Multimedia Mania/abacus-multimedia-mania.iso/dp/0115/01151.txt

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$Unique_ID{bob01151}
$Pretitle{}
$Title{Liberation of the Nazi Concentration Camps 1945, The
Chapter XII: Discovering the 'Final Solution' - Part III}
$Subtitle{}
$Author{Various}
$Affiliation{}
$Subject{kalb
marvin
time
war
department
information
pehle
president
question
soviet}
$Date{1987}
$Log{}
Title:       Liberation of the Nazi Concentration Camps 1945, The
Author:      Various
Date:        1987

Chapter XII: Discovering the "Final Solution" - Part III

Discussion

Marvin Kalb:  We started this particular panel by asking two questions - What
did the world know?  And when did it know it? - and the questions, like almost
everything else that tries to address this issue, tend to oversimplify the
problem.

     On the basis of the testimony of our four panelists today, there clearly
was information.  It was clearly made available to important people early on,
in time to have affected some of the outcome.  Yet from the record it is also
clear that not all that much was actually done to affect the outcome, so we
are left, it seems to me, with the very large moral question of why did that
happen.

     I really would like to address the question to Mr. Pehle first because in
your speech you did talk about a cable, for example, that was sent by the
State Department representative in which he made reference to yet another
cable asking him not to allow she facilities of the Department to be used in
transmitting this information.  That is very puzzling, and I would like to ask
you why.  You must have asked the question yourself.  What kind of answers did
you get from the US government at that time?

John Pehle:  It's hard to look into someone else's mind.  There were those who
felt that knowledge of the Holocaust spread in the United States would cause
such a fervor emanating from the Jewish groups that somehow it would impede
the war effort.

     There was some element of anti-Semitism.  There was the thing we have
referred to - you have referred to it and I have too - the reluctance of all
of us to comprehend something as tragic as this was going on, that people in
the western world that we thought were civilized were engaged in an
uncivilized wholesale murder.  You tie all those things together and nothing
much happened.

Marvin Kalb:  When was the cable that you made reference to sent?  The one not
to use the facilities of the department.

John Pehle:  In the latter part of 1943.

Marvin Kalb:  Was this with the knowledge of the Secretary of State?

John Pehle:  As you know, State Department cables very often are sent - and it
may have Hull's name at the end of it, but that doesn't mean that Mr. Hull
signed it.  I don't know.  But I think it was consistent with State Department
policy at the time.

Marvin Kalb:  Do you feel that the policy at the time had the sanction of the
White House?

John Pehle:    I don't know.

Marvin Kalb:  When the issue was raised before President Roosevelt, and he
asked you to take immediate action and that was in 1944 did you have the
impression that the President at that time was shocked by the information
brought to him?

John Pehle:  Yes.  I think he was particularly shocked by the fact that there
was this attempt to suppress the information.  Also, we had been misled by the
State Department.  In other words, when we asked for a copy of the cable, we
got an expurgated copy that didn't contain the instructions that had been sent
out.  Therefore, you had one department of the United States government
misleading the Secretary of the Treasury.

     So I think the President decided that this whole issue should be taken
out, and it was effectively taken out.  The staff of the War Refugee Board was
largely Treasury people, and we had quite free ability to operate.

Marvin Kalb:  Mr. Wolfe, may I address a question to you?  Do you have a copy
of that cable that we are talking about?

Robert Wolfe:  The cable would be in the Diplomatic Branch of the National
Archives.  I have not seen it myself, and the expertise has to be segregated,
so I would rather have you consult the experts in the Diplomatic Branch.

Marvin Kalb:  I'm just curious whether that particular cable was unique.  Was
it the only one of its kind or were there a series of cables like that?

Robert Wolfe:  I would be breaking my own rules if I testified without having
looked at the documents.  I think that is the kind of thing that needs
exploration.

     I'm far away from saying that documents don't lie.  But if one applies
the proper, and I would say old-fashioned, historical canons to documents, one
can extract approximate truth or near truth from them.  The more people who
work at that honestly, the more truth we will get.  That's a good research
project which I would recommend:  Trace that cable down.

