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The
first detailed information about Auschwitz reached the Allies in
June 1944, in a report from two escaped prisoners forwarded by
Jewish underground activists in Slovakia. The information included a
request to bomb the camp and the rail lines leading to it from
Hungary, as masses of Hungarian Jews were then being deported to the
camp. The Allies had command of the skies by that time, and air
bases in Italy brought the Allied forces in the West within range of
parts of Poland. From the spring to the autumn of 1944, Allied
aircraft flew over the camp several times on a mission to photograph
German industrial plants a few kilometers away. In the late summer
these plants were bombed, but the extermination camp Auschwitz-Birkenau
was never bombed.
The
Allies explained their decision not to bomb the camp in several
ways. They said it was technically impossible for them to reach the
camp. The fact that they bombed other targets very nearby indicates
that this was not true. They argued that such bombardment would not
slow down the murder operation and would divert forces from decisive
battles and endanger the airmen. The only way to rescue Jews, they
said, was by winning the war. Their main arguments, then, were
"rescue through victory" and "no diversion from the
war effort." Whether a bombing mission to the extermination
camp would have succeeded or failed is an open question. However, it
is clear that the Allies did not marshal the same energy and
determination to rescue the Jews as the Nazis did to murder them. |
