|
A
distinction should be made between reports on specific mass-murder
incidents and reports on genocide. Information regarding mass
murders of Jews began to reach the free world soon after these
actions began in the Soviet Union in late June 1941, and the volume
of such reports increased with time. The early sources of
information include German police reports intercepted by British
intelligence; local eyewitnesses and escaped Jews reporting to
underground, Soviet, or neutral sources; and Hungarian soldiers on
home leave, whose observations were reported by neutral sources.
During 1942, reports of a Nazi plan to murder all the Jews –
including details on methods, numbers, and locations – reached
Allied and neutral leaders from many sources, such as the
underground Jewish Socialist Bund party in the Warsaw ghetto in May;
Gerhard Riegner's cable from Switzerland in August; the eyewitness
account of Polish underground courier Jan Karski in November; and
the eyewitness accounts of 69 Polish Jews who reached Palestine in a
civilian prisoner exchange between Germany and Britain in November.
On
December 17, 1942, the Allies issued a proclamation condemning the
"extermination" of the Jewish people in Europe and
declared that they would punish the perpetrators. Notwithstanding
this, it remains unclear to what extent Allied and neutral leaders
understood the full import of their information. The utter shock of
senior Allied commanders who liberated camps at the end of the war
may indicate that this understanding was not complete. |
