Rex Bloomstein
Auschwitz and the Allies, Part 2
Rex Bloomstein - Auschwitz and the Allies, Part 2
- Good evening, everyone. Yesterday we showed the first half of my television documentary, “Auschwitz and the Allies,” which I made for the BBC in 1982, and inspired by the book of the same name by the historian Sir Martin Gilbert, who was also a consultant on the film. We revealed evidence of inertia, ineptitude, and downright callousness to the fate of the Jews in the British and American administrations. For various government departments in both countries, the suffering of the Jews counted for little against the mounting slaughter of a worldwide war. “In my opinion, a disproportionate amount of the time of the office is wasted on these wailing Jews,” wrote one official, just one example of memoranda shown in the film from the British foreign and colonial office archives. We showed the failure of the American Jewry to exert significant moral and political pressure on the Roosevelt administration, to allow Jewish immigration, despite reports of mass murder, and how plans for the relief and rescue of Jews were systematically sabotaged by anti-Semites in the US State Department. Tonight, we explore the attempts by Jewish organisations in 1944 to persuade the Allies to destroy the machinery of destruction in Auschwitz. Rudolf Vrba recalls his incredible escape from Auschwitz to warn the Hungarian Jews of the fate that awaited them. And the legendary Group Captain Leonard Cheshire VC answers the question of whether, in his opinion, the British Air Force could have bombed the railway lines at crematoria of the greatest death camp in history. So, here is the second half of “Auschwitz and the Allies.” And of course, at the end of it, Trudy and I will answer any questions you have. Thank you for watching.
[Narrator] Auschwitz had kept its secret for two and a quarter years, for Auschwitz was many things. Auschwitz I, the camp where Polish political prisoners were held or executed. Also murdered here were tens of thousands of Russian prisoners, and countless others, including writers, Jehovah’s Witnesses, homosexuals, gipsies, criminals, priests. Auschwitz II, known as Birkenau, was built mainly for Jews. It started killing operations in April, 1942. By mid 1943, it had four large crematoria and gas chambers capable of murdering 12,000 people a day. They were transported by train, for Auschwitz was conveniently and significantly situated on the main Vienna Krakow railway line. Auschwitz III, a slave labour camp, ruthlessly exploited by the vast IG Farben synthetic oil and rubber complex nearby. Here, thousands were worked to death. Thus, over the previous two and a quarter years, there had been confusion in the outside world as to the true nature of Auschwitz. From November, 1942 onwards, fragmentary messages speaking of Jews being burnt in ovens, of gassing, and of other terrible things, had filtered out to the Jewish agency in Jerusalem, and to the Polish and British governments in London. Nobody had pieced the whole picture together.
Well, in Auschwitz, interestingly, the SS didn’t make any secrets about what they are doing and what is happening, because they were operating under the assumption that no secret can leak out from Auschwitz. And it is interesting that this assumption of the Nazis wasn’t false. It appears that until Wetzler’s and mine escape, the nature of Auschwitz remained unknown to the world. I am surprised about it, but that’s how things are. The question is why should millions of people from perfectly civilised countries in Europe go with their children into the sordid gas chambers of the Auschwitz-Birkenau complex? Now, all there, we could observe one thing that nobody knew what is the nature of the resettlement area, so-called resettlement area. They were being induced to submit themselves to a resettlement procedure. It was characteristic that the men who were selected for the work in the camp after their families were gassed, they always ask us, “Where are the children? Where is the family camp?” Or “Where are our parents? Where is the sanatorium for the older people?” In other words, all sorts of stories which were fed by them, by the Nazi propaganda. As far we know now, it was a great process of deception because it apparently is against biological principles that people let themselves kill without any sort of resistance or without any attempt to escape. Even animals would do it. It is obvious for us who have been there that those people were simply lured to Auschwitz. They did not know that resettlement means their physical annihilation.
[Narrator] Rudolf Vrba was one of a handful of men who escaped. Hundreds of others died in the attempt. Among the very few who survived was a non-Jew, also determined to reveal the secret of the unknown destination in the east. Soon after his getaway in November, 1943, he submitted his evidence to the Polish underground in a document known as “The Polish Major’s Report.” He described how men, women, and children arrived by train and were immediately selected to live or to die. The Polish major has never spoken before about this experience.
[Translator] Strictly speaking, I could not see the selection itself, but I could see the arrivals being divided into two groups, a larger one, which was being then marched off to the crematorium, and a smaller group which was marched to the camp. The smaller group was to survive for some time. The larger group, of course, was being marched directly to gas chambers, and to be cremated. Also, because of the way the people were selected and split up, we could calculate the number of people, or estimate the number of people who were gassed. We knew through registers, camp registers, that between 15 to 25% of arrivals were only destined for the camp, the remainder were being killed. And this is the way we could calculate the total number of people gassed in Auschwitz.
[Narrator] “The Polish Major’s Report” concluded that by November, 1943, one and a half million Jews had been murdered in Auschwitz. This figure had increased by April, 1944, as Rudolf Vrba confirms. What conclusions did you come to, as to the figure of how many people had been murdered, specifically Jews, during that whole period from the summer of ‘42 till your escape in April, 1944?
According to my estimate, which I cannot guarantee for more than plus or minus 10%, it was one million 750 or 60,000 people. It was one and three quarter million people. My job about in November, it could have been when I discovered it, when I was on a job with the Canada Command, the part of the job, a part of the job consisted in breaking up the luggage of the victims who were gassed, and sorting out the goods for reuse in Germany, which will send them back to Germany. Once, breaking up a luggage, I found there, a atlas of a child, children’s atlas. And I looked up Silesia, and tore out the page, the map from the atlas, put it under my tunic, and I went into the lavatory, washroom, and looked. I realised where Auschwitz was, because I knew that between the camp and the Auschwitz town, there’s a river. And I knew that the town is quite close. I could see from the camp occasionally, in good weather, the spire of the church. Looking at the map of Upper Silesia, I found the town Auschwitz, and I could see that it is north of Slovakian border, but not very far, and that the River Sola originates on the Slovak border. In other words, I realised that if I managed to get out from Auschwitz, I have just to follow the River Sola against its stream to reach the Slovak border.
