Auschwitz Protocols

Eyewitness accounts of concentration camp

The Auschwitz Protocols, also known as the Auschwitz Reports, and originally published as The Extermination Camps of Auschwitz and Birkenau, is a collection of three eyewitness accounts from 1943–1944 about the mass murder that was taking place inside the Auschwitz concentration camp in German-occupied Poland during the Second World War.^[1]^[2] The eyewitness accounts are individually known as the Vrba–Wetzler report, Polish Major's report, and Rosin-Mordowicz report.^[3]

Description

The reports were compiled by prisoners who had escaped from the camp and presented in their order of importance from the Western Allies' perspective, rather than in chronological order.^[3] The escapees who authored the reports were Rudolf Vrba and Alfred Wetzler (the Vrba–Wetzler report); Arnošt Rosin and Czesław Mordowicz (the Rosin-Mordowicz report); and Jerzy Tabeau (the "Polish Major's report").^[3]

The Vrba–Wetzler report was widely disseminated by the Bratislava Working Group in April 1944, and with help of the Romanian diplomat Florian Manoliu, the report or a summary obtained from Moshe Krausz in Budapest reached—tragically with much delay—George Mantello (Mandl), El Salvador Embassy First Secretary in Switzerland, via Manoliu who brought it to Mantello.^[4] Mantello immediately publicized it despite request from Rudolf Kasztner to keep it confidential.

This triggered large-scale demonstrations in Switzerland, sermons in Swiss churches about the tragic plight of Jews and a Swiss press campaign of about 400 headlines protesting the atrocities against Jews. The unprecedented events in Switzerland and possibly other considerations led to threats of retribution against Hungary's Regent Miklós Horthy by President Roosevelt, Winston Churchill and others. This was one of the main factors which convinced Horthy to stop the Hungarian death camp transports.^[4]

The full reports were published—with seven months delay—by the United States War Refugee Board on 26 November 1944 under the title The Extermination Camps of Auschwitz (Oświęcim) and Birkenau in Upper Silesia.^[1]^[5] They were submitted in evidence at the Nuremberg Trials as document number 022-L, and are held in the War Refugee Board archives in the Franklin D. Roosevelt Presidential Library and Museum in Hyde Park, New York.^[5]

It is not known when they were first called the Auschwitz Protocols, but Randolph L. Braham may have been the first to do so. He used that term for the document in The Politics of Genocide: The Holocaust in Hungary (1981).^[5]

