Secrets of the Dead (2000–…): Season 18, Episode 7 - Bombing Auschwitz - full transcript

♪♪

♪♪

[ Dog barking ]

♪♪

- In April 1944, with the
outcome of World War II

hanging in the balance,

two Jewish prisoners lay hidden
near the outer fence

of the Auschwitz
concentration camp.

- It was almost impossible
to escape from Auschwitz.

[ Dog barking ]

- So many people were caught



almost immediately
and tortured and killed.

[ Dog growls, barks ]

♪♪

- The dogs didn't sniff them out
because they put tobacco

soaked in petrol
around the hiding place.

[ Radio chatter ]

They managed to stay there
undetected for 3 days.

- On April 10th,

they abandoned their hidingplace
and cut through the fence.

- They had to be audacious.
- They had to be brave.

They escaped in order
to warn the world

that Auschwitz
was a killing mechanism.

- Their eyewitness account
of the mass extermination

of European Jews
would lead to one



of the greatest moral questions
of the 20th century.

-[ Breathing heavily ]

- "Bombing Auschwitz."

♪♪

♪♪

- This killing complex can turn
several thousands

of human beings
into ash in just 24 hours.

♪♪

- The failure to bomb Auschwitz,
no one gave a damn.

They didn't care.
They didn't want to do it.

- Auschwitz should've had the
most outrageous response

while it was happening,

and that's a moral failure
of the West.

- The greatest crime
in modern history

went on for 2 years unimpeded.

More than one million people
perished by gas,

and there was evidence
of what was happening.

♪♪

[ People coughing ]

Rudolf Vrba and Alfréd Wetzler

fled through
Nazi-occupied Poland

to the Slovakian town of Zilina,

where they made contact
with the Jewish Underground.

- If they were caught,
they were dead.

The SS would brutally torture
them in order to find out

how exactly they'd managed
to get away and then kill them.

- Vrba and Wetzler made it
to a safe house.

They were desperate
to complete their mission

to let the world know what was
happening to Jews in Poland.

♪♪

Oskar Krasnansky
of the Jewish Underground

was sent to interview
the two men.

- My name is Krasnansky,
from Bratislava.

How do I know you're not
fantasists wasting my time?

-44070.

I asked him, "Why have you put
this tattoo on your arm?"

And then he looked at me,
and he said,

"Where did you think
I have been, in a sanatorium?"

And that's when he told me
that he has been to Auschwitz.

- You must tell me everything,

every detail that you know
about Auschwitz-Birkenau.

- Yes.

Auschwitz is a killing center.

- Not here, not now.
- Separately.

- The extermination of the Jews

was carried out
in great secrecy.

It wasn't advertised.

Therefore, until then, we had
no cogent or clear description

of what went on.

♪♪

- Auschwitz is not a household
name in early 1944.

- There's a lot of confusion
over,

"What is this place?"

And so at the beginning,
people just knew that Jews

were being taken
to Nazi-occupied Poland.

- The Polish Underground
had managed

to smuggle some information
about the camp outside,

but on the whole,
this information is fragmentary

and sometimes contradictory.

♪♪

- Vrba and Wetzler's
interrogation

was meticulously recorded,
as if in a court of law.

- How did you escape?

- We kept to the forest
traveling only by night.

- How long were you
in Auschwitz?

- I arrived there on the 30th
of June, 1942.

- We've heard rumors that Jews
are killed there

by gas machines
and by mass electrocution.

- When you look at the way
he did it,

the professionalism, it reflects
that this was someone

who knew the information
he was getting

was potentially a game changer.

- The interview was done
with the idea of,

"We might bring legal charges,

and we are going to get nothing
but the facts."

- The perimeter wire
is electrified.

- There are gas installations,
gas chambers.

- Go on.

- Four gas chambers
with crematoria for burning.

The first crematorium
opened in March 1943

when prominent guests
from Berlin

arrived to see
the new installation.

That day, they were able to
witness 8,000 Jews from Krakow

gassed and burned.

They were very pleased
with that result.

- How do you know all this?

- I worked in the Birkenau
section of the camp.

