November 1942

 11/01/1942 Death Of 55 Poles In Day Reported (Reprisal For Destruction Of Train)6

 11/01/1942 Army Has 800,000 In Forces Abroad-300,000 Men Since Sept. 2-Mc Cloy Then Put A. E. F. At About 500,00016

 11/01/1942 Extension Urged Of Balfour Pledge-Rabbi (Louis L.) Newman Says Liberty And Progress Would Be Aided By Its Renewal-Holds Adversity Purifies28

 11/01/1942 Chaplain Wrecks Legend Of Dec. 7 (Chaplain William A. Maguire Says He Did Not Man A Navy Gun At Pearl Harbor Attack)35

11/01/1942 (Francis Perkins) Asks 3,000,000 Rise In Women Workers52 

11/01/1942 Manpower Shortage Widely Felt, Presses A Question On CongressE-7

11/01/1942 Colleges Of Country Now Mobilized For WarE-9

11/01/1942 Education Policies Of Government Hit (By Dr. Samuel P. Capen, University Of Buffalo)E-9

11/01/1942 Palestine Moves: Program Has Been Marked, An Authority (Dr. Judah Leon Magnes, Resident Of Jerusalem) AssertsE-

11 11/01/1942 World In France: From Versailles To Pearl Harbor, By Leopold Swartzschlld, L. B. Fisher Pub. Corp., N.Y.-’How Germany Won The Peace’Book1

11/01/1942 A New Constitution Now, By Henry Hazlitt, Whittlesey House, N.-Y.-’Is The United States In Need Of A New Constitution?’Book 3

11/01/1942 A Treasury Of Great Poems, English And American, Louis UntermeyerBook 8

11/01/1942 ‘He Is Our Eisen And This Is Our Hour’ (Gen. Dwight D. Eisenhower)7

11/01/1942 Chemist Who Created A State (Dr. Chaim Weizmann)Mag. 12&39

11/01/1942 No ‘Hyphens’ (‘Hyphenate Americans’) This TimeMag. 18

11/02/1942 Morrison Chides (U.S.) Critics Of Britain-Some ‘Talk As Though We Were The Britain Of 1776’

11/02/1942 Yugoslavs Report Croatia Victories (Moscow Report-No Mention Of Guerrilla Leader’s Name)3

11/02/1942 (3 Speakers - McConnell, Eichelberger, & Goldstein) Stress Jewish Problem4

11/02/1942 Morgenthau Back From London Visit5

11/02/1942 Cardinal (Dougherty, Archbishop Of Philadelphia) Calls For War To Death (‘If We Do Not Win, ‘Vultures’ Will Devour Us.’)10

11/02/1942 Hitler Burned In Effigy (Union City, N. J.)11

11/02/1942 Palestine Project Pushed By Senator (Thomas, Utah)21

11/02/1942 Jewish Fund Asks Palestine Colony (Senator Saltonstall, Mass., Hails Plan)22

11/02/1942 Louis) Lipsky (Vice-President Of Zionist Organization Of America) Accuses England22

11/02/1942Mail Gifts Eased To Axis Captives23

11/03/1942Halifax’s Son Killed In Fighting In Egypt (Two More Sons-British Library Of Information)3

11/03/1942 Yugoslavs (Under Mikhailovitch) Divert Large Axis Forces7

11/03/1942 Gandhi Holds U.S. Involved In India-Ally Of Britain’Cannot Disown Responsibility’10

11/03/1942 Refugees (From Portugal On Ship ‘Carvalho Araujo’) At Baltimore (30 Polish Engineers On Way To Canada)11

11/03/1942 Radio Jobs Open For Women In War20

11/04/1942 Fish And Coudert Win (Opposed By Liberals)-Fish Is Re-Elected1

11/04/1942 Polish Governor Reported Ousted (Stockholm Report)-Hans Frank Dismissed As ‘Too Humane’ To Please Hitler 2

11/04/1942 French Bombings Hit Doriot (Pro-NSDAP) Party15

11/04/1942 Shipbuilding Tops Sinkings By Enemy 15

11/04/1942 Big Nazi Spy Ring Is Traced To Chile-Center Of Espionage In Americas 19

11/04/1942 Spy Trial Witness (Defendant) Charges Duress 19

11/04/1942 The First Edition Of The New Stars And Stripes19

11/05/1942 U.S. Forge Of 7,000 Arrives In Egypt1

11/05/1942 Rommel In Full Retreat, Tanks, Guns Smashed1

11/05/1942 Says Tugwell Plots To Capture (Nationalize Puerto Rican) Utilities18

11/05/1942 (Harry L.) Hopkins Predicts Big Shift Of Labor19

11/05/1942 Fish To Continue Fight On New Deal (Representative From Roosevelt’s Home District)30

11/06/1942 British General Announces Complete Victory As Fliers Pound Rommel’s Retreating Army 1

11/06/1942 Von Thoma Seized When Car Was Hit (Gen. Georg Von Stumme Killed) 3

11/06/1942 All Jews’ Aid Asked For Russia’s Battle (By Rabbi J. H. Herz, Chief Rabbi Of Britain) 8

11/06/1942Wounded Germans Flooding Austria8

11/07/194250 Colleges Close Because Of War1

11/07/1942Dr. (Stephen S.) Wise In Mexico City-He Will Hold Conferences About Aid To Oppressed Jews Abroad (No Mention Of Mass Killings Of Jews)3

11/07/1942Mikhailovitch Finds Inspiration In U.S.4

11/07/1942Madagascar Signs British Armistice4

11/07/1942Roosevelt, Hull Felicitate Soviet (On The 25 Th Anniversary Of The Establishment Of The Soviet Union)8

11/08/1942American Forces (Under Eisenhower) Land In French Africa111/08/1942Petain Says Vichy Will ‘Defend’ Lands1

11/08/1942(U.N.) Appeals And Proclamation To French People811/08/1942(General) Juin Heads Chiefs Of African Forces16

11/08/1942Full Unity Urged With Russians (By Congress Of American-Soviet Friendship)3611/08/1942Russians Hold Nazis In Caucasus; Armored Trains Stop Foe’s Tanks3811/08/1942Sweden Deplores Terror In Norway38

11/08/1942Rommel Routed (Map, E-4)E-111/08/1942Rommel’s Defeat Linked To Nazis’ Caucasus Push (Map Of Caucasus)E-5

11/08/1942Infamous Prelude To Pearl Harbor (By Arthur Krock)Mag. 1

11/09/1942Marshal (Petain) Is Bitter-He Finds Roosevelt Note ‘Stupefying’ And Denies All Its Premises-Weygand Called In-Orders Issued To Defend Empire1

11/09/1942Hard Fight At Oran1

11/09/1942General Giraud Emerges To Urge French In Africa To Join (U.N.) Allies1

11/09/1942Pictures: Officers In Charge Of American Operations In Africa8

11/09/1942Text Of President Roosevelt’s Letters And Petain’s Reply10

11/09/1942Our Vichy Policy, A Help, Hull Says10

11/09/1942Batista (Cuba) Refuses Spy Aid (Heinz August Luning To Be Shot)10

11/09/1942Excerpts From The Speech Made By Reichsfuehrer Hitler At Munich13

11/09/1942(Henry A.) Wallace Assures Russia Priority (Text)19

11/09/1942 Spiritual Revival Hailed By Lehman-Speaks At Jewish Parley (No Mention Of Killing Of Jews)-Hails Our ‘New Vigor’26

11/10/1942 Giraud Gets Post As French Leader (From U.S. & Britain)1

11/10/1942 Roosevelt Rebukes Laval As Diplomatic Ties Are Cut1

11/10/1942 (Tom) Connally Pledges Revival Of France6

11/10/1942 Roosevelt Extols U.S. Aid In Egypt (Hundreds Of Tanks & 20,000 Trucks)10

11/10/1942 (Francis) Biddle ‘Unable’ To Defer Ap Suit23

11/10/1942 Opening Of Palestine To (Jewish) Immigrants Urged (By Rabbi Israel Goldstein-Opening Under ‘Jewish Auspices’)23

11/10/1942 Banks Now Listing Vichy As An Enemy35

11/10/1942Volume In Stocks Best Of The Year3511/11/1942Hitler To Take Over All France And Corsica111/11/1942Churchill Credits Plan To President (Roosevelt-11 Months After Pearl Harbor Attack!)111/11/1942Rios (Chile) Promises U.S. Full Cooperation311/11/1942Giraud Wore Garb Of Woman To Flee (German Captivity)411/11/1942Hitler Message To French People611/11/1942R. A. F. Planes Blast Hamburg At Night711/11/1942Education Called Force For Victory (By Chester S. Williams)1711/12/1942Petain Protests New Nazi Invasion111/12/1942Hull Denounces Nazi French Move311/12/1942Indians See Threat In Churchlll Talk (Unrest, Dislike Of Britain)311/12/1942Giraud Fled By Air In A British Plane4

11/12/1942Hitler Letter To Petain (Text) Announcing Move Across France411/12/1942Learn To Hate Foe (General) M’nair Tells Troops-It’s Kill Or Be Killed411/12/1942Peril To Refugees In France Growing (200,000 Jews In Unoccupied Zone, Many Possess U.S. Visas-Valid Or Forged)7

11/12/1942Roosevelt Hails French As Allies (But Not Vichy Government!)20

11/13/1942A Spy Thriller Trip By (General Mark) Clark Paved Way For Africa Drive (Attack-Not Unlike Hess’s?)111/13/1942Nazi Peace Terms To Vichy Reported (By London)311/13/1942War Transformed By U.S., Smuts Says5