[Narrator] If they escaped, and revealed the truth about Auschwitz, Rudolf Vrba and the Polish major before him, were convinced that the world would act to stop the killing. Vrba and his companion, Wetzler, achieved their remarkable escape by finding a flaw in the Auschwitz security system. If prisoners were found missing after a roll call, the inner camp containing the huts where the inmates lived were sealed off. The whole camp was placed on a three-day alert. The area where the prisoners worked between the inner perimeter fence and the outer perimeter watch towers was then scoured by armed search parties with dogs.
In Birkenau, it was just at that time prepared a camp for those Hungarians who were not supposed to be gassed immediately, but used before their deaths as working force. This camp was in the working area. It was not yet incorporated into the inner perimeter. And there was prepared a great amount of wood for building the new barracks. And that pile of wood was made in such a way that inside was a small room which would keep Wetzler and me for the three days and three nights during which the search was going on. We had to be, of course, covered by two other prisoners.
[Narrator] How could you avoid the dogs finding you?
Well, this was an advise by Russian prisoners of war who were also many of them in Auschwitz, and they had a good experience with that, that Russian tobacco, which is very strong tobacco, when soaked in petrol, makhorka it is called, will sort of discourage any dog to stay on the same place. So, we had a great amount of this tobacco pre-soaked in petrol for some time, and as we were going into the hiding place, so the whole place was prepared with this mixture, which puts the dogs off the scent.
[Narrator] And what happened? Did you stay there for three days?
Yes, the Germans were convinced that we must be between the inner and the outer perimeter, and that we are there, and therefore we stayed there for three days and three nights, and that they, because they were looking for us. Their assumptions that we were there was right. As they didn’t find us, in spite of considerable efforts, and putting in all the dogs they had at their disposal, after three days and three nights, they considered that we are not there, and that was the wrong conclusion. Consequently, on the fourth night, they withdrew the outer cordon from the outer parameter over the night, because they didn’t assume that we are there. And principally, that meant that we were free. We could just walk away.
[Narrator] The escapees reached their native Slovakia in two weeks. By the end of April, 1944, their report had arrived in Bratislava. Jewish community leaders passed on their news to the West. Their hopes were that if the Allies knew the facts, they might do something to save the thousands of victims yet to come. Before he escaped, Vrba had watched the construction of this railway line, which he realised was designed to increase the killing potential of Auschwitz-Birkenau. If a rail spur was to be laid to the very doors of the gas chambers, it must be because the SS were preparing for the arrival of a huge number of new victims. It was in fact the last great Jewish community still untouched by the Holocaust, the three quarters of a million Jews of Hungary. They were unaware of these preparations, and now stood in mortal danger. Events in Hungary had moved fast. Earlier, on March 15th, 1944, as Germany’s prospects of losing the war were becoming daily more apparent, Hitler summoned Admiral Horthy, the Hungarian Regent to Klessheim Castle. There he delivered an ultimatum, submit to a total military occupation, or instal a government firmly committed to staying in the war as Germany’s ally. Horthy chose the alliance. On March 19th, German troops advanced into Hungary to supervise the change of governments. Along with these army units came a team of deportation experts handpicked by SS Lieutenant Colonel Adolf Eichmann. He was questioned on this matter in the trial. It emerged that his tactic in Hungary, as elsewhere, was to deceive the Jewish leaders into helping with the deportation of their own people. Over the previous two years, the leading members of Hungary’s Jewish community had noted the disappearance of the rest of European Jewry, and the threat it posed to them. On March 29th, 1944, in a brilliantly staged managed meeting in the Hotel Majestic in Budapest, Eichmann offered them comforting illusions and soothing words.
[Narrator] Could Himler’s SS be bought off? The Jewish leaders sought desperately for a way out. They knew that earlier, a Slovakian rabbi had bribed an SS official with the result that the deportations in Slovakia had stopped. That bargain had apparently been kept. And so when Eichmann summoned a junior member of the Budapest Zionists in late April, 1944, his offer was taken seriously. He proposed to exchange goods for blood, 1 million people for 10,000 trucks to be supplied to the Nazis by the Allies. 18 years later, the man who received this extraordinary offer, Joel Brand, faced Eichmann again.
[Narrator] After four meetings, Eichmann dispatched Brand to negotiate with the Allies, but he was eventually detained by the British in Cairo. Joel Brand never realised until it was too late that the Allies did not take the offer seriously, nor did he appreciate the impotence of the Jewish organisations in the face of Allied indifference. The goods-for-blood offer, so eagerly grasped by the Hungarian Jewish leaders was almost certainly a deception, for even before Brand’s departure from Budapest, Eichmann and his fascist allies started the deportation of Hungary’s Jews to Auschwitz.