My daily duties including
registering the survivors

of each transportation,

meaning those who had survived
the train journey

and had not on arrival
at Auschwitz

been selected for the gas.

I also got information about
the precise operation

of the gas chambers
and crematoria

from one of the sonderkommando.

- Sonderkommando?

- You really know no nothing,
do you?

♪♪

- The prisoners
in Auschwitz-Birkenau

who knew best what happened
at the gas chambers

and the crematoria
were the members

of the so-called sonderkommando.

These were prisoners who
were forced by the SS to assist

in the killing and cremation
at the crematoria itself.

♪♪

- Rudy and Freddie felt that
they needed to have facts

that would convince people
that this really is happening,

and it was their idea
to write a report

that could be distributed
and shown as evidence.

- Vrba and Wetzler wanted
to include

as much granular evidence
as they could in their report,

and that included some drawings.

♪♪

- Auschwitz is a massive place,

and it builds up over time
and in different ways,

so the first camp
is Auschwitz I,

which opens in 1940.

Later, they add Birkenau
a few miles away,

which is where the gas chambersand
the crematorium are located.

- This is an approximate sketch
of the dark heart

of Auschwitz main camp
and Birkenau.

This is one of the gas chambers
and crematoria

that the SS
constructed in Birkenau.

It's striking how much Vrba
and Wetzler

got right about
the layout of the camp,

the mechanics of
mass extermination,

and even down to the names
of individual prisoners.

♪♪

- At the end of January,
a large convoy

of French and Dutch Jews
arrived at Auschwitz,

but only a small proportion
of those reached the camp.

- What happened
to the rest of them?

- They went straight from
the trains to the gas chambers.

- Did you see these
selections yourself?

- Yes.

I belonged to a work command
that took me

to a place called the Ramp,

which is where the trains
came in, sometimes one a day,

sometimes five,
sometimes through the night.

My job was to deal with the
personal property of those Jews

who'd been selected for the gas

and to collect any dead bodies
from the cattle cars.

♪♪

- He sees how Jews
are forced off the trains.

He sees how they have
to line up.

He sees how the SS selects them

and sends those deemed
to be weak and ill

and not fit for work
towards the gas chambers...

...and this really gives Vrba
a direct insight.

He becomes an eyewitness
of the Holocaust.

- Women, children, old people,
people they considered unfit

sent straight
to the gas chambers.

The fittest were separated out
and kept for labor.

- How many?
- It varied.

A small percentage, 5% or 10%.

- All this was done with force?

- Sometimes,
but usually without.

These people had no idea
where they were going.

I want to emphasize this.

A train would pull in,
and those getting off

would have no conception
of what had just happened

to those who'd arrived
a few hours before.

- They were describing
the details of genocide.

How was it done?

You're asking people
to believe something

that was literally
beyond belief.

- How did the SS deal
with these arrivals?

- Some of the groups would be
frightened, disorientated.

Others would be almost relieved,

depending on how they'd
been greeted by the SS.

Sometimes they could be harsh,

using the sticks, dogs,
lots of shouting.

Other times, it would be,"How
nice that you have arrived.

We are sorry
it was not too comfortable.

"Things will change now."

- Vrba's testimony had
a horrifying climax...

The Nazi's new plan
for Auschwitz-Birkenau.

- They are preparing for
the extermination

of the Hungarian Jews.

- How do you know that?

- That is why they have built
the new crematorium

and extended the Ramp.

- I said, "How do you know"

the intent
to kill the Hungarian Jews?"

- The SS, they talk.
- To you?

- I am dirt.
- To each other.

I heard it more than once.

- Are you certain
you heard this?

I have to ask.
Are you certain?

- I heard it more than once.

It is why I knew
I had to escape...

To warn people
of what is to come.

♪♪

- Two days later,
on April 27, 1944,

Vrba's warning came true.

- Auschwitz becomes the center
of the Holocaust,

and the catalyst for that is
the German invasion of Hungary

in March 1944.

- The first 4,000 Jews

were sent by train
from Hungary to Auschwitz.

- Hungary had the largest mostly
intact Jewish community

in Europe, and the persecution
starts almost immediately.

