 1944, Allied reconnaissance pilots, searching out industrial targets in the area, repeatedly photographed Auschwitz. The pictures, apparently overlooked by the Allies, were routinely filed in government...

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0030592844
• ISBN13: 9780030592843
• Release Date: January 1981
• Publisher: Holt McDougal
• Length: 368 Pages
• Weight: 1.67 lbs.

Customer Reviews

Allied inaction in the face of genocide

In this comprehensive work , Martin Gilbert analyses how the Allied governments during World War II reacted to news about the Nazi holocaust of Europe's Jewry , especially after the truth became known about the massive death factory known as Auschwitz. He poses the questions as to why the Allies never bombed Auschwitz , and analyses Allied lack of reaction , despite ample news of the holocaust - revealing how the allies could have - but did not- act to save millions of Jews. The prelude to the book deals with Hitler's pledge to completely anihilate the Jews of Europe , on January 20 1942. By 1941 , the reality of the Nazi massacre of Jews had certainly reached allied governments. On 3 May 1941 the Polish Government-in-Exile sent a formal note to the governments of allied and neutral powers describing how 'tens of thousands' had been interned in concentration camps and it went on to mention four such camps: Oswiecim (Auschwitz) , Oranieburg , , Mauthausen and Dachau as camps whose names will 'mark the most horrible pages of the annals of German bestiality.' The Polish note contained more than 200 accounts of the tortures and murders commited in the camps. But the persecution of Jews was still not thought of as a specifically important issue. On 25 July 1941 , a Ministry of Information document "had warned British policy makers that to make the Nazi danger 'credible' to the British people it should 'not be too extreme as concentration camp stories 'repel the normal mind'"...while a certain amount of horror was needed "it must deal always with the treatment of indisputably innocent people , Not with violent political opponents and not with Jews". In 1939 the British issued their infamous White Paper severely restricting the entry of Jews into Palestine , barring their only root of escape from Nazi terror , largely in order to appease Arab opinion . About 500 000 Jews actually attempted to enter "Palestine" after the Shoah had begun in 1942, but were brutally turned back by the British even after news of the death camps and gas chambers had filtered back to the British. Sir Harold McMichael , British High Commisioner in Palestine telegraphed to the colonial office: " The fate of these people was tragic , but the fact remains that they where national of a country at war with Britain , proceeeding directly from enemy territory. Palestine was under no obligation towards them." In 1942 Anthony Eden , British Foreign Secretary , refused once again to relax the restriction of Jewish immigration into Palestine claiming that turning back the ships would 'in the end be more merciful.' British MP Eleanor Rathbone hit the nail on the head when she said: "If it had not been for the restrictions placed on immigration to Palestine in pre-war years , even before the Palestinian White Paper , imposed partly for economic reasons , and partly to please the Arabs , tens of thousands of men , women and children who now lie in bloody graves would have

The indifference, the failures and the horror

This thoroughly documented and deeply disturbing book is divided into three parts. The Final Solution includes the chapters Hitler's Pledge, Warnings And Forebodings, Britain's Dilemma, Evidence And Omissions, Rescue and Refuge, Eyewitness and This Bestial Policy. Part Two: Hope And Hopelessness includes Warsaw And Bermuda, The Spread Of Nazi Power and The German Occupation Of Hungary. Part Three: Auschwitz revealed, includes inter alia, Escape From Auschwitz, Zionism At Bay, The Deportations From Hungary, The End Of Auschwitz and the Epilogue. The book is painful to read as it chronicles the history of the Shoah from the earliest warnings of Hitler's intentions through the war, the doomed attempts of many individuals and organisations to rescue the Jews, the indifference and the excuses given by certain officials on the Allied side, and the actions, good and bad, of occupied and neutral countries. Although the book does not focus on personal experiences in the holocaust, there are some examples of unspeakable horror that the sensitive reader had best avoid. The author ascribes the extent of the tragedy and the failure to do more as failures of imagination, of response, of intelligence, co-ordination and of sympathy. To me the most shocking revelations are those where policymakers used the excuse that they were afraid of flooding Palestine and the UK with Jewish refugees. Or maybe even worse, those who claimed that the reports coming out of Europe were exaggerated. Another incredible show of indifference was the refusal of the Allies to bomb Auschwitz, while their planes were overflying the accursed place to drop supplies on Warsaw for the Polish uprising. Here and there one finds some glimpses of right action, for example Bulgaria, an Axis ally that nevertheless managed to protect its Jews from the worst. But overall, one is left with a feeling of utter despair at the way the events unfolded and the frustration that Zionist leaders must have endured in trying to help their doomed people. It is chilling to read how countries like Switzerland refused to accommodate refugees and how every obstacle was placed in the way of orphaned children trying to reach Israel. The world looked on and it still does. Since then, we have witnessed Rwanda, Bosnia, Kosovo, Chechnya and Darfur. The book contains 16 pages of black and white plates and 20 maps. It concludes with biographical notes and a thorough index. For more information and background on the horror and the indifference, I recommend A History of the Jews by Paul Johnson and The Contract of Mutual Indifference: Political Philosophy After the Holocaust by Norman Geras. For a glimpse of the future, consult Unholy Alliance: Radical Islam and the American Left by David Horowitz and The Resurgence of Anti-Semitism: Jews, Israel, and Liberal Opinion by Bernard Harrison.

Turning our backs on genocide. A disturbing study.