11/13/1942(General) Pershing Appeals To French To Fight511/13/1942Vichy Americans Arrive At Lourdes-’Incriminating’ Papers Reported Found In (Vacated) U.S. Embassy711/13/19423,052 Planes Sent To Russia In Year (4,084 Tanks & 30,031 Vehicles-London Report-Sent By U.S. And England In The Past 12 Month Period)1011/13/1942Rabbi (Philip) Bernstein (Rochester, N.Y.) In War Work10

11/14/1942Darlan Proclaims African ‘Command’111/14/1942Pole Urges Pact In Eastern Europe711/14/1942C.I.O. Head (Philip Murray) Congratulated (By Harry Bridges) On His Re-Election3011/15/1942Six Found Guilty Of Treason In Aiding German Saboteurs111/15/1942Scientists Deny Race Superiority4111/15/1942Aims In War Listed By Jewish Women4211/15/1942Palestine Still A HaveN-1,000 French Orphans Awaited If Journey Possible (38,000 Had Arrived By Sept. 30, 1942)4411/16/1942French Troops Assist Ours In Raid On Arabs Near Oran111/16/1942Allies In October Got $915,000,000 (Lend-Lease) Aid8

11/16/1942(Rep. George Grant, Alabama) Says Four Freedoms Include Jewish Army10

11/16/1942733 Rabbis Rebuke Anti-Zionist Jews-Sees Post-War Misery14

11/17/1942U.S. Smashes Japanese Fleet In Solomons1

11/17/1942De Gaullists Bar A Darlan Deal; Seek U.S. Reassurances On Status1

11/17/1942Bbc Floods Europe With African News5

11/17/1942(Striking) Girls (In Luxembourg) Deported To Reich911/17/1942Andorra Receives Hitler ‘Guarantee’1111/17/1942World Solidarity Urged For Peace (By Governments In Exile)-Germany’s Fate Is A Topic1511/17/19421,521 (Notables) Sign Appeal For Jewish Army (Names Listed)23

11/18/1942Portuguese Protest Allied Plane Flights (Violations Of Its Territory)111/18/1942President (Roosevelt) Says Darlan Deal Is ‘A Temporary Expedient’(Was It Ever!)111/18/1942Nazis Plunder Art, Moscow Declares-Captured (German) Officer Quoted13

11/18/1942Zionists Demand National Status-U.S. Senators Back Plea (Many Notables Among Them)1711/18/1942(Justice Department) To Naturalize 200 Outside Country (On The Basis Of An Administrative Order)2711/19/19421,000 (North African Refugees) Going To Palestine (With The Help Of The American Occupation Forces)31


1/19/1942Within Yugoslavia, I (‘House Divided Against Itself’)12

11/19/1942Columbia Rubber Is Offered To U.S. (3,000 Tons A Month)1411/19/1942(Harold Ickes) Opposes Inquiry Over Puerto Rico (And Behavior Of His New Deal Comrade, Rexford Tugwell)1511/19/1942Novelist (Walter D. Edmonds) Condemns Germans As Brutal (Not Just Nazis In Particular But Germans In General)2311/20/1942Spain Will Resist Coup By Either Side1

11/20/1942Nazis Defeated In Caucasus, 5,000 (Germans) Dead111/20/1942Plan To Oust Hitler Is Laid To Generals (London Report)311/20/1942‘Son Of L. S. Amery’ Heard On Nazi Radio6

11/20/1942Laval Is Denounced By Hull As Hitlerite911/20/1942Output Of Planes Ordered Doubled12

11/20/1942Army And Navy Set Up Typhus Commission-Admiral Stephenson Heads Study To Prevent Disease1611/20/1942Isolation Policy Is Seen As Ended18

11/20/1942War Stress Seen Changing Values2011/21/1942Laval Indicts U.S. On Africa, Pins Hope On Nazi Entente111/21/1942(Governor Herbert) Lehman To Direct Relief Of Peoples Freed From Axis (See Nov. 22, 1942 For Name Of Agency)1&611/21/1942(General Ritter Von) Thoma (Captured In North Africa) In England, Closely Guarded4

11/22/1942Lehman Forecasts Years Of Service In War-Torn Lands1&4711/22/1942Briton (Sir William Beveridge) Outlines Post-War Reform611/22/1942Cairo Dean Scores Jewish Army Plan1811/22/1942(U.S.) Educators Discuss Winning The Peace2111/22/1942Cemetery Steel Digs Grave For The Axis (Urns Salvaged By U.S. From Cemeteries)3011/22/1942Announced By White House (Lehman Named Director Of The Foreign Relief And Rehabilitation Operations-Frro-In The State Department)4711/22/1942Editorial (In Puerto Rico) Demands Impeaching Of Tugwell47

11/22/1942Count (Leopold Von) Berchtold Of Austria Is Dead (79)52 11/22/1942Laval Finds His Level; Now Talks Like HitlerE-3

11/22/1942We Have A Blitzmaker Too (Roosevelt)-By W. H. LawrenceMag. 1011/23/1942Russians Open Offensive At Stalingrad1

11/23/1942R. A. F. Bombs Reich In A Night Assault4

11/23/1942Don’t Underrate Foe (United States); Nomura Warns Japan5

11/23/1942Nazi Imputes Guilt Of Raids To Swiss-Says They ‘Tolerate’ R. A. F. Flights Over Them5

11/23/1942Editorial: Mr. Lehman’s New Post2211/24/1942(British) Commando (Capt. G. S. Courtney) Piloted (General Mark) Clark To Algiers6

11/24/1942Hebrew Papers Mourn-Black Borders Around Reports Of (Mass) Killings In Poland1011/24/1942First Lady (Eleanor Roosevelt) Hints Of Income Ceiling15

11/24/1942U.S. Aid To Europe In Education Seen (By G. D. Stoddard)21

 11/24/1942Gov. Lehman Ready For Federal Job (Director Of Foreign Relief And Rehabilitation Operations-Frro-In State Department)2711/24/1942Lehman Concerned By Plight Of Jews-Says Survival Will Hinge On Location In Palestine46

11/25/1942Jan Valtin (Richard Krebs, Communist) Taken For Deportation (Vita)1&1511/25/1942Chicago Trio Get Death Penalty For Treason, Wives Prison Terms1

11/25/1942Curtin (Australia) Sees An End To Pre-War Chaos-Return To Unemployment And Slums Is Barred411/25/1942Churchill ‘Gag’ On De Gaulle Seen6

11/25/1942Himmler Program Kills Polish Jews-Officials Of Poland Publish Data-Dr. (Stephen S.) Wise Gets Check Here By State Department (Gas Chambers Alleged)10

11/25/1942(Rabbi S.S.) Wise Gets (Sumner Wells) Confirmation (Jews Were Exterminated And Are Being Exterminated)10

11/25/1942Allies Act To Bar Ransom To Nazis (Trading With The Enemy Act Is Invoked)12

11/25/19429th ‘Night Of Stars’ Aids (United) Jewish (Appeal) Drive-Lehman Makes Appeal18

11/25/1942Roosevelt Plans Foreign Aid Talk (To Explain Function Of Foreign Relief And Rehabilitation Office-Frro-In U.S. State Department)25

11/26/1942The President Buys First New Victory Loan Bond (Apparently The Only One He Ever Bought-Probated In His Estate)111/26/1942Goebbels Bids Nazis Learn From Defeat111/26/1942(French) Workers For Reich Are Put At 200,0006

11/26/1942Slain Polish Jews Put At A Million (Rabbi) S(tephen) S. Wise Explains His Stand-Abbatoir For Deportees-Mass ElectrocutionsInjection Of Air Bubbles (Belzec, Poland)16

11/26/1942Lehman Arranges To Begin New Task (Director Of Foreign Relief And Rehabilitation Office-’Frro,’ U.S. State Department)37

11/27/1942De Gaulle Appeal To Roosevelt Seen111/27/19421,000 Jews Sent Out Of Norway By Nazis311/27/1942Liberated Allies Charge Brutality (Of Axis)411/27/1942Pledge Of U.S. Aid To Chile Revealed6

11/27/1942Kurusu Accuses Us Of Starting War (Hull Note Of Nov. 26, 1941 Was Fuse)1411/27/194212 Americans Held In German Prison-(Y. M. C. A.) Reports On Conditions15

11/27/1942U.S. Seen As Center Of Jewish Culture (By Dr. Mordecai Soltis) 21 Junior Hadassah Gets War Reports40

11/28/1942French Scuttle Fleet, Ruin Its Toulon Base1

11/28/1942Hitler Letter Tells Petain ‘Treachery’ Made Him Act111/28/1942Mexico Pays U.S. $2,500,000 (Of $40,000,000) On Claims (For Confiscated Oil Properties)1

11/28/1942Hitler’s Letter To Marshal Petain (Text)411/28/1942Poland In Appeal On Nazi Outrages-Underground Aids Jews-Says Germans’ Killings Total 1,400,000711/28/1942Palestine Called A Post-War Haven (By Dr. Nahum GoldmannHolds It Key To New Future For Jews Who Survive Nazi Domination)1111/28/1942Two Die In Riot Of Negro Soldiers28

11/29/1942300 Killed By Fire (Coco-Nut Grove, Boston)1

11/29/1942French Scuttlings Hailed In (Synagogue) Sermons-(Rabbi) Schachtel Scores Killing Of Jews1011/29/1942Democratic Rights Are Seen In Danger-Epstein Warns Of Extension Of Military Authority10
11/29/19427 Of Jehovah Sect Ordered Rehired (By Presidential Board)3211/29/1942Lehman (Director Of State Department’s Frro) Pleads For All Creeds3411/29/1942Slaughter (Of Jews) In Poland Condemned By (Matthew) Woll (Of The C. I. 0. Refers To ‘Systematic Extermination’ Of Jews)44

11/29/1942 Weizmann Warns Of Complacency-Right To Rebuild Palestine As Jewish Commonwealth Is Deemed Essential 46

11/29/1942 4,000,000 Women Now In War Jobs 46

11/29/1942 Japanese Troops Died In Holocaust-Our Fllers Slaughtered Them By Thousands In Sinking 8 Transports In Solomons 5

111/29/1942 Picture: U.S. Bombing Attack On Lille Steel & Locomotive Works 58

11/29/1942 Phi Beta Kappa Group (At Radcliffe) To Initiate First Lady (Eleanor Roosevelt)61

11/29/1942 World Peace Unit Is Vital, (Elmer) Davis Says-Hull’s Plan Is The Base64

11/29/1942 Thompson, Dorothy, Listen Hans, Houghton MifflinBook 3

11/30/1942Churchill Tells Italy To Oust Leaders Or Face Shattering Allied Blows (Text P. 5)1

11/30/1942New British Book (Front Line. 1940-1941) Tells (British Version Of) Blitz Story3

11/30/1942Palestine Growth After War Mapped (By National Labor Committee For Palestine)11

Clarence Vougnt Garrell

July 12, 2000, What did they know? American Jews and the Shoah, by Alex Grobman, Ph.D.