- It was a dress rehearsal
for the planned annihilation

of all 800,000 Hungarian Jews.

- I would argue that the Nazis
are losing the war,

and therefore, they're trying
to win the genocide.

- The Nazis kept
their extermination program

a closely guarded secret

to avoid resistance
and disruption on the trains,

but it was no longer secret.

Vrba and Wetzler's
harrowing testimony

was turned into
a detailed report,

"The Auschwitz Protocol."

- "The Auschwitz Protocol"
is very scientific.

There isn't a lot of emotion,

and I think that was
a deliberate choice

on the part of the escapees.

They weren't going to express
their horror.

The horror is there.

♪♪

- Thanks to "The Protocol,"

Jewish activists in Slovakia
learned of the Nazis' plans

for the Hungarian Jews,
so the duty to act was theirs.

- Everybody who worked
as a courier

had to be prepared
to lose their own life.

They would've been tortured
to reveal

where they'd gotten it.

The last thing in the world
Germany wanted to happen

was that
this information got out.

♪♪

♪♪

- In the first week of May 1944,

"The Protocol"
reached Michael Weissmandl,

who secretly worked
for the Jewish Underground

in the Slovakian capital.

- Rabbi Weissmandl was
a very passionate man.

He's in Slovakia
to rescue people.

♪♪

His sole goal is to take care
of his community,

and he does it with
whatever means he possibly can.

♪♪

♪♪

- Weissmandl was not only among
the first

to read these documents,

but he was the first to fully
believe these documents.

- "The Protocol" was devastating
for Weissmandl.

He had witnessed deportations.

He now realized the full horror
that awaited

those who were forced to leave.

- Weissmandl is sending

this report
everywhere he can think of.

He's trying to get it to
the Jewish Agency in Jerusalem.

He's trying to get it to London,
hopefully to the United States.

He's sending them all
in the hopes that one cry

in the darkness will be heard.

♪♪

♪♪

- Our bedroom door
is knocked down,

and two gendarmes are in our
bedroom yelling and screaming.

"You have 2 minutes
to pack a bundle.

- We are taking you away."
- "Give up your jewelry.

Give up anything
you have in possession."

- My father looked at us
as though he wanted

to save this picture
in his memory of the family...

- He said,
"Get out of the house."

- ...and said
only this sentence.

"Just stay calm.

Remember, calmness is strength,"
and they hit him,

pushed him through the door,
and he was out.

- The rabbi was an elderly
gentleman with a white beard.

He was made to walk in the front
of the columns.

It was symbolic.

The Jews are leaving town.

- As the Nazis ramped up
their extermination program

in the spring of 1944,

the rest of the worldwas
focused on events elsewhere.

The war had reached
a critical juncture.

- What was going on at that
very time

in the United States and Britain
was the preparations for D Day,

on which the total outcome
of the war depended.

Now, this took precedence
over everything.

- The Pacific war was going on
for the Americans,

and that was an immense,
Herculean effort.

They knew that as they moved
closer to Japan,

the fight was going
to get harder and harder

because the Japanese were
terrifically fierce fighters.

- On the other side of Europe,

the Soviet Army at the time
was working full-steam.

Stalin basically destroyed
the entire German Army

in some of the greatest battles
of modern history.

- While the Allies concentrated
on the battlefield,

"The Protocol" gained momentum.

Weissmandl's transmission
reached Roswell McClelland

at the War Refugee Board
in neutral Switzerland.

♪♪

- Is this it?
- The War Refugee Board

was established
by Roosevelt in early 1944,

and it was the only body
anywhere in the world

which specifically had
the task of rescuing Jews.

♪♪

- They were selected
for gassing.

- It gives the impression
of the antechamber

of a bathing establishment.

It holds 2,000 people.

From there, a door
and a few steps lead down

into the very long
and narrow gas chamber.

- Roswell McClelland had a very
personal reaction

because he had gone
to Southern France

working with Jews
in internment camps in 1942,

and he knows intimately
who these people are.

He had watched them
go to Auschwitz,

and now he's reading
about what happened to them.

- When Rabbi Weissmandl sent
"The Protocol,"

he added a dramatic postscript.