We didn’t know really where we are going. We didn’t. We have no any thought that we shall going in an extermination camp. And when we arrived in Auschwitz, and the doors opened, and the old prisoners with the SS people run in, in the waggons, and threw us out to the floor, and there were the good dogs biting us, and growling at us, and then shouting. When the selection was over, and we arrived to disinfection room, we have to take off all our dresses. Our hair was shaven, head was shaven, the hair cut down, and naked, we have to walk around the room. And the SS people were laughing, enjoying beating us. And then was the first time that I had my first speech in Auschwitz. Because all the girls, we were only females, the men was in another section, started to shout, “Mother, help us! God help us!” And then one SS man came out, and told me, “Is here anybody who speaks German?” I, again, I came out, because I thought, “Maybe I shall do something good.” “Now, tell these beasts, if they don’t go ahead with everything what I say, they will die here immediately.” And then I told them, “Please, let’s follow the orders. Maybe if we shall follow the orders, we shall be saved. We shall be able to be human beings again.” The sky was red, like here in the Yad Vashem, when the six lights were burning from the crematoriums, because it was now the crematoriums working day and night, day and night. We didn’t see star in the sky, stars, just the red, and we felt the smell of burning flesh.
[Narrator] 435,000 Hungarian Jews were murdered in eight weeks. The Allies were not alone in finding it almost impossible to grasp the enormity of genocide. Here is the agony of one of the men who made the decision to keep the secret of Auschwitz. Philip von Freudiger, a Jewish community leader in Budapest. He had received a letter containing the evidence of the Slovakian Jews, Vrba and Wetzler, of what was happening in Auschwitz.
[Narrator] Freudiger, scarcely able to grasp what he read, chose not to alarm his fellow Hungarian Jews. Could they have been warned? Would they have believed? The passions aroused by this tragedy continue to reverberate.
We learned in June that our warning has not been given to the Hungarian Jews, and that they’re arriving in, absolutely as naively, to Auschwitz-Birkenau, as all the other hundreds and hundreds of thousands of Jews arrive there during the previous two years. No information. Indeed, we have heard that many of them brought with them minks in order to be protected during the coming winter. Women who were gassed on the spot when they arrived in a hot May or June of 1944. So, we could see that the gassing of Hungarian Jews is taking place. The murder is taking place without, as planned originally by the Germans.
[Narrator] What was your reaction to this? Were you bitter? What did you try and do?
You know, I don’t like the word bitter because it’s not the question if I am bitter or sweet, the question is if I am right or wrong. And my impression is that I have been betrayed. We were all betrayed. Our message has not been given to the Hungarian Jews for, who were deported. And also I was disillusioned, because I thought that if the people know, will know, what is going to happen to them, will react normally. I mean every mother, when she knows that her children are going to be killed, will pick up even a kitchen knife if necessary. And the panic among 1 million Hungarian Jews would be better than a panic which reach them in front of the pits, burning pits in Birkenau.
[Narrator] The Vrba-Wetzler, and Polish major’s report on Auschwitz eventually reached the West in June, 1944, too late to save half of Hungary’s Jews. But its publication in Switzerland led neutral governments and the Vatican to press Admiral Horthy, the Hungarian Regent, to stop further deportations. He brought about a temporary halt on July 8th. This was the effect of moral pressure. Could the Allies have taken military action to stop the extermination in Auschwitz itself? In July, 1943, American bombers had carried out, at extreme range, a low-level raid on the oil installations at Ploiesti in Romania. After September, 1943, following the Allied invasion of Italy, they were able to bomb targets all over the Nazi empire from airfields in southern Italy. Paving the way for the American bomber offensive were Allied photo reconnaissance units. On April the fourth, 1944, 3 weeks before Eichmann’s goods-for-blood offer, an allied reconnaissance plane prepared for a mission over Southern Poland, and Upper Silesia. Its task, to photograph new industrial installations, including a synthetic oil refinery at a place called Oswiecim. After a two and a half hour flight from southern Italy, it photographed the plant, and a large group of buildings nearby. On its return, the photographs were developed and printed. The oil installations were minutely examined, but no one was looking for anything else. Observers failed to recognise what was staring them in the face. The huts, the gas chambers, the crematoria, Oswiecim was Auschwitz.
I think that sitting there in Auschwitz with my comrades, we were asking ourselves, “What is going on in the world outside? Is there still a world outside?” There was no evidence of it. It looked as if Auschwitz was commensurate with the entire extent of the universe. Nothing. We kept asking ourselves, “Do they know what is happening here to us? Do they care? Are there no Allied bombers to come and wipe out these tremendous railway lines, and gas chambers, and crematoria, and hundreds of barracks in what must have been, at that time, one of the most populated cities of Europe, with the most stringent population in all history, arriving, going to the gas chamber, constantly replenished. Where were the Allies? Was there no Red Army left? Were the British still fighting? America, where are you? All of these unanswered questions. And that was to us incomprehensible. And I think that many of us must have come to the conclusion that the millennium of the Third Reich had really begun. That this from now on would be the world for 1000 years to come.
[Narrator] The answer to Samuel Pisar was that by the summer of 1944, the Allies and the Jewish organisations knew what was happening there, and knew of appeals to stop the slaughter. What did they do? Jewish leaders were deeply divided. Some senior members of the Jewish agency, notably Chaim Weizmann, were in favour of direct military action against the death camps. Others opposed it. The World Jewish Congress, in the crucial months of July and August, preferred the less destructive option of a parachute assault on the camp. Most Jewish leaders saw a much greater chance of saving lives in the doomed Brand-Eichmann goods-for-blood offer. Do you think you failed to respond adequately?
I absolutely failed. I feel I had not enough influence on the American Jewry. I was too young. Later on, I became , I was a president later on, when I established the President’s Conference, but at that time, I was a youngster. I lived under the protection of Stephen Wise, who he curated a whole career for me in a certain way. And I certainly had enough influence. But I accused myself and also Stephen Wise, and my friend Brandeis, and make that we were a strong enough, you know, influence on Roosevelt and the administration to allow more Jews to come, and to protest more against the Nazi barbaries, and to bomb the camps.
[Narrator] But why was there this failure of imagination? Why couldn’t you conceive? After all you were of German origin. You knew what the Nazis were capable of.