Marvin Kalb:  General Petrenko, we have heard a great deal about information
provided at very top levels of the U.S. government and what American officials
did not do once they had that information.  I would like to ask you, on the
basis of whatever knowledge you may have, was this kind of information known
to Soviet staff officers towards the end of the war, early on in the war?

Vassily Yakovlevich Petrenko:  The Soviet people and the armed forces from the
first few months of the war were well informed about the barbarism of fascism
in the occupied areas of the Soviet Union - the hundreds of camps where they
immediately started to exterminate people that they captured.

     We soldiers who were fighting the war received our information about the
barbarism of the fascists against prisoners, war prisoners, and civilians in
Oswiecim before our troops attacked it.  The personnel knew through the
political leadership of the front and the army that along the path of our
attack we would encounter concentration camps and certain places where
Hitlerites were killing people, including the camp Oswiecim.

     Of course, we had such details because our task as commanders was not
only to destroy opposing Hitlerite forces, but also to free Polish villages
and towns, including a concentration camp around Oswiecim.  We didn't have
coordinates because that covered a large territory, but we had orders that
commanders of units who would attack in that direction should prepare their
sanitation and medical battalions to bring immediate help to victims who would
be freed from these camps.

     In my case, we had our orders.  My battalion had these orders on January
27 when we freed that particular camp.

Marvin Kalb:  Could you tell us whether you had some sense in advance of what
you found at Auschwitz?

Vassily Yakovlevich Petrenko:  No.  No.  No such ideas.  Nothing of what we
saw.  No, we could not imagine it.  But on the way to it, we could see the
bestiality, people buried in the ground, and we knew that living people were
buried, buried alive.  People shot in the neck or the head, through the back -
piled up in trenches, in holes - men, women, children.

     So, of course, we expected to see such bestial facts there.  But there it
was much more horrible than anything that we saw before.

Marvin Kalb: Let me be clear about one thing.  Did you have specific orders to
get into Auschwitz as quickly as you could?

Vassily Yakovlevich Petrenko:  In my speech I mentioned it and will mention it
again.  When the task was given to the military units, the commanders of the
60th Army knew that in that area there were some barracks, some buildings.
We, as commanders on the divisional level, didn't have any particular detailed
information.  We knew the camp was there.  The commander stressed first of all
to destroy the enemy as quickly as possible, because there was frontal attack
and there was some on the flanks, to cut off the retreating Germans so that
they could not escape to the West.

Marvin Kalb:  I want to ask this to clear the record.  There are some stories
to the effect that the Soviet army held back before going on to Auschwitz. You
seem to be saying that that is not the case at all, and I just want the record
to be clear on that point.

Vassily Yakovlevich Petrenko:  Only criminals who hated Soviet troops could
have said that.  Soviet troops never, never had such an order.  No, no, never.
Soviet troops did everything possible, made all efforts to reach it as quickly
as possible.  We received our orders in Sandomierz at the staging area, that
was 150 kilometers from Oswiecim.  We knew what was there, and in 20 days we
covered over 250 kilometers.  What delay?  There were no delays because we
were attacking for 27 days and we didn't stop for one minute. Oswiecim was
liberated during the night, and then the following day we just cleaned up that
area.

Robert Wolfe:  I would like to support that.  Military historians of World War
II will tell you that one of the most rapid advances made was the one through
Cracow, which rescued it from destruction at the hands of the retreating
Germans.  The survival of a good deal of the records of the German occupation
of Poland, almost intact and well ordered, including those pertaining to the
Holocaust, which is a fair percentage, is due to the rapid Soviet advance in
that area and in southern Poland.

Marvin Kalb:  Mr. Wolfe, let me ask you a question relating to the
documentation again.  One of the issues that comes up all the time concerns
the railroad lines leading into Auschwitz, and I include this question and I
address it as well to the Soviet side.  On the basis of the records, why
weren't those railroad lines bombed?

