An Admission of Guilt
- Steven Rodan
- Jul 17, 2022
- 3 min read
Updated: Jul 19, 2022
By Steve Rodan
Rarely does a government institution release a document that answers a vital historical question.
But the British National Archives did just that. The archives released a 25-page document that addressed Prime Minister Winston Churchill's refusal to bomb the Auschwitz death camp in the summer and fall of 1944. Churchill and the Foreign Office had received all the information needed on Auschwitz, a detailed map provided by the Polish government-in-exile via the Jewish Agency that showed every barrack, armory as well as the location of the gas chambers.
In this document, which we released in a post on July 10, Churchill acknowledges that he kept the Auschwitz map from the British Air Ministry, which sought information on the camp. We are now providing a photo as well as a transcript of the Churchill note to his private secretary Jock Colville dated Sept. 18 and Sept. 20, 1944.
Churchill: So far as I can discover these plans never were in fact communicated to Air Ministry.
The Minister of State on Sept. 1 (on behalf of S/S) agreed in writing to the S/S [State Secretary] for Air that in view of the difficulties of the operation of bombing the camps as represented by the Air Ministry (they said they had no detailed inf. of the topography) the idea of bombing them might be dropped.
We are therefore technically guilty of allowing the Air Ministry to get away with it without having given them (tho' we had it) the inf. they asked for as a prerequisite.
In all the circs [sic]. I think perhaps (tho I feel a little uneasy about it) we had better let this go by.
Colville: ...know enough about this to form a view.
Surely, this information was taken into consideration when the decision was taken to pursue this matter?
Churchill: That's the whole point. It looks as if it hasn't
Colville: Perhaps since Liaison ... could advise as to whether this info wo[uld?] have make any difference in the A.M. [Air Ministry] attitude.
........... .......... ...........
The document answers several questions that historians have debated since the end of World War II nearly 80 years ago.
1. Did Churchill and the British know about the Auschwitz death camp?
Yes.
2. Did the British in 1944 have the means to bomb Auschwitz?
Yes.
3. Did Churchill want to bomb Auschwitz to end the gassing of Jews?
No.
4. How did Churchill quash attempts to bomb Auschwitz?
He concealed technical information from the British Air Ministry and then lied through the Foreign Office that the operation was not feasible.
As it turned out, Churchill was not alone. U.S. President Franklin Delano Roosevelt was even more opposed than Churchill to bombing Auschwitz and stopping the Final Solution. By the end of 1943, the Soviet Air Force was within easy distance of Auschwitz and could have saved close to 500,000 Hungarian Jews.
Little wonder that the most senior members of the U.S. government concluded that the Allies had another agenda besides defeating the Axis. They hoped that Hitler would win his war of exterminating the Jews. In January 1944, a report was drafted for U.S. Treasury Secretary Henry Morgenthau Jr. that exposed how the State Department blocked rescue opportunities. Here's the conclusion of Randolph Paul, who signed the report for Treasury.
"I am convinced on the basis of the information which is available to me that certain officials in our State Department, which is charged with carrying out this policy, have been guilty not only of gross procrastination and willful failure to act, but even of willful attempts to prevent action from being taken to rescue Jews from Hitler."
There are many more similar documents in the archives of Britain, America, Germany, Russia and Israel. They must be opened in the name of historical justice.
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