First of all, I never had the imagination of Himmler, Heydrich and Hitler to imagine Auschwitz. I never thought Auschwitz was possible. If you would, one day before I left Germany, made me bet a better million to a mark, I would say that I give a mark to say Germany will never have a concentration camp. It was unthinkable for me. I was educated in the culture of Beethoven, Mozart, were good toward my kids, ideal in life, and I couldn’t imagine these same people will create Auschwitz. I admit I’m not a poet with imagination of Dante to foresee the inferno. I couldn’t imagine it. And when I read later the news from and others, it was just from mis-intellectual memory. I remember a million Jews, but I never could see. I have not the character of a poet to see what it means, a million Jews killed. You see it when a child is killed, then you break down, but you read in the paper, a million Jews, it doesn’t mean very much for you. The limitation of human imagination.
[Narrator] In July, 1944, a month after D-Day, the Allied Air Forces had virtually destroyed the Luftwaffe, and were free to concentrate on the destruction of Germany’s oil resources, and the railway network of Western Europe. At the same time, the Hungarian deportation stopped. And in Britain, the government received summaries of the Vrba-Wetzler and Polish major’s report on Auschwitz. Churchill learnt of Chaim Weizmann’s appeal for the bombing of Auschwitz-Birkenau and the railway lines through his foreign secretary, Anthony Eden. Both were in favour of the proposal being considered by the Secretary of State for Air, Sir Archibald Sinclair. Churchill wrote to Eden on the 7th of July, 1944, "Get anything out of the Air Force you can. Invoke me if necessary.” Sinclair ruled out the intervention of RAF Bomber Command. But his response was not all negative. He did suggest following up the parachute plan. He also suggested that the matter be referred to the Americans for action. Foreign office officials asked for more information. Joseph Linton of the Jewish Agency in London presented them with maps and other details revealing the exact location of Auschwitz. He urged them repeatedly to forward the information to the air ministry. But foreign office officials gave Jewish matters a low priority. Also, they were confused by the changing Hungarian situation and rumours of a halt to the deportations themselves. So, they did nothing. Linton’s maps were not even sent to the air ministry. The whole question of bombing the camps ended in farce.
There was a lack of sympathy. There was a lack of understanding. Here, hundreds of thousands of people were being killed, and we made this request, and the request was not carried out. Churchill and Eden were for it. So, it was the lower echelon which did it.
[Narrator] Throughout the period of these discussions, Auschwitz had been photographed again and again by reconnaissance planes from Italy. These detailed photographs lay unnoticed in RAF files less than 40 miles from the desks where these perplexed officials sat and ruminated. As the killing went on, the Jewish agency was told it was not practical to bomb Auschwitz. But was that the case? In mid-1944, after five years’ hard and bitter experience, RAF Bomber Command had mastered the techniques of accurate nighttime bombing. One of the most successful RAF bomber pilots was Group Captain Leonard Cheshire VC, who commanded the famous 617 Dambuster Squadron. He led this low-level raid on a French factory at Limoges in February, 1944. Could the RAF have similarly attacked and destroyed the Auschwitz gas chambers without killing the prisoners?
We had to devise a means of eliminating the forthcoming threat of the V3, an underground gun in the Pas-de-Calais, three of them, under 50 foot of reinforced concrete, capable, roughly, I think, of putting a 500 pound shell once a minute into London. And the thing was, nobody could get under 50 foot of reinforced concrete. So, we had to be equipped with the bomb to do it, and devise a means of dropping a 10,000 pound bomb from 16,000 feet, with an accuracy of 20 yards.
[Narrator] What happened?
Well, we succeeded in doing that, but it took us seven months to perfect the technique. So, all that time we were perfecting this technique, but using it against important targets, but always hitting the target, and not the civilians nearby. For instance, when we attacked the Michelin Works, the rubber tyre factory, we destroyed two of the factory blocks, but left out the canteen that was between them, ‘cause our instructions were not to touch the workers’ canteen.
[Narrator] Can you tell me the date of that particular raid?
It must have been March or April ‘44. I think what I’d have done, it’s a small target, it’s not all that easy to identify. It would’ve been rather difficult to hit in our normal method, which consisted of my going in low level, ground level, and dropping a marker and the others bombing it from 16,000 feet, the reason being they had a deep penetration bomb. In this case, I think that I’d have selected six aircraft to go in low and use a dive bombing technique, because I don’t think that building was strong enough to withstand ordinary bombs dropped at low level. You have to dive into it, of course, or the bombs will skip and jump. I’d have had the rest of the squadron either doing a diversionary attack, or somewhere in the vicinity ready to be called in in case we failed.
[Narrator] There were four main crematoria. Do you think you could have destroyed them without killing thousands of people?
Your first question is, could we have destroyed them? I should think we might have destroyed three. We might not have destroyed all of them. You’re asking a lot at this extreme range, and knowing that we’ve got to probably get ourselves out without full cover of night 'cause it’s summer now. I think we’d have done three. I don’t think we’d have had many missed hits, because we didn’t drop bombs unless we knew that we were aiming on the target. When you’re doing that low level, you can, you know. I don’t feel I can be the man who judges its effectiveness. I question its effectiveness. But I state that as a pilot, and as a member of Bomber Command, and in the name of the pilots of Bomber Command, we would’ve willingly done it, whatever the risks, whatever the difficulties, if we’d received the request, and if we’d known that it had come from the victims themselves.
Very many times we saw very high that over Birkenau there was planes, American planes. And at the time when the sirens were roaring alarm, so the SS men descended from their towers, and go for hiding in the shelters. And then the prisoners, we got out from of the barracks, and we looked upon the planes, and we expected that they would be parachuters, or they will drop weapons that we could fight. And we prayed that a bomb should hit the crematoria, and we didn’t care if we would be killed. We only would have that this ominous extermination would stopped. But never, it came never. It never came.