July 12, 2000, What did they know? American Jews and the Shoah, by Alex Grobman, Ph.D.

A number of books have been written about the response of the American Jewish community to the Shoah, but the question often asked is what did American Jews know about this catastrophe as it unfolded in Europe? Individual American Jewish leaders were privy to confidential organizational reports and sometimes to classified State Department documents, but for the average American Jew the primary source of news was the American, Yiddish, and Anglo-Jewish press. Many contemporary Jews assert they knew little or nothing about the Shoah because the press in the United States did not or could not provide information about the destruction of the Jews of Europe.

Why is it important for us to know the nature of the information American Jews had available and how they reacted to it? If we are to learn from our past, we need to know what they knew and how they interpreted and analyzed the data. Quite often there is significant evidence in the press about a particular event that affects us, yet we seem unable to analyze the information, assimilate it or comprehend its import. Part of the problem is a predilection on the part of some people not to accept what is unpleasant. For these individuals, denial becomes the response. Additionally, confronting the truth, especially when a situation concerns us deeply is difficult to acknowledge because it might require some form of action that could disrupt our lives.

We begin our inquiry on September 1, 1939, when the war in Europe began and end on December 17, 1942 when the Allies condemned the Germans for murdering the Jews of Europe. A wide range of national, regional and organizational papers and periodicals were reviewed. Another major source of information is derived from the Jewish Telegraphic Agency Daily News Bulletin (JTA), a bureau established in 1914 to gather and distribute news about Jews. The New York Times (Times) is included in the survey since it is the newspaper of record in the United States. The Times generally relegated the news concerning Jews to the inside or back pages of the paper. But this did not mean Jews did not see these articles. When reading a newspaper, Jews generally tend to look for items about to the Jewish community no matter where they are positioned in the paper.

Conquest of Poland

During the first several months of the war in Europe, the American press provided sporadic information about the plight of the Jews in Poland. The Yiddish press and the JTA were among the only sources providing daily accounts of Jewish suffering. Not all of the news was accurate or complete. Fragmentary and exaggerated dispatches made it difficult at times to determine the extent of the devastation. Yet the Contemporary Jewish Record (CJR), a bimonthly publication of the American Jewish Committee, stated in its November/December 1939 issue that “despite the paucity of reliable news from the invaded Polish areas, it is now possible to obtain a fairly accurate but general picture of the fate suffered by Polish Jewry during the first two months of the war.” (1)

First reports from Poland told of Nazi air raids on Polish cities where the Jewish sections were intentionally targeted. Mendel Mozes, chief of the Warsaw Bureau of the JTA, visited a number of these areas and found that many Jews had been killed and wounded with extensive damage to Jewish institutions. His eyewitness account of the destruction was broadcast throughout the United States. (2) Thousands of Jews from Warsaw and other Polish cities fled their homes in panic. Vilna and other cities soon became overwhelmed by the large influx of Jewish refugees. Jewish leaders in these cities appealed to Jews abroad for food, clothing and money. (3) Jews seeking refuge in Latvia and Lithuania were turned away at the borders. Strict security measures were enforced by the Latvian authorities to prevent these Jews from entering. Many Jews went to Romania, but were not permitted to stay for more than several months. (4)

Two of the most distressing reports from Poland during these early months appeared in the New York Times on September 13, 1939. Otto D. Tolischus, a member of the Berlin staff of the Times, had been allowed to observe German military units fighting in Poland. In the western Polish border town of Wieruszow, 50 Jews were shot for alleged sniping and resistance. So many Jews in other towns in western Poland were killed for the same alleged offense, that it appeared they were leading a guerilla war against the Germans instead of the Poles. (5) These murders were the work of the Police Einsatzgruppen (action groups) or mobile killing units that accompanied the frontline German army units into Poland. They remained in the rear of these units where they terrorized Jews and the Polish intelligentsia and clergy. Fifteen thousands Jews and Poles were killed in this operation which continued for approximately two months. Jews were a special target of the Einsatzgruppen.

The second dispatch from Berlin the “first intimations that “a solution of the Jewish problem” in Poland was on the German-Polish agenda.” This information was revealed in a “special report” from the German News Bureau dispatched from the occupied areas of Poland. The report indicated that: “Removal of the Polish Jewish population from the European domain would… in the long view, definitely bring a solution of the Jewish question in Europe nearer. For this is just the Jewry which, through its high birth rate and in spite of all existing differences between the two groups, has continually established the large numbers of Western Jewry, whose birth rate is small.” What the report did not explain the Times noted is ” how… the removal of Jews from Poland without their extermination can halt the alleged “strengthening” of Western Jewry…. (6)

Daily reports in the Jewish press told of wholesale executions, the complete obliteration of hundreds of towns, (7) and the confiscation of Jewish property of Jews who had fled.(8) The press also reported the “savage butchery” of Jews by Ukrainians,(9) the tens of thousands of homeless and starving refugees seeking refuge,(10) the large number of suicides in Warsaw(11) and the imposition of forced labor.(12)

On September 27, 1939 the Poles surrendered. On September 28, Germany and the Soviet Union signed an agreement seeding eastern Poland to the Soviets, which became part of Belorussia and Ukraine. This area had been seized by the Soviets when the Germans invaded Poland. The area consisted of 75,675 square miles with a population of four to five million Poles including a Jewish population of 1.2 million.

Eastern Europe Under Nazi Domination

As the Nazis extended their domination over the Jews of Eastern Europe, there were reports of widespread massacres and executions, (13) mass arrests and forced labor, (14) expulsions, (15) and depredations (16) in the Jewish press. Dr. Henryk Szoszkes, former vice-president of the Warsaw Jewish Community Council, escaped from Poland in November and reported that “the Nazis” aim was physical destruction in the shortest possible time as many Jews as possible.” (17)

The exact number of Jews who had been killed could not be ascertained at this point. Based on information obtained from the World Jewish Congress, the JTA reported on December 18, 1939 that in Nazi occupied Poland “about a quarter of a million Jews have been wiped out by military operations, executions, disease and starvation and that at least 80% of the remaining Jews had been reduced to complete beggary.” (18) On January 3,1940 the JTA reported that the Germans were executing “an average of 200 Jews every day since the war began.” “This,” the JTA concluded, “would bring the total executions in the four months of the war to approximately 24,000.” (19)

The Nisko-Lublin Plan

As the Germans increased their number of conquered territories, the total number of Jews under their control increased substantially. In addition to the approximately half million German, Austrian and Czech Jews under their control, they now had 2.1 million of the 3.3 million Jews in Poland. On September 21, 1939, Reinhard Heydrich, head of the RSHA (Reich Security Main Office) met with the head of the Gestapo, Adolph Eichmann and other high level functionaries to decide how to remove all Jews living under German occupation by force. This was not the “Final Solution,” because the Nazis had not yet reached the conclusion to exterminate all the Jews of Europe.

At this point the Nazis were experimenting with a territorial solution to rid themselves of the Jews. Hitler approved of expelling these Jews to the Soviet Union, but he knew the process would require some time since they would need an agreement with the Soviets. In the meantime, Eichmann wanted to deport Jews from Vienna, the Czech Protectorate and western Poland to an area near the town of Nisko in southeast Poland in the Lublin district. From Nisko, they would be sent to the Soviet Union.