It was an appeal for help

but also a rebuke
to those who might refuse.

- And you, our brothers in all
the free lands,

what are you doing
about the extermination

which swallows 10,000 every day?

For God's sake, do something
now and quickly.

- He turned the question of what
to do about the death camp

into one of the great moral
issues of the 20th century.

He demanded that the Allied
air forces bomb Auschwitz.

He was the first to do so.

- His call to bomb Auschwitz
was essentially

a call of desperation
and a call of despair.

- It's quite remarkable
because they're demanding

that they bomb a camp

where their own people
are being held prisoner.

It seemed very strange.

- The clock was ticking.

McClelland sent a summaryof
"The Protocol" to Washington.

- Switzerland is completely
surrounded by Nazi territory.

You can't have a courier
go in and out,

so Roswell McClelland
sends a cable and said,

"As soon as I can,
you'll get the whole thing."

- Since early summer 1942,

at least 1.5 million Jews
have been killed.

There is evidence that
from January 1944,

preparations were being made
to receive

and exterminate Hungarian Jews
in these camps.

♪♪

♪♪

♪♪

- For 3 days and 3 nights,
we were locked into that box...

- Every morning,
we were traveling.

They opened those shutters,
and they threw out dead bodies.

-...with a tiny window for air

and one pail for bodily needs,

which turned out to be

very, very embarrassing
and unpleasant.

- Something has always been
going around in my mind,

and I can't get rid of it,
and I feel so ashamed.

♪♪

Tell me, how can
a 14-year-old child...

...hope people should die

so he'll have room
where to sit down?

♪♪

- It was early in the morning
that we arrived.

- The door opened and screams.

[ Speaking German ]

- And through the slits
of the cart that we were in,

I saw the word Auschwitz.

I didn't have a clue
what it was.

- Nazi soldiers standing there
with rifles pointing at us.

Others holding back
snarling big dogs

that were barking at us.

- The first thing was...
- [Inhales]

You breathe in,
and it's a very strange smell.

It was sort of sweetish
and burning.

- I thought, "It's a bakery,
and they're baking bread."

♪♪

♪♪

- And then I noticed
that to the left

when people older

and with glasses
and children and women...

- My mother, my two
little brothers,

and my baby in my mother's arm,

my grandfather,
grandmother, and my aunt...

- My mother went to the left.
- With a flick of his hand

to the left,
they were walked off.

- We didn't even have time
to say goodbye.

- And that's when I saw
my father the last time.

He was 60 years old.

- Roswell McClelland's cable
containing a summary of

"The Auschwitz Protocol"

and the plea to bomb the camp
traveled from Switzerland

to the headquarters of the War
Refugee Board in Washington.

- It is urged by all sources
of this information

in Slovakia and Hungary

that vital sections
of the rail lines be bombed.

They also urge that the camps
of Auschwitz and Birkenau,

especially the gas chambers
and crematoriums,

recognizable by
their high chimneys,

be bombed from the air.

- The director
of the War Refugee Board

was a lawyer named John Pehle.

The decision about what to do
with this

startling information
fell on his shoulders.

- John Pehle was very measured,

and he was very diligent
and dogged.

He's not cynical.

He really does believe
that the United States

can try to save people.

- Would you please ask Dr. Akzin
to step through to my office?

Oh, and hold all incoming calls
until he leaves.

- When people saw the level
of detail in this atrocity,

they recognized that this
was something different.

This was something horrifying.

[ Knock on door ]

- Ben, I want you to take
a look this.

- Benjamin Akzin is a lawyer.

He grew up in Latvia and was
an incredibly intelligent man.

He's Jewish.

He certainly still had family
and friends back in Europe.

He sees the War Refugee Board
as a place

where he can do some good.

♪♪

- This is...

It's inconceivable.

- Incredible, unbelievable.

-125,000 a month?

You can go straight
to the President with this.

- [ Scoffs ]
- What's so funny?

- It doesn't work that way, Ben.

There are procedures.
There are rules.

- There are no rules
for this, surely.

- If it's true.

We have to be sure.
That's all.