[Narrator] Yet by a supreme irony, Auschwitz was bombed. During the summer months of 1944, both the 8th and 15th United States Air Force continued to wage their intense aerial offensive against Germany’s oil-producing capacity. As part of this effort, 127 flying fortresses of the fifth bomber wing attacked the IG Farben plant in Auschwitz, three miles from the main killing centre at Birkenau on 20th of August, 1944. The pilots themselves were completely unaware of the death camp in their bombsights.
And suddenly, we saw one or two American bombers. We just prayed to be bombed, just to be bombed, to be killed, and not to enter, not to be taken in the gas chambers. Unfortunately, I will say it with a smile, with a bit ironic, they didn’t. They went over and went away. The next time when I saw the America bombers was in Buna. Again, for the first time, they just appeared but didn’t bomb. But one Saturday it was, in the afternoon, they started to bomb. Our field was just an outburst of happiness.
[Narrator] Three weeks later, on the 13th of September, 96 liberators from the 55th Bomber Wing returned to complete the destruction of IG Farben. These are the actual photographs of that raid, during which bombs fell on the railway sidings near Auschwitz-Birkenau, killing 30 civilian workers, and on the barracks of Auschwitz I itself, killing a number of SS guards. While this was going on, the Assistant Secretary of the United States War Department, John J. McCloy, on the strength of recommendations made to him by his military advisors, rejected no fewer than five requests to bomb Auschwitz-Birkenau, and the railway lines leading to it. He argued that it should not and could not be done. But here, poised directly above crematoria two and three is a stick of 500 pounder bombs destined for the IG Farben plant six kilometres away. Colonel Gentit was lead bombardier on the 20th of August raid on the IG Farben plant. It was almost 40 years before he discovered that he had actually bombed part of Auschwitz. Would it have been possible to destroy the gas chambers and the crematoria, without killing the prisoners?
Well, I believe we could have accomplished a fairly good concentration of bombs by flying along this path across the end of the camp where the crematoriums were at, by coming in squadrons in trail. Now, our accuracy was very good along the line of flight. Inaccuracy was usually either falling a little short or a little long. But by coming across to this target in this direction, I believe we could have done a very good job on this. Now, these particular barracks, if that’s what they were, would’ve been in jeopardy. That wouldn’t have been able to be helped. But we could have come, crossed here, with a very good degree of accuracy.
[Narrator] More than 150,000 Jews were murdered in Auschwitz between the first request to bomb the camps in June, 1944, and the destruction of a crematoria by the retreating SS six months later. They included the last trainloads from Hungary, and Jews from France, Holland, Italy, the Greek islands of Kos and Rhodes, and the 70,000 Jews from the great Polish industrial city of Lodz.
Auschwitz, to me, epitomises of what happens when a profound principle of evil is harnessed to technology and has the connivance or the collusion of a whole state system with it. And if one can theologize or reflect on this a bit, all the norms, the ethical and the moral injunctions, which are part of my Jewish tradition, and which are really also part and parcel of the Judeo-Christian tradition, were both denied and reversed there. If you take the 10 Commandments, from the very first, which starts with “I am the Lord, your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt,” here, you had people who set themselves up to be gods, to be masters of life and death, and who took you into Egypt, into an Egypt of the most bizarre and most obnoxious kind, and all the way to creating their own set of idols, of the taking of God’s name in vain, of setting generations at each other so that children dishonour parents. Certainly they murdered, certainly they committed robbery, certainly there was a great deal of coveting, of envy involved in it. In other words, you had here an outbreak of the very opposite of everything that civilization was building towards. It was a denial of God. It was a denial of man. It was the destruction of the world in miniature form. It was the most terrible revelation about the principle of evil. And it was acted out. We were its victims and we know who the perpetrators were. And Europe, it seems to me, was a bystander. And this is the essence of the tragedy.
Well, it’s a long time since I’ve seen seen it all, and I’m as shocked now as I was when I made it, I suppose. It’s extraordinary. I mean, if I have to say to you, when I looked at the footage of Eichmann at the trial, he was shown all that material, the famous, tragic material, and I couldn’t get it out of my head that here he was, watching it. And it threw up so many questions, and I felt that was how I should end it. But anyway, some of you may have some questions. And there is my dear friend Trudy.
Q&A and Comments:
Let’s have a look. It is, every time I see that film, it is just so incredibly powerful and so tragic. Before we get to questions, when you interviewed people like Leonard Cheshire, I mean, that was extraordinary really. He actually said, “We would’ve done it.”
Yes, and of course, they did bomb the camp, of course.
Yeah, by accident.
Q - Yes. But what you have is this tragic combination of events, of disbelief, disinterest, the immense pressures of war, and the underlying indifference to the fate of Jewish people, men, women, and children. And the, to some extent, it’s a reflection of the soullessness at the heart of the modern state, how our feelings can be crushed or manipulated as to what the evidence is in front of us. And of course, today we’re now, you know, in a way which is unprecedented in human history, to see examples of atrocities around the world. But then we have to think back then, why nothing could have been done, when it could have been done. And of course I believe it, should the place should have been bombed. Of course I believe all that. But I’m aware of these other arguments. And this debate, I suspect, will always continue. How do you respond to something like that? But anyway.
A - Where’s the line between collaboration and indifference?
A - Collaboration, yeah. Well, you see, if you think of a triangle, you have the perpetrator at the top of that triangle, the person doing the unspeakable, committing an atrocity, whatever it may be. You have the victim at the bottom end of that triangle, the person suffering because of it. And you have the third part of the triangle, which is the bystander, the person looking on, or not looking on, or only looking on, but doing nothing. And that very simplistic notion perhaps encapsulates what is always before us.