The American Jewish press initially reacted to reports of Hitler’s proposed “Jewish State” in Poland with considerable skepticism. (20) This changed on October 6, 1939 when Hitler hinted about at a plan for the solution of the Jewish problem in his speech to the Reichstag. The Associated Press reported from Berlin on the same day that an authorized source had asserted that Hitler had thought “about a Jewish reservation within the Polish State where not only Polish and German Jews could live, but Jews from other lands.” According to the New York Times of October 7, 1939 the reservation would be modeled after an American Indian reservation, but would be larger than Palestine and would have at least 3,000,000 inhabitants at the outset. (21)

The Jewish press was quite concerned about Hitler’s speech. On October 22, 1939, the Forward, a New York Yiddish daily with the largest circulation and an organ of Jewish labor, charged that the Nazis were not interested in founding a Jewish State, but a concentration camp, where Jews would be held under the poorest conditions and suffer great deprivation. (22) The American Jewish Committee declared that “If this fantastic plan is carried out, it would mean that 2,000,000 Jews now in Germany or in territories under German domination, would be confined in what would be a large concentration camp, where they would be doomed to degradation, misery and death.” (23)

The leadership of B’nai B’rith claimed that “if the plan is carried through, there is little doubt that hundreds of thousands—even millions—will simply die of starvation, disease, and suicide.” According to the Jewish Morning Journal, a Yiddish daily newspaper with a religious and politically conservative bent, the proposed reservation was only a new form of robbery designed to confiscate Jewish property and “squeeze ransom money out of their relatives abroad.”(24)

In an editorial entitled “The New Ghetto,” Der Tog (The Day), a liberal Yiddish daily known for its gifted columnists, asserted that there “was no limit to the insanity of Hitler and to his abnormal animosity and hatred for the Jews.” Unlike past persecutions, Jews were now in a “permanent ceaseless pogrom. They were unable to catch their breath between one pogrom and the other.” Der Tog concluded by asking, “what can Jews expect from a state, such as proposed by Hitler?” (25)

The London Times suggested an answer when it observed: ” To thrust 3,000,000 Jews, relatively few of whom are agriculturists, into the Lublin region and to force them to settle there would doom them to famine.” “That, perhaps is the intention,” the editorial opined. (26)

During the final months of 1939, the Jewish press continued its extensive coverage of the events surrounding the proposed Lublin reservation. Reports told of the mass deportations of Jews from all parts of the Reich to the Lublin region; (27) of the frightful sanitary and housing conditions there; (28) of the appalling shortage of food; of pneumonia, typhoid, and dysentery which had reached epidemic proportions (29) of Jewish girls being taken from their homes to satisfy the lusts of Nazi soldiers; and of the many suicides committed by those who had been driven to this act of desperation. (30) Many Jews sought asylum in other countries and requested help from Jews abroad. On November 5, 1939 the JTA reported that the Jewish residents of La Paz, Bolivia received more than 300 cables from their relatives in Germany appealing for help to save them from being sent to the Lublin Reservation. (31)

In March-April 1940, the Germans abandoned the Lublin reservation because Hans Frank, the Nazi governor of the area and Hermann Goering, the head of the four-year plan with almost unlimited powers in financial matters, opposed the reservation for economic reasons. From May 1940 until perhaps as long as the end of the year, the Nazis pursued the idea of sending the Jews to Madagascar, an island off the southeast coast of Africa. The impractical nature of transporting Jews on the high seas during wartime as long as the British Navy remained a potent threat put an end to this solution.

Atrocities Revealed In The American Press

In an editorial on January 24, 1940, the New York Times explained it had been reluctant to report atrocity stories coming out of Poland because “All we have heard until now have been unofficial accounts of such horrors that we chose to disbelieve them as exaggerated.”(32) But the Times acknowledged it could no longer ignore these accounts because the Vatican radio station had broadcast that it had been receiving almost daily reports from Warsaw, Krakow, Pomerania, Poznan, and Silesia that told of “destitution, destruction and infamy of every description.” (33) The Vatican “has spoken with authority that cannot be questioned; and has confirmed the worst intimations of terror which comes out of the Polish darkness,” the Times reported. (34) Jews and Poles were being moved into hermetically sealed ghettos that were inadequate to sustain the millions destined to live there. (35)

What the Times did not explain is why these unofficial reports and those supplied by the JTA could not have been independently investigated. Some Jews doubted the authenticity of these horror tales because they believed American newspapers rarely suppressed news. If anything, they considered the press to be “over sensational.” If these events actually occurred, they would have been reported in the American press. (36)

In The Terrible Secret, Walter Laquerer explains another reason for the reluctance to accept the news Poland. Many individuals remembered the propaganda campaigns of the First World War, when each side charged the other with wanton brutality. The Germans were accused of burning down villages, cutting off breasts and tongues, making soap from dead soldiers (a myth that found its way into the press during the Second World War as well only with Jewish bodies being used instead) and other unspeakable crimes. The press duly reported the atrocities, but at the end of the war it became clear they had been duped; many of the stories had either been made up or were greatly exaggerated. (37)

Reports from Poland were given further credibility when Congressman Samuel Dickstein (D., N.Y.) chairman of the House Immigration and Naturalization Committee read eleven dispatches of the JTA into the Congressional Record on January 24, 1940. (38) Three days later Howard Daniel, writing in The Nation (a liberal American weekly magazine), observed that if there were still individuals inclined to regard Jewish reports as exaggerated, an account in the Breslau Schlesische Zeitung should dispel their skepticism. Based on German police records in the Lodz district the information first appeared in the JTA of the January 3, 1940. It told of a hundred Jews of being executed for allegedly having resisted the Germans during a house-to-house search. In Lodz, hundreds of other Jews were shot for supposedly surrounding a synagogue in the city to prevent Germans from entering the premises. There were also reports of Jewish streets being sealed off and of a typhoid epidemic. In other cities in Poland, German soldiers were shooting, publicly flogging, and executing Jews. Some of their work had been simplified the report concluded because “in some houses many Jews had committed suicides.” (39)

Cardinal Hlond of Poland asserted in an interview with the Times on January 30, 1940 that conditions had become even worse since the Vatican report had been first been drawn up in late December. The Cardinal believed that Hitler was literally carrying out what he had written in Mein Kampf. (40) Although the Cardinal’s report did not mention the persecution of Jews, the American Jewish Congress and Der Tog hoped that public opinion in America would be more receptive to the horrible conditions of the Jews in the ghettos in Lodz, Warsaw, Lublin and other Polish cities. (41)

Further confirmation of Nazi barbarity came from Dr. Moshe Kleinbaum (Sneh), former president of the Polish Zionist Organization, in a report he brought to Geneva, Switzerland. He found that Jews escaping from Nazi Poland to Nazi territory often had an eye removed to prevent them from joining the Soviet military against the Germans. (42) Upon his return from Europe in early 1940, Morris C. Troper, European director of the American Jewish (Joint) Distribution Committee (JDC), declared that "Lack of food, clothing, shelter, and medical supplies is daily creating unparalleled misery, beggaring description. He described the attempt of German Jews to escape to other nations “as a race with death.” (43) Nahum Goldmann, of the World Jewish Congress, predicted that if the war in Europe continued for another year, “1,000,000 of the 2,000,000 Jews in Poland will be dead of starvation or be killed by Nazi persecutors.” Unless political intervention was attempted to save European Jewry “our generation will be burdened with the terrible responsibility before Jewish history,” he concluded. (44) Samuel Margoshes of Der Tog, and Oswald Villard, former editor of the Nation agreed that immediate political activity on behalf of the Jews of Europe had to be initiated. (45)

After the Nazi offensive in the West in May 1940, there were discussions about the possibility of a German victory and what it might mean for the Jews of Europe. Jacob Fishman, the editor of the Jewish Morning Journal, suggested that American Jews should develop a broader concept of time and space. Events should no longer be viewed within the context of an individual’s brief life span. Even if Hitler should win a momentary victory, it would mean very little in the course of history. (46) Salo Baron, professor of Jewish history at Columbia University, accepted the possibility of a German victory, but vainly tried to assure American Jewry that such a triumph did not necessarily mean that Germany would permanently dominate Europe. (47)

The nature of American Jewish response became an issue in some of the press. On August 2, 1940 The Jewish Advocate of Boston, the fourth largest Jewish weekly newspaper in the US, noted that as country after country came under Hitler’s domination, American Jewry became incapable of further expressions of pain. (48) Shlomo Katz, managing editor of the Jewish Frontier, the liberal and activist Labor Zionist monthly, spoke for many Labor Zionists when he attacked the “anemic Jewish reaction” and questioned the efficacy of their methods. (49) This theme of inadequate response prevailed throughout the war in the Jewish press.

Establishment of the Ghettos

News about the establishment of the ghettos in Poland were reported in the Times and the Jewish press in early 1940. In October, Alvin. I. Steinkopf, a staff member of the Associated Press in Berlin toured the Generalgouvernement area of Poland (Krakow, Warsaw, Radom and Lublin) with German health officials. On October 2,1940 Steinkopf reported from Warsaw that an eight foot high concrete wall surrounded one hundred or more city blocks of the central ghetto district in the city. The wall was “so tight, a cat couldn’rsquo;t get through it,” he observed. (50)

The American Jewish Congress took issue with the German official justification that the wall had been erected for health reasons. The Congress claimed the ghetto had been transformed into “sewer of pestilence to consume those who refuse to commit suicide.” (51). The American Jewish Committee saw the establishment of ghettos in other large cities in Poland where Jews were forced to live “under indescribably wretched conditions” as an indication “of Nazi plans for all Jews who come within their reach.” (52)

Life Under Nazi Rule: January-June 1941

Throughout 1941, the condition of European Jews continued to deteriorate. The Jewish press provided almost daily accounts of the confiscation of Jewish property, (53) expulsions, deportations,(54) mass arrests, forced labor, wanton executions (55) and brutal conditions in the Jewish ghettos. (56) When members of the Iron Guard, a Romanian fascist and antisemitic movement, attempted to overthrow General Ian Antonescu in Romania in January 1941, the Jewish press published a graphic eyewitness account of how Jews were brutalized and killed.(57) The Times, on January 26, 1941, published a report provided by the American Friends Service Committee about the horrible plight of the Jews in the Gurs, one the largest concentration camps in France.(58) Perhaps one of the most import revelations of the period appeared on [NR 5.5.41, p.627.] May 5, 1941 in The New Republic, a liberal weekly magazine, when it acknowledged that an unnamed dignitary of the Catholic Church revealed that “85,000 blind, incurably ill or aged Germans were put to death by the Gestapo in September, October and November of 1940.” (59) William Shirer, the American CBS radio correspondent described these killings in his book Berlin Diary. On July 18, the American Hebrew provided additional details about the “mercy killings” and quoted the report as having concluded, “these reports… bear further proof as to the menace Nazism constitutes to the entire world, including the followers of Nazism.” (60)

German Invasion of Russia—Beginning of the Final Solution

With the Nazi invasion of Russia on June 22, 1941 Germany began its first systematic efforts to exterminate the Jews. With territorial solutions having failed to rid the Germans of the Jews, the Nazis embarked on an all out assault to destroy every Jewish man, woman and child. Four Einsatzgruppen (A, B, C, and D action groups) followed frontline German army units to find and liquidate Jews, saboteurs, Communist political leaders and anyone deemed a threat to the Third Reich. From the outset of this campaign the Jewish press provided wide coverage and fairly accurate accounts of atrocities committed against the Jews. In July, the Jewish press reported that hundreds of Jews had been massacred by Nazi soldiers in Minsk, Brest-Litovsk, Lvov, Prezemyl, and in almost every city in the area. Reports also told of how Nazi bombs and artillery had destroyed many Russian villages and cities, killing thousands of Jews. Tens of thousands of Jews fled the Nazi onslaught.