Robert Wolfe:  Well, the argument we're talking about - Allied records now -
was that the one place to hit it would have been very difficult for aerial
bombardment - and I'm not an expert on aerial warfare - and that railroad
lines were reconstructed so very rapidly.  I hesitate to talk about railroad
operations with Raul Hilberg sitting in the room.  I always defer to greater
authority.

Marvin Kalb:  Mr. Pehle, do you have any elaboration you could give us on why
the railroad lines were not hit?

John Pehle:  I think that what was just said was correct - that we, the War
Refugee Board, were asked to arrange with the War Department for the bombing
of railroad lines.

     When we went into the question, we were told - and I think correctly -
that railroad lines can be restored overnight.  This would be a self-
defeating thing.

Marvin Kalb:  Given your own sense of semidisillusionment with what you were
told by other US government officials at that time on this subject, did you
take that with any degree of skepticism?

John Pehle:  No.  However, as many people here know, the issue became more
critical when it was finally decided that we should consider asking the War
Department to bomb Auschwitz itself.

     I wrote a strong letter to Mr. McCloy, who was our liaison with Secretary
Stimson, and we were advised that this was not militarily feasible because the
bombers would have to come from England, and the fighter escorts didn't have
the capacity to go that far; therefore, they would be exposed to attack.

     Later, it turned out, at the time we were being told this, the Allies
were bombing all around Auschwitz from Italy, but we had no knowledge of that
at the time.

Marvin Kalb:  Mr. Karski, yours was perhaps one of the most extraordinary
statements I've listened to in a long time, all based upon your personal
experience.  You did not tell us because you did not have the time, sir, about
your meeting with Roosevelt.  Could you share that with us now?

Jan Karski:  As an individual, I was a little man, young and unknown.  The
mission was important.  Its structure was such that I was not supposed to ask
questions.  I was only to answer questions if they were directed at me. In
very many instances, very powerful people did not ask any questions concerning
the Jewish problem, by the way.  They were interested in the Polish issues -
the boundaries, the politics, etcetera.

     Now, with President Roosevelt, yes, I did speak about this horrible thing
happening to the Jews, but not with much detail, as there was no time.  During
most of the session, his main area of interest was what aid Poland would be
needing after the Second World War.

     Secondly, he said that direct stipulations of Polish eastern boundaries
would take place, and the Poles would have to understand that Poland would be
recompensed with the German territories.

     At the end of the meeting, when the Secretary opened the door, meaning
that I had to go, and the President made a gesture of good-bye, I stood up,
and I told the President that I was going back to Poland.  I told him that
every Polish leader, all of those who sent me from Poland, will ask me, "You
saw President Roosevelt.  What did the President tell you in answer to your
report?"

     The President limited himself, and certain things one never forgets, of
course - you remember every gesture - "You will tell your leaders that we
shall win this war.  You will tell your leaders that the guilty ones will be
punished for their crimes.  Justice, democracy, peace will be restored.  Your
country will emerge more prosperous than ever in the past.  You will tell them
that they have a friend in this house, that the American people admire your
country.  This is what you will tell them."

Marvin Kalb:  You also had a conversation, by your own account, with Secretary
of State Hull.  Did the question of the massacre of Jews in Poland come up
with him?

Jan Karski:  Forty years have passed, so I must be careful, you know, and not
too blunt.  Whatever I remember, Cordell Hull made an impression on me and all
the men.  I had some doubts if he even understood my foreign accent. He was
interested exclusively in Polish political matters, and so was Henry Stimson.

Marvin Kalb:  Were you yourself at the time surprised by that?

Jan Karski:  Mr. Kalb, I know you so well from television and I am your
admirer.  You are a wise man so you will understand that at that time during
the war I was not surprised by anything.  I had no human feelings.  Now, I
have human feelings, and sometimes I cannot take it.

     At that time, I was a recording machine.  I was a tape recorder.  If I
had any human feelings - surprise, shock - I would have gone crazy a long time
ago.  I had no feelings at all.  So, don't ask me was I surprised or not.  I
was not surprised about anything.

Marvin Kalb:  I think you have answered my question very eloquently, sir.