But they did have knowledge. But you showed yesterday,
Yes.
you showed them Zygielbojm’s suicide.
Yes.
The Polish government. The broadcast the BBC would not air. Anyway, let’s see what our watching people.
Q: Shelly asked, “What did the Nazis have against Jehovah Witnesses?”
A - What do they have against them?
Mm.
Well, they were a religious minority, and like all religious minority, they were targets. Whole debate about religion and organised religion, the Catholic, the Protestant church is in, it’s a very interesting one. But it’s a complicated debate.
Shelly talks about, the blood-for-goods deal in the Shoah. “It’s just an extension of what the Jewish community had to do in the Middle Ages. Paid money to keep themselves alive.” Sally’s saying she’s in tears, “Though I’ve heard it all before. This should be shown in all schools and by members of parliament.”
Mimi says, “We need to press the BBC to watch this on television. Very emotional, very hard to watch. The younger generation should know.”
And Rita points out, “Samuel Pisar is the stepfather of Secretary of State Blinken.” Yes, fascinating that, isn’t it?
That’s interesting. That I didn’t though, funnily enough. What a remarkable statement of his though, Trudy, of Samuel Pisar. Looking at it again, his eloquence was so-
He was extraordinary. And I think Hugo’s ending was superb.
Yes. I said to Hugo, “How would you respond to that? How do you respond to that as a survivor?” And he came up with this notion of the 10 Commandments. And I encouraged him to say that. And it is a remarkable statement.
And it’s so, if you think about what Nazism was, I often use it now. I told him and I later told his widow, I find that very, it’s a very important way of teaching. Now, this is from Arnold. He’s talking about Jonathan Friedland’s story of Rudy Vrba’s escape.
Yes, yes, yes.
Yes.
I think Jonathan’s book is a very good book indeed, and I’m very glad he’s done that. And I’ve written to him. And he didn’t, he’d only seen mine film once, I think. And I think, to bring attention to Rudy, he was a very complex and dynamic character. And-
I met him, he was-
I know, he’s really worth it. Sorry, sorry to interrupt.
He was very bitter. I met him. He was such a bitter man.
Yes, yes.
And not surprising.
No.
He’d escaped. He thought the world would listen.
Yeah. They didn’t.
And this is Michael, “Bombing Auschwitz was always feasible, even if difficult. Churchill instructed the RAF and the South African Air Force to drop arms to the Poles in Warsaw during August and September. 196 flights were made from Brindisi Italy to Warsaw. Auschwitz is about 200 miles south of Warsaw. The effort was largely aborted, and 180 Allied airmen are buried in the Allied airmen cemetery in Krakow. 80 of them South African.” Hmm.
Yeah.
Yeah. What can one say?
And Rita’s saying, and wants us to know in memory of her late parents, Holocaust survivors and resistance fighters.
Q: Lilly wants to know, “What is the meaning in English of Oswiecim? Is it something like illumination?”
A - I don’t know.
It’s the Polish town is Oswiecim, which the German’s called Auschwitz.
I think the name of the town, which the, yeah, which the Germans called Auschwitz.
Oswiecim. And, you know, before the war it was 50% Jewish.
I must add one thing in between. I mentioned John J. McCloy, the Assistant Secretary of State, refused five requests for the American Air Force to get involved. I met McCloy and I asked, did he take part? He said, “No.” I think we can understand why. Sorry.
I did quite a lot of research on him. He very crossed, he really crossed the line into anti-Semitism.
Oh God.
You know, there’s that line.
Yeah. Well, we showed him the first part. There was an actual conspiracy, which was uncovered by Josiah Dubois. I think it’s a pretty terrible revelation.
Yeah, yeah. But Dubois was extraordinary, wasn’t he?
Q: And Donald says, “Did Auschwitz-Birkenau have any anti-aircraft protection, as I assume IG Farben did have?”
A - I don’t think so, I don’t think so.
Nanette says, “We should not judge. None of us knows what we would do or could have done. The world and people have and will never change, from the some who did their best and suffered gravely. If something happens in future, it would not be dealt with any better. Communication has changed with new tools.” That’s from Nanette. Mm.
But Nanette, in the end, what is our moral compass? That dilemma, that challenge never goes away.
You see, there were people who did speak out, who do speak out.
Of course.
And they’re the ones that were really interesting. Where does their moral compass come from? That’s where we really need to be doing the work if we’re going to make any difference to humanity.
Well, I think the answer lies in the proper education and teaching of human rights. I think, you know, and I’ve made films on human rights, and it is a compass for us all to aspire to. It’s the standard to which we must adhere to. And I think that is the future, the proper teaching and involvement. But in the end, every society must have elements of scrutiny, and accountability. And without it, you know, we’re in trouble.
Monica is complimenting you. She said that showing the final reel without music, and the return of the camera to Eichmann was very poignant.
Q: And Robert wants to know, “Why can’t this film be circulated?”
A - Well, we were discussing that yesterday, Trudy, weren’t we? Be good to try and see what the, if we could acquire the educational rights for the film.
We’re definitely going to take it further.
Yeah. Thank you for that comment.
Q - “Would this film affect anti-Semites today? I’m appalled by the indifferent pose of Eichmann viewing the scenes at his trial. Makes me sick.” That’s from Arlene.
A - Well, that was his, presumably his method of getting through. He probably knew he was going to be hanged. And I mean, he’s a whole debate just in himself. You think of Hannah Arendt, the banality of evil and so on. And there was I, and I was fixated by looking at him, looking at the material. What an earth was he thinking?
He was such a little man. It’s that Leonard Cohen poem, isn’t it?
Yes.