Component reports

Vrba–Wetzler report timeline
Part of a series of articles on The Holocaust
Main railroad track into Auschwitz II-Birkenau.
Timeline 1942 13 April Alfréd Wetzler taken to Auschwitz. 20 June Kazimierz Piechowski escapes and passes information to the Polish Home Army. 30 June Rudolf Vrba taken to Auschwitz. July Dionys Lenard escapes from Majdanek and is interviewed by the Bratislava Working Group. 2 November Kazimirez Halori escapes and passes information to the Polish Socialist Party. December "Auschwitz–Camp of Death" published by Natalia Zarembina, another Polish escapee; published in English in 1943 (London). 1943 27 April Witold Pilecki escapes. Witold's report is filed away by the OSS. May Stanislaw Chybinski, a member of the Polish Home Army, escapes and compiles the report "Snapshots of Auschwitz". 19 November Jerzy Tabeau and Roman Cieliczko escape. Their January 1944 report becomes known as the "Polish Major's report". March 1944 19 March Germany invades Hungary. 22 March The Washington Post and the New York Herald Tribune report the existence of gas chambers and crematoria at Auschwitz. April 1944 5 April Siegfried Lederer escapes to warn Jews in Theresienstadt and the Red Cross about the mass murder inside Auschwitz. 7–11 April Vrba and Wetzler escape. 22 / 23 April Vrba and Wetzler arrive in Žilina, Slovakia. 24 April Vrba and Wetzler meet Dr Oscar Neumann of the Bratislava Working Group. 27 April German translation of the Vrba–Wetzler report completed. 28 April The first trainload of Hungarian Jews leaves for Auschwitz. c. 28 April Rezső Kasztner of the Aid and Rescue Committee obtains the report and gives a copy of the report to Geza Soos, Hungarian Foreign Ministry official; Soos gives it to Joszef Elias; Elias's secretary translates it into Hungarian and prepares six copies for Hungarian officials. May 1944 15 May Mass transports begin of Hungary's Jews to Auschwitz, at a rate of 12,000 a day. 27 May Arnost Rosin and Czesław Mordowicz escape Auschwitz. June 1944 4 June The New York Times describes the gas chambers and said that Jews were being executed. 6 June Allied invasion of Normandy, France. mid June The Vrba–Wetzler report reaches the British and US governments. 15 June The BBC World Service reports that 4,000 Jews from Theresienstadt were killed in gas chambers at Auschwitz during March 1944. Rosin and Mordowicz tell Krasniansky 100,000 Hungarian Jews were killed on arrival between 15 and 27 May, unaware of what was about to happen to them. 16 June The New York World Telegram repeats the BBC's information. Allen Dulles, Swiss director of the US Office of Strategic Services, sends the Vrba–Wetzler report to the US State Department. 17 June The Los Angeles Times repeats the BBC's information. 20 June 'The Washington Times Herald reports the same, courtesy of Reuters, while The New York Times offers further details. In Bratislava, Vrba discusses his report with Vatican legate Monsignor Mario Martilotti, who then sends a copy to the Vatican via Switzerland. 25 June The New York Times reports that "new mass executions" recently took place in Auschwitz. 30 June The Kastner train, carrying 1,684 Jews, leaves Hungary for Switzerland via Bergen-Belsen. July 1944 1–10 July Several newspapers report that, between April 1942 and April 1944, 1.5 to 1.7 million Jews were killed at Auschwitz (from the Vrba-Wetzler report). 7 July Hungarian regent Miklós Horthy orders a halt to the deportations. 9 July Mass deportations end.
Key figures Rudolf Vrba Alfréd Wetzler Witold Pilecki
Historians Yehuda Bauer Randolph L. Braham John S. Conway Raul Hilberg Miroslav Kárný
"Blood for goods" Kurt Becher Joel Brand Adolf Eichmann Malchiel Gruenwald Heinrich Himmler Rezső Kasztner Kastner train Michael Dov Weissmandl
Background Auschwitz concentration camp The Holocaust History of the Jews in Hungary Hungary in World War II
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The Vrba–Wetzler report (the term "Auschwitz Protocols" is sometimes used to refer to just this report), a 33-page report written around 24 April 1944, after Vrba and Wetzler, two Slovak prisoners, who escaped from Auschwitz 7–11 April 1944.^[6] In the Protocols, it was 33 pages long and was called "No 1. The Extermination Camps of Auschwitz (Oswiecim) and Birkenau in Upper Silesia."^[7]^[8]
The Rosin-Mordowicz report, a seven-page report from Arnošt Rosin and Czesław Mordowicz, also Slovak prisoners, who escaped from Auschwitz on 27 May 1944.^[6] This was presented as an additional chapter "III. Birkenau" to the Vrba–Wetzler report.^[7]
The "Polish Major's report," written by Jerzy Tabeau (or Tabau), who was in Auschwitz under the pseudonym Jerzy Wesołowski, and who escaped with Roman Cieliczko on 19 November 1943. Zoltán Tibori Szabó writes that Tabeau compiled his report between December 1943 and January 1944. It was copied using a stencil machine in Geneva in August 1944, and was distributed by the Polish government-in-exile and Jewish groups.^[9] This was presented in the Protocols as the 19-page "No 2. Transport (The Polish Major's Report)."^[7]

The contents of the Protocols was discussed in detail by The New York Times on 26 November 1944.^[7]

References

Citations

^ ^a ^b "The Extermination Camps of Auschwitz (Oświęcim) and Birkenau in Upper Silesia". War Refugee Board. 26 November 1944. pp. 1–33.

Also see "The Auschwitz Protocol: The Vrba–Wetzler Report" (PDF). Vrba–Wetzler Memorial. Archived from the original (PDF) on 27 July 2018.
^ Tibori Szabó (2011), pp. 85–120
^ ^a ^b ^c Tibori Szabó (2011), p. 94
^ ^a ^b David Kranzler (2000). The Man Who Stopped the Trains to Auschwitz: George Mantello, El Salvador, and Switzerland's Finest Hour. Syracuse University Press. p. 87. ISBN 978-0-8156-2873-6.
^ ^a ^b ^c Conway (2002), pp. 292–293, footnote 3.
^ ^a ^b Tibori Szabó (2011), p. 91
^ ^a ^b ^c ^d Gilbert (1989), p. 305
^ "The Auschwitz Protocol: The Vrba-Wetzler Report". Holocaust Research Project (Full text, online ed.).
^ Tibori Szabó (2011), p. 90.

Sources

Conway, John S. in Vrba, Rudolf (2002). Appendix I: The Significance of the Vrba–Wetzler Report on Auschwitz-Birkenau. Barricade Books. {{cite book}}: |work= ignored (help)CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)
Gilbert, Martin in Marrus, Michael Robert (1989). Part 9: The Question of Bombing Auschwitz. Walter de Gruyter. {{cite book}}: |work= ignored (help)CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)
Tibori Szabó, Zoltán in Braham, Randolph L. & vanden Heuvel, William (2011). "The Auschwitz Reports: Who Got Them, and When?". The Auschwitz Reports and the Holocaust in Hungary. Columbia University Press.{{cite news}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)