- Headline
-
Nazi Inhumanity
- Publication Date
- Tuesday, July 11, 1944
- Historical Event
-
First Public Reports on ‘Extermination Camp’ at Auschwitz
This database includes 694 articles about this event - Article Type
- Newspaper
- Page Section and Number
- 6
- Author/Byline
- --
- Article Text
- The day is long past when we could indulge disbelief in the horrors of Hitlerism on the ground that the reports simply were not human. Now we know that nothing is too inhuman for the Nazi killers.
There was Lidice, the massacres in Poland, the shooting of hostages, all deeds of unspeakable horror thrown into the cauldron of this Moloch of our times.
A single unjust execution is heinous. But no man until now ever conceived the endless belt system of death. To the sickening list of crimes is added the names of Auschwitz and Birkenau in Upper Silesia where 1,715,000 Jews from all Hitler-held areas were murdered en masse in the 12 months prior to April 15.
The murder plants are fake bath-houses where from 2,000 to 8,000 persons are taken daily. Once inside, cyanide gas is released and all are soon dead. Fifty furnaces cremate the bodies 10 at a time.
But the end is not yet. Now that Hungary has been seized the last refuge in Europe for Jews has been swept away. From Hungary 400,000 Jews have been deported and about 30 per cent have died en route to the murder camps. All are doomed to the gas chambers.
Prompt protest as strong as it is possible to make should go forward at once from the heads of all Allied governments. Feeble as any protest can be in face of the hideous Nazi record, it will still lift up the voice of humanity and perhaps be a gleam of hope to the abandoned thousands.
Some Jewish leaders, out of the depths of their horror and despair, urge a formal threat of reprisals. Yet we cannot say to the Hungarians that they must pay a life for a life, for the Hungarians are not free agents. Some remnant of humanity must remain in the world and if we reduce ourselves to the level of savages the last glimmer will be gone.
Yet there will be punishment. No matter how retribution comes the awful record of the German people will weigh them down to the end of time. - History Unfolded Contributor
- Carlos G.
- Location of Research
- Newspapers.com (https://www.newspapers.com)
Learn More about this Historical Event: First Public Reports on ‘Extermination Camp’ at Auschwitz
- Auschwitz (Encyclopedia Article)
- Auschwitz: Chronology (Encyclopedia Article)
- Auschwitz Report (Timeline of Events)
Bibliography
Berenbaum, Michael, and Yisrael Gutman, eds. Anatomy of the Auschwitz Death Camp. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, in association with the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, 1998.
Cywinski, Piotr, Piotr Setkiewicz, and Jacek Lachendro. Auschwitz from A to Z: An Illustrated History of the Camp. Oswiecim: Auschwitz-Birkenau State Museum, 2013.
Dlugoborski, Waclaw, et al. Auschwitz, 1940–1945: Central Issues in the History of the Camp. Oswiecim: Auschwitz-Birkenau State Museum, 2000.
Gilbert, Martin. Auschwitz and the Allies. New York: Holt, Rinehart, and Winston, 1981.
Langbein, Hermann. People in Auschwitz. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2004.
Levi, Primo. Survival in Auschwitz: The Nazi Assault on Humanity. New York: Collier Books, 1986.
Neufeld, Michael J., and Michael Berenbaum, editors. The Bombing of Auschwitz: Should the Allies Have Attempted It? New York: St. Martin’s Press, 2000.
Rees, Laurence. Auschwitz: A New History. New York: Public Affairs, 2005.
Swiebocka, Teresa, ed. Auschwitz: A History in Photographs. Bloomington: Indiana University Press; Warsaw: Ksiazka i Wiedza, 1993.
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