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How Did the West Learn about the Holocaust? And What Could Have Been Done?

Aug. 11 2015

On August 8, 1942, Gerhart Riegner, who then worked in Geneva as the secretary of the World Jewish Congress, sent a telegram to contacts in the U.S. State Department and the British Foreign Office informing them in some detail about the systematic murder of European Jewry. Walter Laqueur explains how Riegner came to this information, why those in positions of power ignored it, and what the Western Allies might have done had they chosen to act on the information:

[In mid-1943], hundreds of thousands of East European Jews were still alive—the Łódź ghetto was still in existence, as was the Kovno ghetto, and half-a-million Hungarian Jews were still alive. If a somewhat higher priority had been given to saving these remnants, tens, perhaps hundreds of thousands of Jews could have been saved. . . .

In 1944 hundreds of thousands of Hungarian Jews were still alive. It has been suggested that the idea that Auschwitz could have been bombed is tantamount to Monday-morning quarterbacking, that the difficulties were great, that many of the inmates of the camps would have been killed. However, the transports to Auschwitz would have stopped for a certain period of time, perhaps a long period if the attacks had been repeated . . . and this at a time when the Allies from East and West were advancing rapidly.

If no such attacks were made, it was not because it was deemed technically impossible, but because the fate of those concerned had very low priority. The issue of bombing quite apart, yet another aspect of this situation was seldom discussed. The victims of the deportations were not quite aware of their fate, which was certain death in the gas chambers. Had they known this, it is almost certain that at least some would have tried to hide or escape. . . .

Allied radio stations had a near-monopoly in many of the regions [where there were still Jews, and] . . .broadcasting was not the only means of issuing warnings. But no such warnings were given. No one can say how many lives would have been saved; all we know is that the attempt was not made.

Read more at Tablet

More about: History & Ideas, Holocaust, Hungarian Jewry, State Department, World War II

The Summary: 10/7/20

Two extraordinary events demonstrate something important about Israel’s most fervent adversaries. One was a speech given at something called The People’s Forum (funded generously by Goldman Sachs), which stated, “When the state of Israel is finally destroyed and erased from history, that will be the single most important blow we can give to destroying capitalism and imperialism.”

The suggestion that this tiny state is the linchpin of a global, centuries-old phenomenon like capitalism goes well beyond anything resembling rational criticism. Even if Israel were guilty of genocide, apartheid, and oppression—which of course it is not—it would not follow that its destruction would help end capitalism or imperialism.

The other was an anti-Israel protest that took place in front of New York City’s Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center, deemed “complicit” in Israel’s evils. At organizers’ urging, participants shouted their slogans at kids in the cancer ward, who were watching from the windows. Given Hamas’s indifference toward the lives of Gazan children, such callousness toward non-Palestinian children from Hamas’s Western allies shouldn’t be surprising. The protest—like the abovementioned speech—deliberately conveyed the message that Israel is the ultimate evil and its destruction the ultimate good, cancer patients be damned.

The fact that Israel’s adversaries are almost comically perverse does not mean that they can be dismissed. If its allies fail to understand the obsessive and irrational hatred that it faces, they cannot effectively help it defend itself.

Read more at Mosaic