Earliest mentions of Auschwitz gassings in the New York Times: June 20, June 25, and July 3, 1944

[Archie]

...the first of real importance and the first time the US government seems to have endorsed the gassing claims..

The earliest is probably the December 1942 Joint Declaration. The Polish government-in-exile put out a report from London and many countries joined to condemn the supposed exterminations. Not clear how seriously everyone took it or if they were just backing the Poles and saw it as good propaganda. The resolution itself does not mention gassing but the report itself does. The report does mention the Reinhardt camps but noticeably says nothing about Auschwitz.

The attention of the Belgian, Czechoslovak, Greek, Jugoslav, Luxembourg, Netherlands, Norwegian, Polish, Soviet, United Kingdom and United States Governments and also of the French National Committee has been drawn to numerous reports from Europe that the German authorities, not content with denying to persons of Jewish race in all the territories over which their barbarous rule has been extended, the most elementary human rights, are now carrying into effect Hitler's oft-repeated intention to exterminate the Jewish people in Europe.

From all the occupied countries Jews are being transported in conditions of appalling horror and brutality to Eastern Europe. In Poland, which has been made the principal Nazi slaughterhouse, the ghettos established by the German invader are being systematically emptied of all Jews except a few highly skilled workers required for war industries. None of those taken away are ever heard of again. The able-bodied are slowly worked to death in labor camps. The infirm are left to die of exposure and starvation or are deliberately massacred in mass executions. The number of victims of these bloody cruelties is reckoned in many hundreds of thousands of entirely innocent men, women and children.

The above-mentioned governments and the French National Committee condemn in the strongest possible terms this bestial policy of cold-blooded extermination. They declare that such events can only strengthen the resolve of all freedom-loving peoples to overthrow the barbarous Hitlerite tyranny. They reaffirm their solemn resolution to insure that those responsible for these crimes shall not escape retribution, and to press on with the necessary practical measures to this end.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joint_Declaration_by_Members_of_the_United_Nations
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Mass_Extermination_of_Jews_in_German_Occupied_Poland

[Lamprecht]

The earliest is probably the December 1942 Joint Declaration.

Was the allegation of mass murder by homicidal gas chamber actually in this declaration?

From: http://www.fpp.co.uk/Auschwitz/docs/Cav ... tinck.html (mirror: http://archive.fo/tmuK0)

C 9705/34/8

[This telegram is of particular secrecy and should be retained by the authorised recipient and not passed on]

[Cypher]
WAR CABINET DISTRIBUTION

FROM FOREIGN TO WASHINGTON

No. 5741

27th August, 1943

D: 9. 05 p.m. 27th August, 1943

Repeated to Moscow telegram No. 1200

MOST IMMEDIATE

My telegram No. 1190 to Moscow [of 28th August: declaration about German atrocities in Poland]

On further reflection we are not convinced that evidence regarding use of gas chambers is substantial enough to justify inclusion in a public declaration of concluding phrase of paragraph 2 of draft and would prefer if United States Government agree, that sentence in question should end at "concentration camps".

2. Please telegraph United States Government's views urgently.

O. T. P. [One time pad]

[Archie]

Was the allegation of mass murder by homicidal gas chamber actually in this declaration?

The Polish report that was distributed to the Allied governments and that prompted the declaration does mention gassing (and electrocution).

As far as is known, the trains were despatched to three localities---Tremblinka, Belzec and Sobibor, to what the reports describe as "Extermination camps." The very method of transport was deliberately calculated to cause the largest possible number of casualties among the condemned Jews. It is reported that on arrival in camp the survivors were stripped naked and killed by various means, including poison gas and electrocution. The dead were interred in mass graves dug by machinery.

But the actual text of the Dec 1942 declaration condemns only the "extermination" of the Jews with no reference to gassing. And I suppose the language really doesn't imply gassing either. "The infirm are left to die of exposure and starvation or are deliberately massacred in mass executions. The number of victims of these bloody cruelties is reckoned in many hundreds of thousands of entirely innocent men, women and children."

So on second thought, I should have said the 1942 declaration was the first time the Allied governments endorsed the Jewish extermination claims in a general sense but without any explicit endorsement of the Polish government's gassing claims.

