Auschwitz: Place of Horrors - Chapter 6, WHEN DID THE ALLIES KNOW?

<body link="0000ff" alink="ff0000" vlink="000000" bgcolor=000033> <table width="100%" bgcolor=000033> <tr> <td align=center valign=top> <table width=90% bgcolor=ffffff> <tr> <td align=center valign=top> <tr> <td> <div align=center><p><b><font face="arial, helvetica" size=5 color=000000><b>AUSCHWITZ</p> <p><font size=4>CHAPTER 6 - WHEN DID THE ALLIES KNOW?</font></p> </font> </div> <center> <table width="90%"> <tr> <td align="left" valign="top"> <div align="justify"> <p><font face="arial, helvetica" color="000000" size="3">Nagging questions about Allied knowledge of Auschwitz have always troubled people. From camp survivors to the curious public, a key issue remains: Did the Allies know about extermination at Auschwitz before the camp was liberated? If so, why wasn't it bombed?</p> <p>Had the <a href="http://media.nara.gov/media/images/9/14/09-1389a.gif" target="_blank"><b>sprawling complex</b></a> been destroyed by Allied air raids, the Nazis would have lost their ability to continue murdering innocent people. Scholars have argued such action would have been preferable, even though prisoners would have died in the raid, because it would have ended the Nazi's biggest killing machine.</p> <p>Were these pictures sufficient to reveal to the Allies what was happening at Auschwitz-Birkenau? Not according to the CIA report. It was only <a href="http://media.nara.gov/media/images/9/14/09-1339a.gif" target="_blank"><b>later</b></a>, with the use of sophisticated photo-interpretation equipment and survivor testimony, that the various <a href="http://fcit.coedu.usf.edu/holocaust/resource/VR/BIR10S.HTM" target="_blank"><b>pieces</b></a> of the Auschwitz <a href="http://media.nara.gov/media/images/9/14/09-1338a.gif" target="_blank"><b>terror</b></a> could be fit together.</p> <p>When Soviet troops liberated Auschwitz-<a href="http://fcit.coedu.usf.edu/holocaust/resource/VR/BIRKENAU.htm" target="_blank"><b>Birkenau</b></a>, on 27 January 1945, only a fraction of the camps’ total prisoners had survived. <a href="http://www.ushmm.org/outreach/auc42030.htm" target="_blank"><b>Millions</b></a> of people died there. Evidence of what remained chills the spine: <a href="http://fcit.coedu.usf.edu/holocaust/GALL31R/85742.htm" target="_blank"><b>bales of hair</b></a>, ready for shipment to Germany; confiscated <a href="http://fcit.coedu.usf.edu/holocaust/GALL31R/85743.htm" target="_blank"><b>prayer shawls</b></a>, carelessly tossed in an Auschwitz warehouse.</p> <p>And what of all the children who passed through Auschwitz? Only <a href="http://fcit.coedu.usf.edu/holocaust/GALLFR2/CHILDREN.htm" target="_blank"><b>180 survived</b></a> inside the camp.</p> </div> <p align="center"><font size="2"><a href="auschwitz_place_ch5.htm">GO TO LAST CHAPTER</a>   <a href="auschwitz_place_ch1.htm">BACK TO FIRST CHAPTER</a></p><br> </font> </td> </tr> </table> </center> </td> </tr> </table> </td> </tr> </table> </body>