On August 11, a radio broadcast from Moscow described how the Germans had forced Jews to dig their own graves in the Nazi occupied Minsk region. On October 2, the Jewish press reported that Polish groups in London had received information from many areas in eastern Poland and Soviet Ukraine about massacres carried out by Nazi soldiers behind the front lines. Thousands of Jews who failed to escape were “simply mowed down by machine guns.” The Nazi soldiers were under orders to kill Jews because it would require too much effort to transport them to the ghettos. (61)

On October 23, the JTA reported Hungarian officers returning from the German-Soviet front had seen thousands of Jewish corpses floating on the Dniester River in Nazi occupied Ukraine. In the Kamenets-Podolski region alone, they estimated that ten thousand Jews had been killed. They predicted more of the same. (62) On November 16, an unimpeachable source had informed the Jewish press that “fifty-two thousand Jews (later revised to be an estimated amount only), men, women and children were systematically and methodically put to death in Kiev following the Nazi occupation of the Ukrainian capital….” The Jewish press emphasized that the “details available….establish that the victims did not lose their lives as a result of a mob pogrom, but by the systematic, merciless execution carried out in accordance with the cold blooded Nazi policy of Jewish extermination. Similar measures, though on a smaller scale, have been taken in other conquered towns.”(63) In December additional reports told of the shooting of hundreds of Jews in Luxembourg, Yugoslavia, Austria, France, and Poland. (64)

Reports of Poison Gas Experiments

Throughout the first six months of 1942 reports of the systematic slaughter of the Jews on the Russian front continued to be widely reported in the Jewish press. There were many eyewitness accounts of mass executions from Russian, Jewish Polish and Hungarian sources as well as from neutral diplomats. (65) On March 25, a report by a Bavarian Catholic priest estimated the Nazis had gassed 10,000 Dutch Jews in poison gas experiments at the Mathausen concentration camp in Austria. On April 5 the Dutch Government-in-exile confirmed this report; on June 8, an American diplomat confirmed it. (66)

Other dispatches told of deportation of tens of thousands of Jews to concentration camps, to forced labor and to “unknown destinations,” (67) of the Berlin order to execute typhus-stricken Jews, (68) of appeals for help, (69) and of the thousands of Jews who had died of starvation and froze to death in the ghettos. (70) One of the most dramatic of these accounts came from S. Bertrand Jacobson, a JDC a representative in Eastern Europe who had returned to New York. He reported that “240,000 Jews who had been deported from Germany and all parts of Central Europe to the German-held Ukraine were murdered by the Gestapo, according to the testimony of Hungarian soldiers returning from the eastern front.” One Hungarian soldier said that at one great tract of land near Kiev, he saw the ground “move in waves.” The Germans had buried the Jews even before they were dead. Jacobson asserted that the Nazis had one solution to the Jewish question---extermination and destruction, which is being carried out in every country under German control. In Yugoslavia, the Jewish population had been reduced from 68,000 before the Nazi invasion on April 6, 1941 to a maximum of 25,000. The Jews in Belgrade were ” rounded up and taken in trucks, a hundred at a time, to nearby forests and executed.”(71)

The Jewish Frontier, a Labor Zionist monthly and the Congress Weekly, of the American Jewish Congress, did not doubt the veracity of the report. The Frontier rightly observed that “JDC representatives are not known to exaggerate any aspect of anti-Semitism.” ” “But the most telling evidence of the extent of German mass-murder of Jews,” the magazine concluded, was “the triumphant remark by a Nazi newspaper in the Nazi-occupied territory that the Jewish question has now been solved except for the five million Jews in the United States.” (72) The Congress Weekly noted that “No imagination could invent this conception of a field heaving like a sea with the breath of those buried alive. Only men who saw it with their own eyes could bring it back.” (73)

In June 1942, additional information continued to pour in about the systematic slaughter of the Jews of Europe. On June 17 the JTA reported that hundreds of Jewish and Russian prisoners of war had been killed in poison gas experiments at the Liebenau Monastery in Wurtemberg. On June 26 the JTA published a detailed report from the underground channels describing the massacre of 700,000 Polish Jews since the summer of 1941 in “the greatest slaughter in history.” The Nazis employed machine guns, hand grenades, and mobile gas chambers carried on trucks. There is simply no question the report concluded that all Jews were to be exterminated. The Times and the Jewish press published the report because two Jewish representatives on the Polish National Council in London and the Polish Government in exile had vouched for its authenticity. The British Broadcasting Service (BBC) also broadcast the report.(74)

Further confirmation came in a telegram on August 8, 1942 from Dr. Gerhard Riegner, the representative of the World Jewish Congress in Geneva, to Rabbi Stephen Wise in the US and to Sidney Silverman, a member of the British Parliament confirming the systematic extermination of the Jewish people. (75)

Unable to deny the obvious, the United States, Great Britain, the Soviet Union and the governments in exile condemned the extermination of the Jews on December 17,1942. (76)

Throughout the period under review, there had been abundant information about the persecution of the Jews of Europe. The Jewish press continually admonished American Jews for failing to adopt an aggressive response, but did not believe this weak reaction was based on ignorance of the facts. The average Jew in America had access to more information about the Shoah than is generally believed and should have been aware of what was happening even before the Allies affirmed the truth of these atrocity stories before December 17, 1942.