Regarding the deletion of gas chamber references, the documents on Irving's site appear to be from the later November 1, 1943 declaration. Interestingly, not only does that declaration not make reference to gassing, it doesn't mention Jews either. One wonders what sort of conversations might have occurred over the language of the 1942 declaration.

https://www.cvce.eu/content/publication/2004/2/12/699fc03f-19a1-47f0-aec0-73220489efcd/publishable_en.pdf

[Hektor]

Was the allegation of mass murder by homicidal gas chamber actually in this declaration?

The Polish report that was distributed to the Allied governments and that prompted the declaration does mention gassing (and electrocution).

As far as is known, the trains were despatched to three localities---Tremblinka, Belzec and Sobibor, to what the reports describe as "Extermination camps." The very method of transport was deliberately calculated to cause the largest possible number of casualties among the condemned Jews. It is reported that on arrival in camp the survivors were stripped naked and killed by various means, including poison gas and electrocution. The dead were interred in mass graves dug by machinery.

But the actual text of the Dec 1942 declaration condemns only the "extermination" of the Jews with no reference to gassing. And I suppose the language really doesn't imply gassing either. "The infirm are left to die of exposure and starvation or are deliberately massacred in mass executions. The number of victims of these bloody cruelties is reckoned in many hundreds of thousands of entirely innocent men, women and children."

So on second thought, I should have said the 1942 declaration was the first time the Allied governments endorsed the Jewish extermination claims in a general sense but without any explicit endorsement of the Polish government's gassing claims.

Regarding the deletion of gas chamber references, the documents on Irving's site appear to be from the later November 1, 1943 declaration. Interestingly, not only does that declaration not make reference to gassing, it doesn't mention Jews either. One wonders what sort of conversations might have occurred over the language of the 1942 declaration.

https://www.cvce.eu/content/publication/2004/2/12/699fc03f-19a1-47f0-aec0-73220489efcd/publishable_en.pdf

Well, if you are not specific on method, event or place, it's more difficult to challenge you on those. Extermination can mean almost anything with a negative impact on a group. On the other hand, who can really disprove your allegations then? The worst thing that can happen is that you go over the top in the mind of people and they brush it off as a propaganda stunt, not to be taken seriously. So rather build on existing rumours or stuff that already made the round, meaning you retype the releases with slight modifications of other outlets. E.g. in WW2 the Poles publish something the French have, the British pick up on what the Poles distributed. The Soviets take over there and add to the British. To the public mind this seems as if they are confirming each other and hence they assume at least some truth to the media statements. After all, there can't be a conspiracy with all those governments, organisations, newspapers and radio stations in cahoots with each other, right?

The atrocity allegations in the document seem to be remotely related to reprisals against partisans and their helpers. E.g. take note of:

Thus, Germans who take part in wholesale shootings of Italian officers or in the execution of French, Dutch, Belgian or Norwegian hostages or of Cretan peasants, or who have shared in the slaughters inflicted on the people of Poland or in the territories of the Soviet Union which are now being swept clear of the enemy, will know that they will be brought back to the scene of their crimes and judged on the spot by the peoples whom they have outraged.

That's of course quite hypocritical of them, since they'd acted in exactly the same way (or worse) within the same situation.


It's possible that at a stage that early the Allied spin doctors deemed references to gassing as to big to swallow for the public. I'm sure they had a board of management dealing with their propaganda // psychological warfare strategy then. It would be interesting to get some more detailed records on this for further investigation.

Well, Thomas Mann did make some references to gassings earlier on. Here are some of his broadcasts via the BBC (in German):
https://archive.org/details/Thomas-Mann-Deutsche-Hoerer
They were recorded in the US and then moved to Britain for broadcasting via the BBC. So that already sounds like a bigger operation involving Thomas Mann, the US government and the British government at the time, possibly several other organisations as well. After all, where did Thomas Mann get this delicate information on what was supposedly happening in Germany and German occupied Europe at the time?

