WW2 Question

[CrazyHelloDeli]

When exactly did the Allies find out about the Nazi extermination of the Jews? I was always under the impression that we only found out about it in the last days of the war. Or were we aware of the extermination camps from the beginning? Did we know about the camps existance, just not what they were used for? Ive been looking online and havnt found a solid answer.

Side note: Just finished reading Stephen Ambrose "D-Day". Awsome, awsome book. Dealt with Omaha a little more than I would have liked(I wanted to know what the Brits encounterd as well) but very facinating read. I think ill read Ambrose, "The Victors" next.

 

[NathanBWF]

They didn't know about them until close to the end of the war. Don't quote me on this but I believe the americans and the russians both stumbled onto them around the same time...

 

[Hammer]

i believe it was just rumors until the later days of the war when US troops stumbled across the camps.

 

[kuk]

There were some hefty discussions in the last weeks about this, after some aereal photographs of concentration camps were made public. I'll see if I can dig some information out.

I think this is the story.

 

[PanzerIV]

There was a very compelling documentary I believe on the Discovery channel some months ago regarding this very subject. They centered on the New York Times editorial staff's selective censuring such information and that the genocide was known, just not the scope of it at the time. I hope somebody else can remember more of this episode. It was an eye opener.

 

[weeber]

From what I heard, concentration camps were just a rumor to the US throughout much of the war. The Russians discovered a camp first, but the US and British dismissed reports of their findings as mere propaganda. It wasn't until US troops discovered one for themselves that the true magnitude of the situation was brought to the American public.

 

[K1052]

It was suspected before the invasion that the Nazis were killing people. The scale only became known as the Allied forces advanced into Germany and the eastern European countries. My understanding is that the Allied commanders figured that ending the war quickly was the best way to save lives.

If the Allies knew about the massive slaughter of the Jews, Slavic peoples, and others why not exploit it for propaganda value?

 

[ThePresence]

They knew about it all along. There were hundreds of Rabbi's that were constantly lobbying the US government to do something about it the whole time. If you want to read more about the subject, there are some books I could recommend, PM me.

 

[ThePresence]

Originally posted by: K1052
If the Allies knew about the massive slaughter of the Jews, Slavic peoples, and others why not exploit it for propaganda value?

Because then the question would be obvious. Why weren't the allies doing anything about it? They refused to bomb the tracks heading towards Auschwitz, etc.

 

[rearden888]

The Allies knew about the concentration camps, but, as someone else has said, they didn't know the scale, for sure. They also didn't know for sure all of the medical experiments, etc. that the nazi's were trying on those in the camps. They did, however, generally try and avoid bombing the concentration camps, even though they were often co-located with legitimate manufacturing or logistics targets. As far as what the public knew in the Allied countries, it was mostly rumor, but the leaders knew much more about the camps.

 

[K1052]

There was, unfortunately, not much hard proof that the Nazis were exterminating millions. The photo recon would be hard to gather that kind of intelligence from given the state of occupied Europe in 1941-1943. Tasking strategic air raids to bomb targets of unknown value for an unlimited period of time was just not done. It is also likely that any mission targeting the rail lines into the camps would have resulted in a large number of prisoner deaths. However, not near the numbers who were murdered in the camps.

If anyone knew it would have been the Russians. They had far better human sources within the Reich than we ever did.