This is an excellent study by Sir Martin Gilbert surrounding the most horrific period in Jewish history, the Holocaust, and the 'role' of the Allies.We are confronted with the disturbing revelation that, although supplied with considerable information about the decimation of Jewish communities in the Nazi Concentration Camps & gas ovens of Europe, the Allies turned a blind and incredulous eye to the suffering and slaughter. In relation to the British involvement (or lack of it), the book quotes from a letter by Winston Churchill to Anthony Eden dated July 1944 pertaining to the Nazi slaughter of Jews in Europe;-"...there is no doubt that this is probably the greatest and most horrible single crime ever committed in the whole history of the world..."One would think that this expression of apparent concern would have led to the most aggressive intervention possible to rescue the vast numbers facing genocide. Not so ! The book shows that Churchill did indeed order a so-called feasibility study for possible air-strikes on Auschwitz, but subsequently did nothing. The issue was passed to the Americans who also did...nothing.Before some say that it was too late in 1944 anyway, the book clearly illustrates the Allied possession of such knowledge of an ongoing genocide in 1942.Hitler himself being shown to have publically announced during 1942, before an enormous crowd & film crews, that the war in Europe would result in the complete annihilation of the Jews. Some 11,000,000 in Europe. The Allied Government's all heard this, but looked away.The book details a number of British newspaper headlines and extensive reports, some of which follow;-"Nazis murder 700,000 Jews in Poland". - Daily Telegraph, 25 June 1942, which also included a follow up report under the heading "Travelling Gas Chambers".Additionally, the following reports were published publically on 30 June 1942;"Massacre of Jews - Over 1,000,000 have died since the war began". - The Times."Greatest pogrom - one million Jews die". - Daily Mail. Other such references are also included, all of which show an alarming knowledge of the Nazis agenda and operations for the last 3-4 years of the war.The contents of this study clearly show that the Allies had both the equipment and technology to bomb/destroy the railway lines and bridges leading to Nazi Concentration Camps and even the gas chambers themselves at Auschwitz. Allied aircrews and far-reaching amounts of aircraft were even risked to drop supplies to assist the Polish resistance during the Warsaw Uprising against the Germans. Missions that even entailed overflying Auschwitz itself whilst en-route to Warsaw, yet not a single bomb or supply was dropped to assist the Jews. Having served in the British armed forces, I feel an incredible level of shame whilst writing this.The book proceeds to examine whether it was not perhaps `politically expedient' for the Allies to intervene on behalf of the Jews. The British situation in Palestine is studied,

Unbelief

Scepticism is a powerful force. Do not be sceptical of this book: read it. We think we know the story of the holocaust: it is a harrowing one, evil leaders duping or swaying a more or less complicit German population into killing Jews, Poles, homosexuals, the disabled in darkest Eastern Europe; the end of the war revealing an unimaginable horror. Unbelievable. Well, yes, actually. This book tells the story of those who died trying to tell the world of these 'unbelievable' events; smuggling themselves, their stories, their papers, their photographs, their evidence to neutral Switzerland and thence to the Allies. They were met with unbelief. This is believable, even understandable. The trickle of information became a torrent. Still unbelief. Finally, and this is the most unbelievable part, incontrovertable truth, testimonies, high altitude photographs are met with... no massive response. No change in war strategy. No attempt to save the thousands the Allies knew were dying every day. Only slow-thighed, stone-walling bureaucracy: timid circular memos, double-thinking, a need to know basis, no rocking of boats, a belief in desks, annotations, hierarchy, in process not in human life. Yes, they knew. No, they did nothing. Yes they kept this a secret. This is no conspiracy theory. The evidence is unbelievable. But it is incontrovertable. Undeniable, undenied, even. Churchill, Roosevelt, Washington, Whitehall, all the echelons of government, our noble western democracies, did nothing, nothing, to stop the largest act of deliberate, systematic murder the world has seen.Read this back. That makes them complicit. That makes us complicit.The final unbelievability: that this painstaking, unassuming, remorseless, tragic book is not more widely known. That its conclusions are not taught in schools. That it could fall out of print. (Out of print!). Clearly there are some things we would rather not know. About ourselves. I first read this when fourteen; the memory remained with me; I am reading it again now, and it has no less effect. It is unbelievable. Still.If you consider yourself a member of western civilization, notwithstanding Ghandi's sceptical view of this paradox, you must read this book. Just for a moment put to one side scepticism, healthy or otherwise, and believe it. Believe the story of what happened and what failed to happen, or you are as culpable as those that did not, would not believe during the war. You are as culpable as those that knew, that believed, and did precisely nothing. Now, we can do little; the least is to find out, to read this book. Then you can decide what to believe.

A Searing Indictment of Deceit and Wilfull Ingnorance

This book is in many ways two books -the first being how the British and Americans were duped into not realizing the true nature of "the deportations to the East." The second was their lack of real interest in saving what could have been saved of the Jews. When one reads the memorandums by such people as John J. McCloy and various faceless British Foreign Office officals you get the feeling that their greatest fear was what were they going to do "with all these Jews" who could be rescued. The old canard oft stated by Roosevelt apologists such as William D. Rubinstein who wrote "The Myth of Rescue" that the best way to help the Jews was to win the war as quickly as possible is proven false - Jews could be rescued if there was a will to rescue. them. The most heartrending section of all - dealing with the destruction of the Jews of Hungary is when you read all the excuses given for not bombing the gaschambers at Auschwitz is when you see the actual aerial photographs of Birkenau and people being led to the gas chambers. The allies always claimed that it was logistically impossible to bomb Auschwitz-Birkenau and we now kmow that was a damnable lie. Also the real heroes we learn are of all people - Treasury Department Officials and two escaped Auschwitz prisoners who brought to the world the horrors of Auschwitz and fought the crypt Anti-Semites who were not doing all they could for rescue.