The World's Reaction - Yad Vashem

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The World’s Reaction

By the summer of 1942, the Allies had accurate information about the murder of European Jewry, but priority was given to winning the war without diverting resources by bombing Auschwitz-Birkenau gas chambers and train tracks. 

Share Share to WhatsApp Copy Link Print Send by e-mail Share to Classroom Add to Favorites Aerial reconnaissance photo taken by the Allied Air Forces over Auschwitz-Birkenau on August 25, 1944
Aerial reconnaissance photo taken by the Allied Air Forces over Auschwitz-Birkenau on August 25, 1944

In the image prisoners are being led from the deportation trains to the gas chambers and crematoria

Yad Vashem Photo Archives, 964/11; Courtesy of the National Archives and Record Administration

Aerial reconnaissance photo taken by the Allied Air Forces over Auschwitz-Birkenau on August 25, 1944Samuel Artur Zygelboym, Bund leader who committed suicide in London on 21/05/1943 in order to bring world attention to the plight of the Jews in Europe
Samuel Artur Zygelboym, Bund leader who committed suicide in London on 21/05/1943 in order to bring world attention to the plight of the Jews in Europe

Yad Vashem Photo Archives, 966/4

Samuel Artur Zygelboym, Bund leader who committed suicide in London on 21/05/1943 in order to bring world attention to the plight of the Jews in EuropeMember of the Polish government-in-exile Jan Karski, who had been smuggled into the Warsaw Ghetto and a concentration camp, who informed world leaders on the treatment of the Jews
Member of the Polish government-in-exile Jan Karski, who had been smuggled into the Warsaw Ghetto and a concentration camp, who informed world leaders on the treatment of the Jews

Yad Vashem Photo Archives

Member of the Polish government-in-exile Jan Karski, who had been smuggled into the Warsaw Ghetto and a concentration camp, who informed world leaders on the treatment of the Jews Aerial reconnaissance photo taken by the Allied Air Forces over Auschwitz-Birkenau on August 25, 1944 Aerial reconnaissance photo taken by the Allied Air Forces over Auschwitz-Birkenau on August 25, 1944 Samuel Artur Zygelboym, Bund leader who committed suicide in London on 21/05/1943 in order to bring world attention to the plight of the Jews in Europe Samuel Artur Zygelboym, Bund leader who committed suicide in London on 21/05/1943 in order to bring world attention to the plight of the Jews in Europe Member of the Polish government-in-exile Jan Karski, who had been smuggled into the Warsaw Ghetto and a concentration camp, who informed world leaders on the treatment of the Jews Member of the Polish government-in-exile Jan Karski, who had been smuggled into the Warsaw Ghetto and a concentration camp, who informed world leaders on the treatment of the Jews

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In May 1942, the BBC in London broadcast information about the killing of Polish Jews. It did so again on June 26. The information that reached the Free World was accurate and readily available. In December 1942 US President Roosevelt and British Prime Minister Churchill gave the Germans a public warning about the responsibility that would be laid at their feet for the murder of the Jews of Europe. However, the political concept that became dominant among the politicians and generals was that winning the war came first; this would, by proxy, also stop the murder of the European Jews.

Those who begged the Allies to bomb the extermination facilities at Auschwitz-Birkenau and the tracks leading to the camp were answered with similar rationales. The Americans and the British rebuffed such requests by arguing that bombing the gas chambers would entail the diversion of massive resources (essential air cover for forces that were busy with crucial operations) and that an effective bombardment might have the opposite effect of that desired, i.e., Germany might treat the Jews even worse. In June 1944, American aircraft produced a set of aerial photographs over Auschwitz in which the death facilities were clearly visible. In an air raid that took place on August 20, the bombs landed on a factory not far from the gas chambers, yet the gas chambers remained intact.

Reports about the murder of Jews reached the Vatican by late 1941. In March 1942, the Pope Pius XII was asked to intervene in order to thwart the deportation of Slovakian Jews to Auschwitz. Apparently, his pressure upon the Slovakian clergy influenced the decision to temporarily delay the deportation of the Jews. The Allies, out of political and military considerations, begged the Pope to make a statement condemning Nazi Germany’s actions. The Vatican limited itself to a general, laconic statement that decried the “horrors of the war.”

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