Bearing in mind early 20th century German/European culture and the role of the nation for a good citizen, I wonder what to think about the character of Thomas Mann, who quite willing lend his persona and voice to the Allied war effort against Germany. One can have legitimate beef with ones government and in Mann's case I'd say this was even mutual, at least after Mann was active in agitation against the NS-government from abroad.
Ask yourself how an American or Brit would be viewed, if he did something of an equivalent nature of what Thomas Mann did.

[Hektor]

Was the allegation of mass murder by homicidal gas chamber actually in this declaration?

The Polish report that was distributed to the Allied governments and that prompted the declaration does mention gassing (and electrocution).

As far as is known, the trains were despatched to three localities---Tremblinka, Belzec and Sobibor, to what the reports describe as "Extermination camps." The very method of transport was deliberately calculated to cause the largest possible number of casualties among the condemned Jews. It is reported that on arrival in camp the survivors were stripped naked and killed by various means, including poison gas and electrocution. The dead were interred in mass graves dug by machinery.

But the actual text of the Dec 1942 declaration condemns only the "extermination" of the Jews with no reference to gassing. And I suppose the language really doesn't imply gassing either. "The infirm are left to die of exposure and starvation or are deliberately massacred in mass executions. The number of victims of these bloody cruelties is reckoned in many hundreds of thousands of entirely innocent men, women and children."

So on second thought, I should have said the 1942 declaration was the first time the Allied governments endorsed the Jewish extermination claims in a general sense but without any explicit endorsement of the Polish government's gassing claims.

Regarding the deletion of gas chamber references, the documents on Irving's site appear to be from the later November 1, 1943 declaration. Interestingly, not only does that declaration not make reference to gassing, it doesn't mention Jews either. One wonders what sort of conversations might have occurred over the language of the 1942 declaration.

https://www.cvce.eu/content/publication/2004/2/12/699fc03f-19a1-47f0-aec0-73220489efcd/publishable_en.pdf

Well, if you are not specific on method, event or place, it's more difficult to challenge you on those. Extermination can mean almost anything with a negative impact on a group. On the other hand, who can really disprove your allegations then? The worst thing that can happen is that you go over the top in the mind of people and they brush it off as a propaganda stunt, not to be taken seriously. So rather build on existing rumours or stuff that already made the round, meaning you retype the releases with slight modifications of other outlets. E.g. in WW2 the Poles publish something the French have, the British pick up on what the Poles distributed. The Soviets take over there and add to the British. To the public mind this seems as if they are confirming each other and hence they assume at least some truth to the media statements. After all, there can't be a conspiracy with all those governments, organisations, newspapers and radio stations in cahoots with each other, right?

The atrocity allegations in the document seem to be remotely related to reprisals against partisans and their helpers. E.g. take note of:

Thus, Germans who take part in wholesale shootings of Italian officers or in the execution of French, Dutch, Belgian or Norwegian hostages or of Cretan peasants, or who have shared in the slaughters inflicted on the people of Poland or in the territories of the Soviet Union which are now being swept clear of the enemy, will know that they will be brought back to the scene of their crimes and judged on the spot by the peoples whom they have outraged.

That's of course quite hypocritical of them, since they'd acted in exactly the same way (or worse) within the same situation.
Interestingly, no mentioning of Jews neither.


It's possible that at a stage that early the Allied spin doctors deemed references to gassing as to big to swallow for the public. I'm sure they had a board of management dealing with their propaganda // psychological warfare strategy then. It would be interesting to get some more detailed records on this for further investigation.

Well, Thomas Mann did make some references to gassings earlier on. Here are some of his broadcasts via the BBC (in German):
https://archive.org/details/Thomas-Mann-Deutsche-Hoerer
They were recorded in the US and then moved to Britain for broadcasting via the BBC. So that already sounds like a bigger operation involving Thomas Mann, the US government and the British government at the time, possibly several other organisations as well. After all, where did Thomas Mann get this delicate information on what was supposedly happening in Germany and German occupied Europe at the time?

Bearing in mind early 20th century German/European culture and the role of the nation for a good citizen, I wonder what to think about the character of Thomas Mann, who quite willing lend his persona and voice to the Allied war effort against Germany. One can have legitimate beef with ones government and in Mann's case I'd say this was even mutual, at least after Mann was active in agitation against the NS-government from abroad.
Ask yourself how an American or Brit would be viewed, if he did something of an equivalent nature of what Thomas Mann did.