Peter Fax, “Just returned from a visit to Poland, and the camps. Impossible to describe how devastating it was. However, encouraged, noticed groups of non-Jewish high school students being brought to witness what was done there.” I must admit though, that there is a real problem with memorialization. My daughter is writing a big piece on all of this, because she decided, she was reading, basically, you know when people make notes on their visits, and she read a couple of notes on Auschwitz. I think one said they didn’t feel the horror they thought they should feel, and the other one complained about the canteen. And she actually, she was so angry that she’s been for two weeks, two last year, and she’s going again. She’s really trying to work very hard on what’s a memorial and what you do with it. There are some people who believe it should be left to wither into the dust.
Yes.
Others, I mean, it’s the whole thing about how do you memorialise these horrific sites of horror. You know, there were three-
Well, I, sorry-
There are 300 Holocaust museums worldwide, but it doesn’t seem to have made a lot of difference to people, has it?
Well, I’m not sure about that. I tried to tackle this in a film, I hope, Trudy, that we can show one day, which he is called “KZ,” in which I looked at-
Yeah, Mauthausen.
How to do this, but at Mauthausen. And the film tries to take up that challenge of the past, of why people go to such a place and what they get from it. I hope that we can show the film later, because it does-
I think we should. And debate how anybody should-
A great possibility.
Q - This is from Paul. Does what’s going on in Nanjing in China raise some similar issues? How much can we believe the reports of those who have escaped? What in practise can people of goodwill do? Is this the link of evil with modern technology alluded to by the rabbi near the end?“ It’s a very important point.
A - Yep. Agree with that. That’s our challenge, yeah.
- Yeah, this is from Razel. "My late father, Jacob Wolff was born in Oswiecim. And I thank God the family left for Berlin before the crematorium was set up.”
Q: Isa asked, “Did Eichmann give any other reply except that he followed orders?”
A - Well, there’s, I mean, he gave testimony, and there’s several, you know, number of hours of it. He sat there. I mean, I think you can find transcripts and-
- Oh, you can get it. You can get all of it if you really want to watch it.
Q: This is from Ronnie. “There’s a lot of controversy now about the role of Roosevelt, especially after, on 'America and the Holocaust series,’ which tends to defend him. Your view on Roosevelt?” Ronnie says, asked Ronnie.
A - Yes, yes, well, I mean, there’s a huge debate about him. I think he had to be urged to set up the war refugee board. He was pretty indifferent. I mean, I’ve read much of that. And I remember our research, Roosevelt, who was a great president, there seems to be a tremendous blind spot here. And he never acted as he should have done with his principles. And it’s a tremendous blot, I think, on his record.
Q - This is from Marlene. “What is not mentioned is the rampant anti-Semitism, both in the State Department and within Europe. No one wants to fight a war for the Jews. Current Polish revisionism of the Holocaust is also worrisome.”
A - Well, we looked at that in part one, precisely that, the anti-Semitism in the State Department, if you’re referring to that time.
Q - Lena, “Telling up the world about Auschwitz, when intervention was possible, as it was portrayed in the documentary, accomplished nothing. How will showing it to the schools now make a difference? The numerous atrocities granted on a smaller scale since World War II were documented in real time with no timely intervention.”
- Hmm.
A - “The camps did not seem to have returned fire against the aircraft coming down, therefore it’d been possible to bomb the site.” There are those who say that it wouldn’t have really made any difference, because many historians go as far as to say that in the end, killing Jews was more important than winning the war. And don’t forget to receive Hungarian Jewry, they built the tracks right up to the crematorium, so they could have sorted it very quickly. That’s the tragedy.
Yeah.
The dehumanisation.
Yeah, but also, I mean, there is an argument that it would’ve killed innocent people, and that it was too difficult, too technical and so on. And we’ve heard those arguments in the film. They don’t really stack up.
The argument, this is an argument that would go on and on. There have been so many different books written on it. “The Allied intelligence that stood by, and it worst, hid knowledge of the death camps written with the blood of Jewish lives, is that they had been lit the gas chambers themselves.” So, Jennifer is actually accusing them of total complicity.
Q: This is Serena. “The Yazidi prisoners smuggled out messages begging, begging, begging the world to bomb their prisons. They said, ‘Our lives are not worth anything, and bombing will save future victims.’ I’ve never heard of the Yazidis before then. Did the world do anything to rescue them? This happened in our own time.” Yeah.
A - Many atrocities have happened. And the idea, this sad and poignant phrase, never again, which we’ve heard thousands of times in relation to the Holocaust. There’s dozens of genocides, dozens of genocides, so.
- It’s such a truism. And every museum you go to, those of us who don’t learn the lessons of history are doomed to repeat them.
Well, this is from Rhoda. She’s asking whether anyone has a contact with Ken Burns, so maybe they could put pressure on the BBC. That’s interesting. Oh, this is interesting.
Seriously, yeah.
From Monica, who obviously has Polish. Oswiecim means enlightened, to give more information. So, the town itself, that it means enlighten. I must admit it is an incredibly beautiful town. And I was actually present when one of my colleagues, who lost most of his family in the Shoah, he read the Megillah in the old synagogue in Oswiecim, because he could. And that was so powerful, that a group of Jews went back, this was in the ‘90s, just to have a religious service. This is from Sheila. “I’m not sure if what I wrote on Tuesday was sent. It was just as you were finishing, in response to the question of the survivors who the USA admitted from the camp liberated in southern Italy. The question was regarding if they were Jewish. My point was that a member of the synagogue Sessa, in Oakley, Newbury, Rolf Penzias is now 100, and came with his brother on the Kinder Transport, and his parents.” And he goes on, “Cohen and his aunt were liberated from that camp. His uncle and aunt went to America. Were in the camp on Lake Onmatarion. His parents refused to go ahead. They thought they may be able to join their children in the UK. After the war, it took Rolf 10 years to get permission for his parents to be given permission to come to the UK.” Oy oy oy. Where does Brandeis come in? You’re talking about Judge Brandeis, I suppose.
