History Unfolded: US Newspapers and the Holocaust

Headline: TWO MILLIONS
Sub-Headline: Of Jews Killed

Publication Date: Wednesday, December 9, 1942
Historical Event: Nazi Plan to Kill All Jews Confirmed
This database includes 932 articles about this event
Tags: Gannett full page downloadable; Deportation and Mass Murder
Article Type: News Article
Newspaper: The Cincinnati Enquirer
Location: Cincinnati, Ohio
Page Section and Number: 13
Author/Byline: AP
Article Text: Washington, December 8—(AP)—President Roosevelt reafirmed today his concern for the Jews of Europe to a committee of American Jews who presented him with evidence which they said showed 2,000,000 European Jews already have been killed by the Axis and an estimated 5,000,000 more face possible extermination.

Dr. Stephen S. Wise of New York, President of the American Jewish Congress and Chairman of the delegation, told reporters that Mr. Roosevelt authorized him to say that he was profoundly shocked to learn of the slaughter.

The delegation proposed that the President appoint a commission to investigate barbarities against Jews and other civilians in Europe, and Dr. Wise said the President promised he would give "full consideration" to this proposal.

Besides Dr. Wise, the committee included Henry Monsky of Omaha, Neb., President of the Order of B'nai Brith; Rabbi Israel Rosenberg of New York, Chairman of the Union of Orthodox Rabbis; Maurice Wertheim of New York, President of the American Jewish Committee, and Adolph Held of New York, President of the Jewish Labor Committee.

HITLER ORDER CHARGED.
A twenty - page memorandum, partly based on State Department documents, said the 2,000,000 estimated deaths had been accomplished by machine-gunning, asphyxiation, deliberate starvation, torture, and subjection to disease.

It alleged that late this summer Hitler issued an order for the extermination of all European Jews by December of this year, particularly to conserve food for Germans. Executions were alleged to have been speeded up under this policy.

Summary attributed to documents received through the State Department gave these statistics:

Germany, former Jewish population of 200,000 reduced to 40,000; Austria, Jews reduced from 75,000 to between 12,000 and 15,000; Bohemia and Moravia, from 80,000 to 15,000; Poland, from 3,300,000 to 2,800,000; Belgium, 85,000 to 8,000; Netherlands, 180,000 to 120,000; Yugoslavia, all of the 100,000 killed or deported except for 400 who escaped to Italy; Greece, all Jews, 18 to 45 drafted for slave labor; France, from 340,000 to an estimated 275,000; Rumania, from 900,000 to 270,000; Bulgaria, 8,500 engaged in slave labor; Slovakia, from 90,000 to 20,000; Latvia, all 100,000 segregated in ghettos, with thousand killed and others impressed into slave labor; Lithuania, same as Latvia.
History Unfolded Contributor: Marlene K.
Location of Research: Newspapers.com (https://www.newspapers.com)