[Archie]

One major omission in this thread is that the key transitional point for Auschwitz is the deportation of the Hungarian Jews which started in May 1944. Previous to this you have some scattered claims, and many reports that flatly contradict the later Auschwitz narrative. But when the Hungarian Jews started getting deported, sure enough, within a month we have supposed Auschwitz escapees saying 1.7 million had already been gassed.

[Sannhet]

when the Hungarian Jews started getting deported, sure enough, within a month we have supposed Auschwitz escapees saying 1.7 million had already been gassed.

It's a good point. But do you mean to propose a direct causal link between the two? A timing coincidence? Something in between?

What is the relationship between the success of specifically the Vrba-Wetzler Report in Allied propaganda and the deportation of the Hungarian Jews? As Vrba and Wetzler were Slovaks and in touch with anti-Nazu Slovak Jewish networks (not Hungarian networks) when they were helped in producing their report.

I see three relevant points:

(1) We know the internment of the Hungarian Jews en masse began May 15, 1944 (following the quiet coup d'etat engineered by Hitler in March 1944 in which Hungary lost much of its remaining sovereignty and became something much closer to a puppet state for as long as German arms under the NS regime remained in the field in Europe).

(2) We know that Jewish activist networks in Slovakia produced, in April and May 1944, the document known to history as the Vrba-Wetzler Report, which turns out to be the theme of this thread, (I didn't realize it would be when I started it; that the Vrba-Wetzler Report was the source of the "earliest mention of Auschwitz gassings" published by the NYT). This "Vrba-Wetlzer Report creation and early promotion in the underground" time window overlaps with the Deportation of the Hungarian Jews timeline.

(3) The first time we find Vrba-Wetzler material in the NYT, signaling a significant (if sstill very much off-radar for general purposes) escalation in Holocaust claims, is June 20, 1944 (with two follow-ups later; all three far off the front page), five weeks after the round-up of the Hungarian Jews began.

(Forgive me if this is a "chicken-or-egg" question,) Do we know if the Vrba-Wetzler Report's circulation began before May 15?

[Archie]

when the Hungarian Jews started getting deported, sure enough, within a month we have supposed Auschwitz escapees saying 1.7 million had already been gassed.

It's a good point. But do you mean to propose a direct causal link between the two? A timing coincidence? Something in between?

What is the relationship between the success of specifically the Vrba-Wetzler Report in Allied propaganda and the deportation of the Hungarian Jews? As Vrba and Wetzler were Slovaks and in touch with anti-Nazu Slovak Jewish networks (not Hungarian networks) when they were helped in producing their report.

I see three relevant points:

(1) We know the internment of the Hungarian Jews en masse began May 15, 1944 (following the quiet coup d'etat engineered by Hitler in March 1944 in which Hungary lost much of its remaining sovereignty and became something much closer to a puppet state for as long as German arms under the NS regime remained in the field in Europe).

(2) We know that Jewish activist networks in Slovakia produced, in April and May 1944, the document known to history as the Vrba-Wetzler Report, which turns out to be the theme of this thread, (I didn't realize it would be when I started it; that the Vrba-Wetzler Report was the source of the "earliest mention of Auschwitz gassings" published by the NYT). This "Vrba-Wetlzer Report creation and early promotion in the underground" time window overlaps with the Deportation of the Hungarian Jews timeline.

(3) The first time we find Vrba-Wetzler material in the NYT, signaling a significant (if sstill very much off-radar for general purposes) escalation in Holocaust claims, is June 20, 1944 (with two follow-ups later; all three far off the front page), five weeks after the round-up of the Hungarian Jews began.

(Forgive me if this is a "chicken-or-egg" question,) Do we know if the Vrba-Wetzler Report's circulation began before May 15?

I think it is a direct causal link.

The first public reports are from early July 1944. At that time the press merely said the information came from two relief organizations in Switzerland. From the July 3rd NYT article,

Hungarian Jews Slaughtered

To this total [i.e., the 1.7 million already killed] must now be added Hungary's Jews. About 30 per cent of the 400,000 there have been slain or have died en route to Upper Silesia.