- It's very easy for us
these days

to close our eyes
and imagine Auschwitz.

We've seen photos.

Many of us may have even
visited Auschwitz,

and so it's really hard
to reconstruct

how chaotic information
about Auschwitz was.

- There are eyewitnesses,
two of them.

- It is unusual, I grant.

- It's unprecedented, John,
and Roswell McClelland

seems to think it's true.

That's quite something,
isn't it?

- It is.

Take a look at this.

It came in with the cable.

It's a list of suggestions
made by Jewish groups

from Slovakia and Switzerland
fielded by Roswell.

♪♪

- My first thought is,
"They're right."

We should bomb,
send them some air mail.

- I don't think the response,
"Let's bomb this place.

Can we react to this atrocity?"
was at all unusual.

I think all of us would've liked
to have thought

that's exactly
the response we would have.

- This thing, John, it speaks
of industrial slaughter.

- For a lot of people,
it was "The Protocol"

that changed their mind,

that in order to stop
this mass killing,

you had to take out
the instrument of killing,

and the only way to take out
the instrument of killing

was to bomb the camp.

- You see, I don't recall
ever reading about

or hearing
about a proposal like this one,

and I'm talking about
in any war,

to bomb friendly civilians,

civilians we're committed
to rescuing?

And that's a moral leap into...

I don't know what it is.

- Pehle perceives thatthere's
not much that we can do.

The War Refugee Board is
constantly trying

to get informationabout
what's going on in Europe,

and I think he sees
this as information

but not actionable intelligence.

- I'll make the suggestions
to the War Department,

but I know what they'll say.

- It's a diversion.

- On June 29,
1944,Pehle passed the recommendations

to bomb Auschwitz up the chain
of the command to John McCloy,

the Assistant Secretary of War.

- But McCloy is not inclinedto
divert resources from the war

because the war was at such
a critical moment

at that point in time.

- Allied forces had
landedsuccessfully in France on D Day.

The supreme effort was now
to drive toward Germany,

reach Berlin, and force

the unconditional surrender
of the Nazis.

Round-the-clock bombing missions
against German targets, urban,

military, and industrial,
were intensifying.

On the Eastern Front,

the Soviet Army was advancing
westward toward Poland.

- No one really grasps
that this was part of an effort

to wipe out an entire people

from one end of Europe
to the other and beyond.

♪♪

- 437,402 Jews were shipped
primarily to Birkenau

on 147 trains.

147 trains during 54 days

meant an average
of 2.7 trains a day,

an average of 2,975 Jews
per train.

You can't say,
"We shall win the war,

and then we'll worry
about the refugees."

You can't go on with business
as usual.

You can't imagine not doing
something about it.

♪♪

- This is the period in the
whole history of Auschwitz

where the killing reaches
its frenzied climax.

Never before have so many Jews
been killed

so quickly in Auschwitz-Birkenau

as in the period between
May and July 1944.

♪♪

♪♪

♪♪

- I didn't know
what a crematorium was.

I didn't know what
a gas chamber was.

I didn't have a clue,
but we soon found out.

It didn't take us long
to find out.

- Somebody asked me,
"Was your mother with you?"

I said, "No, she went left",

probably with the older women
now in another block."

- And we learned finally
what happened,

all those who went to the left.

We didn't want to believe it.

- And they said
only this sentence.

"That's where she went.
She went through the chimney."

- So we all look back at these
chimneys, and I keep thinking,

"How does a person
go through a chimney?"

- What, they going to burn
my mother, my brother?

I didn't believe it.

- We were absolutely
incredulous.

"It's not true. It's not true.
It can't be."

- We got to know next day
that it is true.

They were burning the families.

- "The Protocol" may
have stalled in America,

but it reached the desk of
Foreign Secretary Anthony Eden

in London.

The Jewish Agency
representatives in London,

Chaim Weizmann
and Moshe Shertok,

arranged an urgent meeting
to make their plea directly.

- Chaim Weizmann was
the president

of the World
Zionist Organization,

and Weizmann understood very
well the situation of the Jews.

Moshe Shertok was later thesecond
prime minister of Israel.