Judge Brandeis, yeah. Well, that’s another whole story.
That’s a whole, that’s another story. We will be talking about American Jewry more.
Q: “What is known about what Eichmann said and thought decades later?”
A - Well, read the histories of it. There are many books on the trial and-
- There’s so much, there’s so much.
Elaine, “Jewish flags were set on fire yesterday in Montreal at a Jewish day school.”
Well, there you have it, don’t you? That’s-
And this is Sharon. “Did you know Eichmann’s last words? He said he would sleep happily in his grave knowing he killed all those Jews.” They were not his last words, Sharon. And that is something that Wisliceny said at the trial that he had said to him.
Yeah, yeah.
“What was done with the extensive notes that Eichmann took down during the trial?” There are books on this. “I had a tour of Linz and Mauthausen in 2008. The guide pointed out the top brick building where the Eichmann descendants still live.”
Top brick building where the… Oh, right.
Did you, didn’t know anything about that. I know that them, I thought the Eichmann family lived in Linz.
Q: “Do you know that the polarisation existing in society today, especially in the USA, means that people who really need to see these films never will.” “Is there footage of the actual hanging of Eichmann?” I have no idea.
A - No, I don’t think so.
I do know that his body was taken outside Israeli waters and-
Yeah, that’s right.
Dumped there.
Disposed of.
His remains, not his body. “Regarding human rights, one is always in favour of one’s own. The vast chasm between glorying one’s own human rights in denying others is crawling with anti-Semitism, bigotry, and self-righteousness.”
This is Shelly. “I’m sorry for the other victim groups, but Jews have been killed in many times, and many countries. Jewish life is considered treat” “Re Joseph’s question, there’s a brilliant series, 'The Eichmann Tapes,’ he recorded them in South America. He was not ashamed of what he did. He was happy to have killed as many as he did.” Yeah, this was with a couple of journalists, wasn’t it?
That’s interesting. I didn’t know that, yeah.
This is Josie. “Re the triangle, perpetrator, victim, and bystander, with few exceptions, citizens of Europe in the bystander category were okay, agreed with supporting. I’m deeply despondent.” Look.
Well.
What’s to say? That was the last question, Rex. Yes, indeed, indeed.
But we have to go on.
Yes.
Yes. And there are always good people. Never forget that. In fact, I’m going to start looking at the lives of people who rescue. May I finish on something that I found absolutely fascinating. I did work on three rescuers. One was a Chinese who saved Jews in Vienna. Another was a Japanese who saved Jews in, he was the consul in Kovno. And the third was a member of the Nazi party called John Raber, who saved Chinese civilians from the Japanese in the Nanjing massacre. So, what I’m saying is all people somewhere, there are always people who stand out for whatever reason, who do have a moral compass. And we just need more of them.
Yes, we do. And it’s remarkable that we have that. There are always examples that I must echo that. But I must also add that in terms of the extraordinary nature of, and courage of Vrba and the Polish major, they talk about one and a half, one and a quarter million. I think the figure is, has come down by the museum, and I think it’s about one and a quarter million. So, since I made that film, the point I made in my introduction in part one, things change, facts emerge, research develops, but the debate must go on.
Lucy’s just got in touch. “‘The Lost Eichmann Tapes’ is a new film made into a three-part series on Amazon in the USA, by an Israeli-German company. I have access to the festival version, which is two hours long if lockdown is interested. I’ve written to Trudy about this.” Lucy will be in contact. I sent her stuff to you, Rex. We have important conversations to have.
Good.
Q - And Henry asked, “Are you aware of the documentary, ‘Witness from Hell”?
A - I’m not, no.
There are so many good documentaries now. It’s not about the knowledge really, is it anymore, though we must always add to our own knowledge. It’s really about the will to do something about people. And on that happy note, Rex.
Well done, Trudy. Thank you.
Look, it’s a brilliant film. It’s an absolutely brilliant film.
I don’t know about that. But it’s-
It is, no, it is.
It may be 40 years old, but I think it’s still relevant in some ways.
I used to use it a lot when I taught at university and sixth formers. I divided it up into sections.
Yeah. And if I can end on a more humorous note, because we have to, I’m going to record how I got to know you, Rex. Because a friend, after I watched “Auschwitz and The Allies,” I was absolutely blown away. And I knew it was for teaching. And I phoned you up. But my first words to you were, “I love your film, but it’s much too long.” I’m surprised you didn’t put the phone down on me. What I meant to say, it needs to be chunked, and that’s exactly what it does.
But it wasn’t made for-
Because it is-
Yeah, but-
I know it wasn’t-
for a television audience. And to see it as a whole, it unfolds. But, you know, we went on, Trudy, to make lessons of the Holocaust, which we had a 60 minute film, and then we put in it, and-
Created a whole lesson plan. Yeah.
Yeah, we-
I should say that this was an extraordinary exercise because we were so lucky. Robert Wistrich wrote it, and Rex made the film. I mean, and this was for schools.
Yes, it was.
It was quite extraordinary. In fact, the “Times ED Supplement” said it was the best educational pack ever made for schools. Did it make a difference? I don’t know. But so on that note,
Nobody does.
look after yourself, Mr. Bloomstein. I believe you’re going on holiday.
We hope so, we hope so.
Yeah.
Thank you, Trudy, for arranging that.
Take care, Rex.
Thanks, all of you. Thanks, everyone.
Thank you all. Thank you all, bye-bye.
Bye-bye.