"According to authenticated information now at hand, some 400,00 Hungarian Jews have been deported since April 6 of this year under inhuman conditions to Upper Silesia. Those that did not die en route were delivered to the camps of Auschwitz and Birkenau in Upper Silesia, where during the past two years, it has now been learned, many hundreds of thousands of their coreligionists have been fiendishly done to death."

This makes the connection pretty clear. It's one thing to say the Hungarians have been deported. It's another to say the Hungarians have been sent to an "extermination camp" where millions have already died. The latter is stronger propaganda.

According to orthodox historian Martin Gilbert, the two Slovak Jews (Vrba and Wetzler) reached Zilina on April 25th and met Erwin Steiner of the Jewish Council. Steiner then contacted Oskar Krasnansky in Bratislava who then came to Steiner's house to meet Vrba and Wetzler. Krasnansky found their accounts to be credible and wrote out their report in German and had several copies made and sent out. (I'm not sure when the earliest existing copy of the report is from but Gilbert says a copy there's a copy in the Vatican archives that was sent out on May 22 but wasn't by the Vatican until October. So possibly a May 22nd copy exists but I wonder I wonder about the date since it took so long to arrive). Of the Hungarians, Gilbert says: "The most urgent need, Vrba and Wetzler believed, was to transmit the report to Hungary, and to alert Hungarian Jewry to their own potential fate." So even in this orthodox account we see that saving the Hungarian Jews was emphasized.

In his book, Gilbert sources this story from communications he had with Vrba and Krasnansky in 1980. I don't know that there is hard contemporaneous documentation for any of it. Even if we grant that the eventual WRB report does ultimately source back to the accounts of Auschwitz escapees from late April, we don't know how what might have been added to it along the way. Butz notes that the reports appear to be a mix of some standard intelligence reports (about transports and so on) mixed with some absurd fabrications and exaggerations. He says it sounds more like something written based on typical intelligence sources rather than the accounts of two curiously well-informed anonymous escapees.

[Archie]

when the Hungarian Jews started getting deported, sure enough, within a month we have supposed Auschwitz escapees saying 1.7 million had already been gassed.

It's a good point. But do you mean to propose a direct causal link between the two? A timing coincidence? Something in between?

What is the relationship between the success of specifically the Vrba-Wetzler Report in Allied propaganda and the deportation of the Hungarian Jews? As Vrba and Wetzler were Slovaks and in touch with anti-Nazu Slovak Jewish networks (not Hungarian networks) when they were helped in producing their report.

I see three relevant points:

(1) We know the internment of the Hungarian Jews en masse began May 15, 1944 (following the quiet coup d'etat engineered by Hitler in March 1944 in which Hungary lost much of its remaining sovereignty and became something much closer to a puppet state for as long as German arms under the NS regime remained in the field in Europe).

(2) We know that Jewish activist networks in Slovakia produced, in April and May 1944, the document known to history as the Vrba-Wetzler Report, which turns out to be the theme of this thread, (I didn't realize it would be when I started it; that the Vrba-Wetzler Report was the source of the "earliest mention of Auschwitz gassings" published by the NYT). This "Vrba-Wetlzer Report creation and early promotion in the underground" time window overlaps with the Deportation of the Hungarian Jews timeline.

(3) The first time we find Vrba-Wetzler material in the NYT, signaling a significant (if sstill very much off-radar for general purposes) escalation in Holocaust claims, is June 20, 1944 (with two follow-ups later; all three far off the front page), five weeks after the round-up of the Hungarian Jews began.

(Forgive me if this is a "chicken-or-egg" question,) Do we know if the Vrba-Wetzler Report's circulation began before May 15?

I have found an earlier NYT article that is very interesting to compare to the articles cited in the OP and also very interesting in light of the timeline with the Hungarian Jews. It is, in my view, a premature/primordial version of the Auschwitz-Hungarian Jews story. The article was published on May 10, 1944, delayed from May 7 (which is before there were deportations to Auschwitz). It is a story by Joseph M. Levy, a correspondent in Istanbul (in neutral Turkey).