- And we think some kind
ofreprisal needs to be considered,

something that will act
as a deterrence to Germany.

If the Auschwitz camp
continues to function

as a killing center, then...

- You bomb.

The aim being to dislocate

the machinery of annihilation
and hope to save the remaining

300,000 Hungarian Jews
from extermination.

- It's bold.
- It has imagination.

It may even work.

- And Mr. Churchill?

- Also in favor, in principle.

What we should need to do now

is examine its feasibility
with the Air Ministry.

- Yes. [ Chuckles ]

Yes, of course.

- In a memo to Eden,
Winston Churchill

wrote about Auschwitz,

"There is no doubt that this
isprobably the most horrible crime

ever committed in the whole
history of the world."

- Churchill's instincts
are genuine.

He was one of the first
to recognize the full gravity

of what had been going on.

- He said to Eden,
"We should do something."

Then he said, "Get anything out
of the Air Force you can"

and invoke me if necessary."

- Eden would've interpreted it
as, "Act quickly."

Act decisively,
and you have my blessing."

- Two of the most powerful men
in Britain

now supported
the bombing of Auschwitz.

Eden summoned the head
of the Air Ministry,

Sir Archibald Sinclair,

to discuss the feasibility
of a raid.

- Well, it was quite a surprise,
receiving this.

I mean, it hasn't been raised
at cabinet, so far as I know.

- Unnecessary, according
to Winston.

- Hmm.

Well, there's a feeling
in the ministry

that we shouldn't be disrupting
the Normandy campaign

right now with an operation
of this nature.

- There is?
- Yes.

Yes, there's quite
a strong feeling.

Also, isn't this a thing
for our Soviet allies, anyway,

being much closer to theintended
target than us, I mean.

- This is all very
interesting, Archie,

but I asked you to examine
the feasibility

of a bombing raid
on Auschwitz-Birkenau.

- That's what I've done,
Anthony.

- Well, no, you haven't
done that, you see.

You have merely listed
the objections the Air Force

might have to such a mission
and come up with a couple

of fanciful suggestions
of your own.

What we need to discover,
you and I,

is whether the bombing raid on
Auschwitz is actually feasible.

I think you should coordinate
your thinking

with the Americans.

- Sinclair, I think he did look
at it and said,

"Better hand it off
to the Americans.

They're in a better position
to do it than we are."

- Eden's request for
a feasibility study

into bombing Auschwitz
reached General Carl Spaatz,

one of the most powerful men
in the Allied Air Force.

- Spaatz says, "Yes, this sounds
like something"

I would be willing to do."

I can't imagine that anyone
like Carl Spaatz

would not have been outraged

and would not have wanted
some kind of retribution

or attempt to get at this
with the instrument

that was available to him,
which was the long-range bomber.

- The moral question of, "Should"

we bomb Auschwitz?"

became a technical one.

Could

we bomb Auschwitz?

- Every target that was attacked
was attacked

after specialized intelligence
was applied to it.

Where is it located?
What does it look like?

What would be the best routes?

- The Allies had been gathering
intelligence about the area

since spring 1944.

Spy planes did fly
over Auschwitz-Birkenau,

but they were lookingfor
factories, not a death camp.

- They had been photographing
all around IG Farben in order

to support hitting
the industrial areas

that were producing
synthetic fuel for the Germans,

which was a critically
important target.

- The photos were taken
to RAF Medmenham,

where they were analyzed in 3-D.

By chance, three of them
showed Auschwitz-Birkenau.

These were the images
General Spaatz

desperately needed.

- The photographs
covered a wide area,

more than just
the IG Farben site itself.

They were picking up Birkenau.

They had the crematoria
in photographs.

They just didn't know
they had them.

♪♪

- By August 1944,the tide
of the war was turning.

The Allies finally
had supremacy in the air.

American bombers were attacking
targets deep in Eastern Europe,

including Poland.

- They were flying to many
targets right

in the vicinity of Auschwitz,

so these airplanes were,
in fact,

within range of attacking
the crematoria at Birkenau.

Within range of attacking
the crematoria at Birkenau.