Footnotes

1. Contemporary Jewish Record (CJR). November-December, 1939.
2. Jewish Telegraphic Agency Daily News Bulletin (JTA). 9.18.39. p.2.
3. JTA 9.12.39. p.1.
4. JTA 9.13.39,p.1; NewYork Times (NYT) 9.13.39,p.5
5. NYT 9.13.39, p.11.
6. NYT 9.13.39, p.6; Forward (F) 9.16.30, p.3.
7. JTA 9.27.39, p.1; NYT 9.21.39, p13.
8. JTA 9.29.39, p.1.
9. NYT 9.22.39,p.7; F 9.25.39, p.1.
10. NYT 9.20.39, p.1; JTA 9.21.39, p.3.
11. F 10.2.39, p.1.
12. F 10.3.39, p.1; 10.27.39, p.1.
13. JTA 10.20.39, p1, 10.23.39, p.2, 10.31.39, p1, 11.4.39, p.2; Der Tog (DT) 11.17.39, p.1.
14. JTA 11.3.39, p.1, 11.6.39, p.6, 11.15.39, p.2.
15. JTA 11.11.39, p.5, 11.14.39, p.11, CJR March-April, 1940, pp.119-133.
16. Congress Bulletin (CB) 11.10.39, p.1; JTA 11.11.39, p.2, 11.18.39, p.1.
17. DT 12.8.39, p.1, NYT 12.10.39, p.56.
18. DT 12.19.39, p.1, CB 12.22.39, p.2, JTA 12.18.39, p.1.
19. JTA 1.3.40, p.1; 12.18.39, p.1, CB 12.22.39, p.2, DT 12.19.39, p.1.
20. DT 10.5.39, p.1, CB 10.4.39, p.2, Jewish Frontier (JF) November, 1939, p.5.
21. NYT 10.7.39, p.1.
22. F 10.22.39, p1.
23. American Jewish YearBook (AJY), Volume 42, p. 645.
24. National Jewish Monthly (NJM) December, 1939, p.99.
25. CJR November-December, 1939, pp.36-37; DT 10.14.39, p.6.26.
26. JTA 10.25.39, p.4.
27. NYT 10.31.39, p.3. The Nation(N) 12.30.39, p.735, DT 11.21.39, p.2, CB 11.20.39, pp.4- 5,11.25.39, p.5.
28. DT 11.28.39, p.1. The New Republic(NR) 12.26.39, p.180.
29. JTA 11.29.39, p.2, DT 11.17.39, p.3.
30. DT 11.29.39, p.1.
31. JTA 11. 6.39, p.3.
32. NYT 1.24.40, p2, 1.30.40,p.18.
33. NYT 1.23.40, pp.1, 5.
34. NYT 1.24.40, p2, 1.30.40,p.18.
35. NYT 1.23.40, pp.1, 5.
36. DT 1.28.40, p.1, 1.25.40, p.1, see also Jewish Advocate (JA Boston) 2.2.40,p.1.
37. Walter Laqueur. The Terrible Secret .Boston: Little Brown, 1980. P.8.
38. JTA 24.40, p.1.
39. N 1.27.40, JTA 1.3.40, p.1, 1.22.40, pp.3-4, CB 1.5.40, p.3, F 1.11.40, p.4, NYT 3.8.40, p.6, Jewish Spectator (JS) February, 1940, pp.36-37, CJR March-April, 1940, p.183.
40. NYT 1.30.40, p.1,10; 2.4.40 Sec.4 p.4e; 2.16.40, p.10.
41. CB 2.2.40, p.2; DT 1.31.40, pp.1, 4.
42. Der Tog 3.21.40, p.1.
43. NYT 3.15.40, p.10, 4.5.40, p.4. 7.11.40, p.13.
44. CB 2.16.40; p.7, 4.2.40, p.3.
45. NYT 1.6.40, 12.
46. DT 2.10.40, p.1.
47. CJR July-August, 1940, pp.355-356. See also NYT 6.23.40, p.13
48. JA 8.2.40, p.4.
49. JF September, 1940, p.16.
50. NYT 10.13.40, p33, JTA 10.14.40, pp.2-3, Opinion(O) November, 1940, p20. American Hebrew(AH) 4.26.40, p.4.
51. CB 12.6.40, p.4.
52. AJY, Volume 43, pp.233-235,718.
53. Jewish Social Studies (JSS) January, 1941, pp.57-80, F 1.16.41, p.4; 2.21.41, p.4, JTA 2.18.41, p.1.
54. F 2.18.41,p.1, JTA 2.18.41,p.1, NYT 9.9.41, p.4.
55. F 1.23.41, p.4, NR 3.3.41, p. 427, NYT 4.3.41, p.4, JTA 5.13.41, p.4.
56. F 1.3.41, p.4, 2.8.41, p.10, JE 5.2.41, p.4, CJR August, 1941, pp.357-366, NYT 9.16.41, p.9, CW 5.23.41, pp.5, 8, JTA 4.3.41, p.3.
57. JTA 1.30.41 p.1.; 1.31.41, pp.1-3; 2.2.41, pp.1-3; 3.3.41, pp.1-3; CW 1.31.41, p.16, NJM February, 1941, pp.181-183, JA 2.7.41, p.4, F 1.24.41; p.1; 1.25.41, p.1; 2.24,41, p.3,AJY, Vol.43, pp.268-270, CJR April, 1941, p.193, NYT 1.24.41, p.3.
58. NYT 1.26.41, p.24, F 1.20.41, p.4.
59. NR 5.5.41, p.627.
60. William Shirer, Berlin Diary. New York: 1941, p.458.
61. JTA 10.2.41, p.3, DT 10.2.41, p.3; 10.3.41, p.1, F 10.2.41, p.1, CJR December, 1941, p.650.
62. JTA 10.23.41, p.1, NYT 10.26.41, p.6, CJR December, 1941, p.669, DT 10.23.41, p.1, F 10.23.41, p.1, CW 10.23.41, p.3.
63. JTA 11.16.41, p.1, DT 11.16.41, p.1, F 11.16.41,p.1, CW 11.21.41, p.16.
64. JTA 7.30.41, p.3, 11.30.41.
65. CW 1.2.42, pp.8-10, 11-12; 1.16.42, p.3; 1.23.42, pp.5-6, DT 1.19.42, p.1, JE 4.22.42, p.4, JF April 1942, p.4, NYT 4.6. 42, p.2;6.14.42, p.1, CJR April , 1942, p.17; June, 1942, p.311, JTA 1.8.42, p.1.
66. JTA 3.25.42, p.3, 4.5.42, p.3, NYT 4. 24. 42, p.5.
67. JTA 1.5.42, p.3, F 4.12.42, p.3, CW 4.10.42, pp.7-10, CJR April, 1942, pp.190-192.
68. JTA 1.11.42, p.1, F 1.11.42, p.1, DT 1.11.42, p.1.
69. JTA 4.20.42, p.1, 6.1142, p.4, CW 5.1.42, pp.4-5, DT 4.21.42, p.1, Jewish Exponent (JE) 4.10.42, p.4.
70. JTA 1.6.42, p.2, JF March, 1942, pp. 4-5, May, 1942, pp. 13-15, JS May, 1942, pp.13-17, NYT 2.9.42, p.2, 3.1.42, p.28, CW 1.30.42, pp. 6-7, 2.27.42, p.5, F 1. 10.42, p.8, 1.15.42, p.3.
71. JTA 3.15.42, p.1, NYT 3. 14.42, p.7, F 3.20.42, p.3.
72. JF April, 1942, p.4.
73. CW 3.20.42, pp. 3-4.
74. JTA 6.26.42, pp.1-2, NYT 6.27.42, p.5, 7.9.42, p.8, DT 6.30.42, p.1, 7.8.42, p.1, Opinion (O) August, 1942, p.15, CJR August, 1942, p.422, Midstream, April, 1968, pp.52-58,American Hebrew(AH) 7.10.42, p.1.
75. Walter Laqueur and Richard Breitman, Breaking the Silence. (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1986, p.143-163; Richard Breitman. Official Secrets: What The Nazis Planned, What The British and Americans Knew. New York: Hill and Wang, 1998. pp.137-176; David S. Wyman. Abandonment of the Jews: America and The Holocaust, 1941-1945. New York: Pantheon Books, 1984, pp.42-47, 49-51, 53-55, 74, 178-9, 362.
76. reitman, Official Secrets. pp.151-154.

December 10, 1897, Jewish Herald (Vic.) page 15, The Possibilities Of Modern Journalism; Zionists and Palestine. Re-Building the Temple Of Jerusalem,

December 10, 1897, Jewish Herald (Vic.) page 15, The Possibilities Of Modern Journalism; Zionists and Palestine. Re-Building the Temple Of Jerusalem,

THE POSSIBILITIES OF MODERN JOURNALISM.

THE following article appeared in the Pall Mall Gazette of 30th October last. We prefer giving the article in full before making any comments thereon. Here it is : —

The Zionists and Palestine.
RE-BUILDING THE TEMPLE OF JERUSALEM.

It is not a little curious to regard the re-building of the Temple of Jerusalem as within the range of practical politics, but the latest information to hand with respect to the Zionist movement unquestionably presents the view of the probability of the prophecy being fulfilled in the very near future. Zionism is one of the newest of our public movements. It virtually came into existence no longer since than last August, but the astonishing success that attended its inauguration was due to the fact that for the first time it gave voice to the aspirations of centuries and the desires of a nation. For nearly two thousand years the Jews, though scattered all over the civilised world, have preserved the traditions of their race and their religion, and they have never ceased to look on Palestine as their mother country, to which they would some day be restored, but not till last August, when the Zionist Congress met at Basel, had an adequate expression been given to the national aspirations of the race. But once the subject has been launched, the development of details has advanced by leaps and bounds. With the Jew the spirit of patriotism is inseparable from religious ambitions, and the question of the return to Palestine had not been long on the carpet before the restoration of the Temple suggested itself with irresistible force.

In the time of the Crusades the grand objective was the Holy Sepulchre; but it is now pretty generally admitted that the pious warriors of the middle ages had marked out a wrong location, and they were prepared to fight to the death for a false site. In the case of the Temple this is different. There is no doubt that the Mosque of Omar, in the south-east of the city, stands on the very ground occupied by Solomon's Temple, and in the wall of that curious passage known as the Wailing place of the Jews there still remain some of the stones used in the fabric of the original Temple. From this mosque, and indeed from the whole precincts, the Jews are rigorously excluded ; nor, indeed, would any Jew wish to penetrate into the mosque, for the simple reason that some where within its enclosing walls is the Holy of Holies, but all record of the exact spot has been lost, and a Jew could not enter those walls without incurring the danger of placing his foot on holy ground. This fact suggests a difficulty in the way of the restoration of the Temple.

MATERIAL FOR THE TEMPLE ALREADY ORDERED.

To the ordinary observer there does not appear to be at the present moment any indication of a speedy return of the Jews to Palestine, but in the sacred and profane writings of the East there are many prophecies that point to an early disruption of the Turkish Empire, especially as far as concerns its sway over Syria, and it is a fact that much of the land included in ancient Palestine is heavily mortgaged; that those mortgages are in the hands of Jews, and that a number of them expire, subject of course to [Continued on Page 16] renewal, in the early part of next year. This is held to give the Jews a favourable opportunity of making a treaty with the Sultan, based, of course, on financial considerations, which have always proved powerful at Constantinople. To this end there has been some talk of forming a huge syndicate, with a capital of some fifty millions sterling, and it is difficult to realise the concession that such a sum would not wring from the Yildiz Kiosk. As may be imagined, this proposal was met with considerable opposition as being of too mundane and commercial a way of fulfilling a Scriptural prophecy; but in the community there is a strong conviction that a fitting way will be found of acquiring the Holy Land, and that the time is at hand. So strong is this conviction that preparations are actually being made for the rebuilding of the Temple, which would unquestionably be the first act of the restored nation. Orders have been given in England and in Italy for material that would be required in the work of restoration, and at the present moment marble is being carved in Italy for the capitals of pillars, and wrought-iron is being produced in England for outer gates, together with work of other kinds. No doubt when matters have progressed somewhat orders will be given in other European countries, but at present there is no indication that any part of the new Temple will be made in Germany. Though some of the work has been completed, it will readily be imagined that none has yet been consigned to Palestine, but when the time arrives there will be no great difficulties of transit. The railway from Jaffa to Jerusalem will simplify the collection of materials, although the company seem to have followed the English railway companies in country districts, and constructed their station a good half-mile outside the walls of the town.

The Tomb of Moses.