Although it may sound unbelievable, it as a fact that Hungary, where Jewish citizens were comparatively well treated until March 19, is now preparing for the annihilation of Hungarian Jewry by the most fiendish methods. Laughing at President Roosevelt's warnings, Premier Doeme Sztojay's puppet Nazi government is completing plans and is about to start the extermination of about 1,000,000 human beings who believed they were safe because they had faith in Hungarian fairness.

The Government of Budapest has decreed the creation in different parts of Hungary of "special baths" for Jews. These baths are in reality huge gas chambers arranged for mass murder, like those inaugurated in Poland in 1419.

I will interject here and note that that the year 1419 is a mistake. This is not a reference to a gas chamber from medieval Europe. It should say 1941 (and I've seen at least one contemporaneous version of the article in a Jewish publication printed it with the corrected date).

Scores of thousands of Jews, including women with babies in arms, were murdered in these gas chamber baths. They were Jews from all over Europe, sent to Poland in cattle trains and forced into specially built chambers to which they were taken under the pretext of having baths prior to being sent to the Ukraine for colonization. Five and a half million Jews in Europe are reported to have been put to death in one form or another by the Germans since the war began.

Full article available from NYT:
https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesm ... 854065.pdf

While we can't count this as an "early mention of Auschwitz" in the NYT, it is, for lack of a better word, a prophecy about the Hungarian Jews being exterminated in fake shower gas chambers (which essentially is the Auschwitz story without the setting having been nailed down). Levy indicates that the Hungarian government themselves were to undertake the exterminations and that these gas chamber baths were being prepared "in different parts of Hungary." That is actually more logical than the traditional story since there's no reason to commit all the rail resources to send people to Auschwitz when up to that point slapdash installations (like at the AR camps) had sufficed to exterminated 5.5M(!) Jews. Even at Auschwitz, the documentary evidence has forced them to move away from the idea that that camp had highly sophisticated mass murder facilities. More recent theories have had to admit that the gas chambers at Auschwitz were also essentially improvised and that ultimately many of the bodies had to be burned outdoors anyway. This could have just as easily been done in Hungary.

In this article, Levy purports to have received intel about a planned extermination program where upwards of 1M Jews were to gassed in fake showers. These gas chambers were supposed being prepared within Hungary. Once Jews started getting deported to Auschwitz, THE EXACT SAME STORY is then transposed to that setting.

[Hektor]

...
While we can't count this as an "early mention of Auschwitz" in the NYT, it is, for lack of a better word, a prophecy about the Hungarian Jews being exterminated in fake shower gas chambers (which essentially is the Auschwitz story without the setting having been nailed down). Levy indicates that the Hungarian government themselves were to undertake the exterminations and that these gas chamber baths were being prepared "in different parts of Hungary." That is actually more logical than the traditional story since there's no reason to commit all the rail resources to send people to Auschwitz when up to that point slapdash installations (like at the AR camps) had sufficed to exterminated 5.5M(!) Jews. Even at Auschwitz, the documentary evidence has forced them to move away from the idea that that camp had highly sophisticated mass murder facilities. More recent theories have had to admit that the gas chambers at Auschwitz were also essentially improvised and that ultimately many of the bodies had to be burned outdoors anyway. This could have just as easily been done in Hungary.

In this article, Levy purports to have received intel about a planned extermination program where upwards of 1M Jews were to gassed in fake showers. These gas chambers were supposed being prepared within Hungary. Once Jews started getting deported to Auschwitz, THE EXACT SAME STORY is then transposed to that setting.

Gas chambers in Hungary
https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/arti ... as-Chamber
Mixed in with other news:
https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/arti ... as-Chamber
https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/arti ... as-Chamber

More on Gas Chambers:
https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/arti ... as-Chamber

There is of course no evidence for homicidal gas chambers in Hungary. I'd guess that was purposefully conflated with hygiene measures (to save Jews!) Obviously atrocity propaganda. This while Hungary actually offered to let Jews emigrate:
https://archive.org/details/HungarianOf ... WarCabinet
https://archive.org/details/ColonelBeck ... t1June1944

That this doesn't really add up with the extermination story should be clear. But to know this one would have to go through the text thoroughly, which few people do.