The immigration of Jews into the Holy Land has already commenced, and there are numerous colonies in different parts of the country. In Jerusalem itself there is a Jewish quarter as distinctly marked and separated from the other parts of the town, as in the case of Frankfort. But most of the Jewish colonists belong to the poorer classes, and many of them are supported to a large extent by the Jewish communities in Europe, The self-supporting section are largely engaged in market-gardening, but the present condition of the country does not encourage industry of this kind because of the curse that clings to the hoofs of the Sultan's horse. But this is a state of things that under other conditions could be remedied, and with proper encouragement to agriculture there is no reason why the country should not flow once more with milk and honey. But at present the Jews' idea of nationality is in a nebulous stage. The form of government to be established when the opportunity arises has scarcely been considered, and the extent of the restoration of the Temple has not been approached in practical form. No doubt there would be a considerable pause before it was decided to demolish the magnificent Mosque of Omar. The Moslems themselves view with considerable reverence some of the most sacred spots of the Jews, and would be very unwilling to relinquish possession. Among these are the Mosque of Hebron, into which no infidel is allowed to enter, and the rule has been relaxed only on three or four occasions. With reference to the tomb of Moses there is a difference of opinion as to site between the Jews and the Moslems. The latter have located it on the west side of Jordan, and declare that the Archangel Gabriel moved the body to its present resting-place, which is the object of a great annual pilgrimage.

Many people may be tempted to wonder what the Jews will do if they return to Palestine. They are not an agricultural people, and the genius of the race will not find a sufficient outlet in trading among themselves. But for the moment the Jew is wrapped up in the sentiment of nationality. He has no yearning for the flesh-pots of Egypt—his eyes are fixed on the cradle of his race. He is prepared to make almost any sacrifice to secure the re-establishment of his nation, and to be able to await in his own country the coming of the Messiah. But it must be confessed that there are many Jews who view with misgiving the return to the Promised Land, and it is certain that when they do return to the shores of the Mediterranean and found a government of their own there will be no lack of willing representatives at the western courts of Europe. Of course, there are numerous political considerations underlying all these arrangements, but the Jews have a powerful influence in the councils of Europe, and a strong avowal of national sentiment on their part would be a backing that would well-nigh be irresistible.

On reading the foregoing article we experienced several difficulties. In the first place, we found it difficult to decide whether the writer is in earnest or whether he is a humorist. His observation that no part of the Temple is to be "made in Germany" seems to show that the man is poking fun at the rabid Protectionists. But the rest of the article, in fact by far the greater portion, seems to be concerned in real earnest. If, on the other hand, the man means what he says, it is just as difficult, if not more so, to decide whether his simplicity exceeds his belief in the credulity of his readers, or vice versa. Fancy, preparations are already made for the re-building of the Temple ! Who signed the contract? Who is responsible for "the sinews of war?" To be sure, all the Jews that attended the Congress at Basle cannot together muster sufficient cash to pay for the stones, and it is a noteworthy fact that men of standing in the commercial world keep aloof from the Congress, as, indeed, they boohoo the whole scheme. Who is to be High Priest? Is Herzl the fit person for the office, or Nordau? We don't think either of them has the requisite knowledge of the ritual. In short the whole affair is "bosh," to use a colloquial term. The only pity is that such stuff is dished up for the intellectual entertainment for English readers, who do not know better. What a lot of mischief these papers are able to do !

March 25, 1944, The Methodist (Sydney) page 12, The Black "White Paper" and Palestine, by the Rt. Rev. C. Vern Pilcher, Co-Auditor Bishop of Sydney.

March 25, 1944, The Methodist (Sydney) page 12, The Black "White Paper" and Palestine, by the Rt. Rev. C. Vern Pilcher, Co-Auditor Bishop of Sydney. [1003 words]

... Great Britain should adhere to this policy in face of the four or five million Jews already murdered by... 

The Black "White Paper" and Palestine,
By the Rt. Rev. C. Vern Pilcher, Co-Auditor Bishop of Sydney.

March 31, 1944, is a memorable date, because on that day the most tragic of the provisions of the White Paper of 1939 comes into operation.

What Is the White Paper?

In the year 1917 the famous Balfour Declaration was put forth under the authority of the British Government. It ran as follows:

"His Majesty's Government view with favour the establishment in Palestine of a national home for the
Jewish people, and will use their best endeavours to facilitate the achievement of this object, it being
clearly understood that nothing shall be done which may prejudice the civil and religious rights of existing non-Jewish communities in Palestine, or the rights and political status enjoyed by Jews in any other country.
Arthur James Balfour."

This declaration was later endorsed by the whole League of Nations, as well as by the United States of
America. Great Britain was given the Mandate over Palestine, in order that she might put into operation the Balfour Declaration.

Jewish immigrants immediately began to enter upon the homeland of their fathers with amazing and most excellent results. The desert places were made to blossom as the rose, and land which had been considered impossible for cultivation produced abundant crops. As a result, the living conditions of the Arabs were so improved that the Arab population showed an immense increase, while between ordinary Arabs and ordinary Jews there were ample signs of growing friendship. (See Report of the Royal Commission on Palestine, pp. 130, 131, 136.) One would have thought that such an admirable condition of things would have been encouraged and allowed to continue.

This however was not to be. Axis propaganda, Axis money and Axis arms were used to stir up the Arab oligarchy to oppose the Jewish colonisation with active violence. The Arab feudal barons were afraid of the effect upon their own privileges and vested interests of the developments brought about by the Jewish colonists. These Fascist Arabs frequently had to use coercion upon the Arab masses in order to compel them to act as agents for the Axis against Great Britain. The arch culprit in this miserable affair was the notorious Mufti of Jerusalem, who, with others of these same leaders, now
heads an Arab Nazi Government in Exile in Germany, and has declared from Berlin a Holy War against Britain.

At the time of these riots engineered by the Fascist Arabs, the appeasement government of Mr. Chamberlain was in power in England. It was this government which produced the White Paper
limiting Jewish immigration into Palestine, and in effect ending it completely on March 31, 1944.

Mr. Churchill fought against the introduction of this White Paper, calling it a "breach and repudiation" of Britain's word as given in the Balfour Declaration. The Permanent Mandates Commission of the League of Nations also spoke of the White Paper as "not in keeping with the pledge made in the
Balfour Declaration."

The White Paper may indeed be called back when it involves a breach of Britain's pledged word, but it is even blacker through the tragedy which it brings upon the Jewish people. Just at the time when a place of refuge from Nazi massacre is supremely needed, the doors of the one natural place of refuge are to be closed. It seems unthinkable that Great Britain should adhere to this policy in face of the four
or five million Jews already murdered by the Nazis

Does Justice to the Arabs Make the White Paper Necessary?

We have already seen that the White Paper was adopted under the pressure from the Fascist Arabs. Supporters of the White Paper also adduce other arguments: (1) They say that promises were made to the Arabs, and that a revocation of the White Paper would be a breach of our promises to the Arabs.

Both Mr. Churchill and Lawrence of Arabia insist that all our promises to the Arabs have been kept.
Another objection which is raised is that the repeal of the White Paper would provoke an Arab rebellion. The British Labour Party gave full proof that it did not consider any such danger, if it did exist, to be great enough to prevent right action. This was shown by the party's resolution on Palestine of Whitsun 1943, asking for the opening of the doors of Palestine to Jewish immigration. Further, we
must remember that Great Britain's military position is such to-day as to minimize the danger of any Arab opposition, which is clearly illustrated by the fact that even in the hour of her greatest need, the Empire Forces were strong enough to suppress Arab rebellion in Iraq.

Jewish Claims Upon Our Gratitude.

It is seldom realised to what an extent the Jewish people are giving their services on the side of the Allies in this present war. Fifty thousand British Jews are serving with the forces, including seven thousand in the Air Force. In the American Army there are three hundred thousand Jews, whom to count among the ranks of their soldiers both General McArthur and Admiral Halsey are very proud.

No less than six hundred thousand Jews are serving in the ranks of the Red Army. From the outbreak of the Russian War until last November, five thousand Jews have been decorated for gallantry in action at the front.

In Palestine the Jewish Agency has recruited no less than forty-two thousand men and women for the British armed forces; besides these twenty-five thousand Jewish temporary policemen stand on guard for the safety of Palestine.

Mr. Churchill on July 21st, 1942, expressed his great appreciation of the Jewish war effort; he said "all over the world Jewish Communities have made their contribution to the United Nations' cause."

June 23, 1944, Northern Times (Carnarvon, WA) page 2, Casual Comment; Nazi Crimes,

June 23, 1944, Northern Times (Carnarvon, WA) page 2, Casual Comment; Nazi Crimes, [741 words]

....but figures just released give an indication of the purge against the Jews which is staggering. In the four years of German occupation more than five million Jews have been murdered by the Nazis, either violently or starved to death. Jewish families have been separated in order to prevent cohabitation, with the result that the Jewish population has had no natural increase worth recording. It is the greatest racial mass slaughter of history, and may be ranked possibly as Hitler's greatest crime, apart from the war itself.

Nazi Crimes

We hear so much about Nazi crimes in Europe that it is difficult to find something which can shock the numbed conscience of civilisation; but figures just released give an indication of the purge against the Jews which is staggering. In the four years of German occupation more than five million Jews have been murdered by the Nazis, either violently or starved to death. Jewish families have been separated in order to prevent cohabitation, with the result that the Jewish population has had no natural increase worth recording. It is the greatest racial mass slaughter of history, and may be ranked possibly as Hitler's greatest crime, apart from the war itself. Whilst tens of thousands of Protestants and Catholics have been massacred, the emphasis has been upon the Jews; and although at the end of last year there were still three million Jews alive iu Europe, it is debatable whether there will be half that number when it is finally liberated. And perhaps the irony of it is that Hitler's maternal grandmother was a Jewess.

October 27, 1944, The Argus (Melbourne) page 8, Plea For Home For Jews,

October 27, 1944, The Argus (Melbourne) page 8, Plea For Home For Jews, [281 words]

...It was estimated that of more than five million Jews in Hitler-controlled Europe, not more than two and a half millions had survived, Mrs Archibald Silverman, a visitor from USA, and representative of the Jewish Agency for Palestine, said yesterday...

PLEA FOR HOME FOR JEWS

It was estimated that of more than five million Jews in Hitler-controlled Europe, not more than two and a half millions had survived, Mrs Archibald Silverman, a visitor from USA, and representative of the
Jewish Agency for Palestine, said yesterday at a late afternoon party at Menzies Hotel, at which she met representatives of the Press.

Mr S. Wynn, chairman of the Zionist Council of Victoria, and members of the committee were hosts.

The Jews salvaged out of Europe were in concentration or internment camps in countries of the Western Hemisphere, some at Kingston, Jamaica, and others in various States of South America, They were aliens from unfriendly countries in strict legal sense, and though great sympathy had been expressed at their treatment, only a few countries had welcomed these aliens as citizens.

Australia had been one of the welcoming countries, and more than 7,000 of Australia's quota of 15,000
had already reached here. So the remainder, often brilliant and inventive people, who would be an asset anywhere, languished in camps. In these circumstances, Mrs Silverman said; the question "Where shall My people go?" became one the world must answer before there could be lasting, peace. These Jews were a world problem, and the need to open Palestine to them as a national home became a pressing question in world politics.

Mrs Silverman traversed the various reasons why Jews from Central Europe would not return to their
countries of origin. She also outlined the successful Jewish settlement in Palestine, where, in her opinion, they could live amicably with the 453,000 Arabs, once Nazi propaganda ceased to stir the Arabs against them.

May 14, 1945, The North Western Courier (Narrabri, NSW) page 2, Crimes in Germany; Elaborate Torture Camps; 5,000,000 Jews Murdered,

May 14, 1945, The North Western Courier (Narrabri, NSW) page 2, Crimes in Germany; Elaborate Torture Camps; 5,000,000 Jews Murdered, [1289 words]

.. Nazis' hands cannot be exactly ascertained. It is conservatively estimated that about five million Jews ...

Crimes in Germany
ELABORATE TORTURE CAMPS
5,000,000 Jews Murdered

Germany's defeat has brought to an end the series of crimes perpetrated by the Nazis, so violent that words can never do them justice.

Beginning in 1933 with concentration camps for Hitler's political enemies and for Jews within Germany itself, the murderous path led into every corner of the continent, through Warsaw, Lublin, Rotterdam, Lidice, Distomo, Majdanek, Birkenau and Remblinka. Finally it reentered Germany in prison camps where Allied soldiers were starved and allowed to live in filth in full defiance of
the Geneva Convention.

In April, 1945, Allied war correspondents were present as 1,200 German civilians were taken on a forced tour through Buchenwald, one of the largest concentration camps in Germany. Gallows, torture rooms, dissection rooms and crematoria were mute and still reeking evidences of the slaughter that had gone on for eight years. 'Parchment strips of human skin make up some of the decorations including the shades of two large table lamps.

Over 30,000 people were killed at Buchenwald between its establishment in July, 1937 and its capture by the Allies.

At one time the camp held 110,000 prisoners whose lives, even if prolonged, were days and nights of beatings and torture. Usually there were 80,000 prisoners within the barbed wire confines. Only 20,000 were still alive when the Allies came, but according to a New York Times' correspondent almost half of them were so broken they could no longer move about. Or, even worse, they could move about but had lost awareness of their surroundings— suffering had poured the balm of insanity over their minds. In camps like Belsen and Gardelgen, two of many, the scenes were repeated.

Despite such reprisals, everywhere in Europe men, women and children, did resist. In Norway, Denmark, Belgium, the Netherlands, France, Greece and Yugoslavia patriots were lined against walls and shot. A German soldier would be thrown into a canal or slugged from behind. In reprisal, thirty, forty or fifty people would be pulled from their homes and murdered. In village marketplaces the bodies of men and women hanged at Nazi officers' commands were left for days to warn the population that death was the punishment for disobedience. Those who still lived had their homes confiscated and food taken away so that the Nazi masters might eat. Men and women were packed in trains and taken to Germany for slave labor. From museums and from private collections, the conquered country's art was carted to Nazi hideaways.

NAZIS EXCEED THEMSELVES

When war broke again in the east with the invasion of Russia, the Nazis outdid themselves. Shootings, hangings, burning to the ground of whole communities, and dragging off of the living to hard labour repeated themselves over and over. And still Europe resisted. In Czechoslovakia 'Hankman' Reinhard Heydrich, Nazi 'protector,' was fatally attacked, supposedly by patriots, May 27, 1942. During the eight months of his rule about 500 Czechoslovaks had been executed and many more perished in prison camps.

The Nazis declared the patriots responsible for Heydrich's death had been harbored by some of the citizens of Lidice, coal-mining village of over 500 inhabitants situated not far from Prague. Reprisals were ordered. On June 10, 1942, the orders were carried out. In the official language of the German communique "all male adults, of the town were shot while the women were placed in a concentration camp and the children were entrusted to appropriate educational, institutions. The town was leveled to the ground. The name of the community was extinguished."

With the Allied landings in North Africa and the rout of Rommel's armies, resistance forces on the European continent fought even more gallantly against the invaders. The invaders in turn became increasingly ruthless in reprisals. On the second anniversary of Lidice on June 10, 1944, the Greek town of Distomo met a similar end because thirty German soldiers had been killed in the vicinity. In Distomo not even women and children escaped. A cordon was thrown around the village. All the inhabitants — some mothers with babies in arms — were herded into the village square.

RED CROSS BARRED

With machine guns and submachine-guns they were mowed down by Nazi soldiers. Those who still showed life in the fallen heap of bodies were finished off with pistol shots. The village was set afire. For four days the Red Cross was not allowed to enter the ruins.

Only a handful of children crazed by horror were found wandering about in the nearby woods.

At about the same time, 1,100 of 1,200 inhabitants of Oradour sur Glain in France were killed by Germans in reprisal. Near Rome, 360 Italians were similarly massacred.

How many millions in all suffered wanton deaths at the Nazis' hands cannot be exactly ascertained. It is conservatively estimated that about five million Jews alone were murdered between 1933 and 1945. Most of the millions put to death in the major death factories of Majdanek, Oswiecim, Birkenau and Remblinka were Jews.

NOTORIOUS GHETTO

In October, 1939, soon after Poland's fall, the Nazis announced the Lublin ghetto to which Jews from all over Poland were to be sent.

Eventually Warsaw itself became a vast centre of extermination through crowding and starvation. It was near Lublin that Majdanek's death chambers were ultimately established. With the occupation of other parts of Europe by the Nazis, Jews from western and southern countries were also packed into cattle cars and shipped to their death in Poland.

Some 1,500,000 men, women and children were, according to the Polish-Soviet Atrocity Commission of August, 1944, murdered at Majdenah, which had six concrete vaults for execution by cyanide or carbon monoxide gas. Two thousand people could thus be killed in under seven minutes. There was an outdoor crematorium presumably for dead bodies, although one witness who escaped to tell the tale saw a girl thrust alive into the oven. She had refused to strip off her clothing in preparation, for being shot. Clothing removed from victims was confiscated for use in Germany.

HUMAN ASHES AS FERTILISER

Ashes taken from crematory ovens were mixed with manure, and spread as fertilizer over cabbage fields.

The neighbouring pine woods were carpeted with decaying bodies. Between thirty and forty thousand victims were held at Majdanek at one time.

Between April, 1942 approximately 1,765,000 Jews were gassed in Birkenau in Upper Silesia, according to a report issued by the U.S. Government's War Refuge Board. The Jews had been shipped from their home in Poland, the Netherlands, Greece, France, Belgium, Germany , Yugoslavia, Italy, Norway, Austria, Lithuania and Czechoslovakia.

On the day the first Birgenau crematorium was inaugurated in March, 1943, the report states that prominent guests from Berlin attended the ceremonies.

"The programme consisted of the gassing and burning of 8,000 Krakow Jews. The guests, both officers and civilians, were extremely satisfied with the results and the special peep-hole fitted into the door of the gas chamber was in constant use. They were lavish in their praise of the newly-erected installation."

According to a careful estimate at Tremblinka, also in Poland, 2,764,000 Jews were reported murdered.

As the liberating Allied armies swept through lands where death chambers had been set up evidence of the horrors lay at their feet in skulls, ashes and mangled bodies.

Adolf Hitler With His Favorite Little Girl,

n.d., One web capture Dec. 26, 2016, then the memories went POOF!

vintage everyday

bring back nostalgia and memories

These Pictures of Adolf Hitler with Helga Goebbels, His Favorite Little Girl, Show Another Side of the Fuhrer

Helga was the oldest of Goebbels’ six children and she was always said to be Hitler’s favorite little girl.

Kathe Hubner, who worked for the Goebbels family for the last two years of the Second World War, refuses to comment on this, saying only that it is a question which journalists have always pestered her with – she always refused to answer their questions – and that Hitler was friendly to all children.

Whatever Hitler felt about Helga, her feelings about him are evident in these photographs from the 1930s.

Helga was 12 years old when she died. She was murdered by her parents in Berlin on 1 May 1945, the day both parents committed suicide. Bruises found on her body postmortem (mostly on her face) led to wide speculation that she had struggled against receiving a cyanide capsule, which was used to kill her by crushing it between her teeth.