- One must remember that
the idea of bombing Auschwitz

is to destroy the gas chambers
without killing the people.

Now, this is
extremely difficult.

The gas chambers at Auschwitzwere
the size of a tennis court.

- There was nothing
even remotely like precision

bombing in the Second World War.

- The American B-17s
flew over 30,000 feet

at 300 miles an hour,

and the bombs they had then
were extraordinarily primitive.

- If one bomb was going to hit
each of the crematoria,

you would need to send roughly
220 bombers,

each of them dropping 10 bombs
to have a high chance

of one bomb
landing on that building.

It's very hard.

It's very hard to do this.

- The word they used is,
"Bombs away"...

♪♪

...and where they land,
nobody knows,

and consequently,
there were mistakes.

♪♪

- All the options were
bad options in a way

because even a small misscould've
killed a lot of people.

- Despite the risks,

General Spaatzwas ready
to carry out the raid.

He needed aerial photos
of the camp,

but no one knew
the images of IG Farben

also showed
the location of Auschwitz.

Meanwhile, pressure to act
came from a new source.

Rumors about Auschwitz
were stoking public outrage.

- Rabbi Stephen Weisz, the head
of the World Jewish Congress,

organizes a rally
in Madison Square Park

in New York City
on July 31, 1944,

and about 40,000 Americans
attend this rally.

- It's a call for
the bombing of Auschwitz,

and I think it's
a striking commentary

on the level of public knowledgeand
the level of public concern.

- Trains to Auschwitz continued
relentlessly.

With "The Protocol,"

Jewish leaders now knew
the fate of the deportees.

They demanded a meeting
with John Pehle

at the War Refugee Board.

- Mr. Kubowitzki.

- Leon Kubowitzki of
the World Jewish Congress

and Bezalel Sherman
of the Jewish Labor Committee

had very different views
on the bombing of Auschwitz.

- We're torn.
- Of course you are.

- They were divided,
and they were fearful.

One fear that they had was,

they didn't want to turn the war
into a Jewish war

because the future
of the world was at stake.

- We are faced, it seems,
with a monstrous determination

from Nazi Germany
to pursue this criminal murder

of the Jews of Europe
to its bitter end.

- Hence the call to bomb
these installations ourselves.

- The War Refugee Board

fully appreciates
the motives behind the idea.

We know it wasn't suggested
lightly,

but the fact is that the
War Department still believes

that such a bombing mission
can be achieved

only with considerable
diversion of resources.

- Then divert.

- I'm sorry, Mr. Sherman?

- Divert.

We've read the testimony
of these two men

who escaped from the Auschwitz
camp, the things they saw.

We've been given
corroborative evidence, too.

- As have we.
- So we all know.

A picture is forming of
something off the human scale.

Isn't that so?

The Germans have created
a factory in Poland

whose sole purpose
is the eradication

by gas
of an entire race of people.

I say divert.

- All right.

Let's just say for a minute
that the United States

or Great Britain
bombs this place.

Can we know how many...

- How many Jews will be killed
by our bombs?

- That's right, Mr. Sherman.

Hell, if we miss
the gas chambers,

we destroy
30,000 prisoners instead.

Wouldn't that give the Nazis
a great alibi?

I can hear it now.

"The Western Allies hate
the Jews more than we do."

- The Germans took anything

they could grasp
for propaganda purposes,

so there would've been
a struggle over the narrative

of who was being more brutal.

- I believe
in [Speaks foreign language]

I believe in saving those
actually living.

- I don't understand what
follows from that.

- You cannot kill the innocent

in order
to prevent a catastrophe.

- There was a genuine debate
that went on.

There were very good people

who were directly affected
by the Holocaust,

who had lost members
of their family,

who weren't sure that
the bombing was a good thing.

- Thank you.
- Mr. Sherman.

- All the excuses for not
bombing Auschwitz

omit the most compelling reason
for bombing Auschwitz.

It would've been recognition
that what was happening

there was totally evil

and unacceptable
to the world itself.

- We keep repeating the line
that bombing Auschwitz

would constitute a diversion,
but how do we know that?

- Pehle might have said
to himself, "He may be right",

and now the ball
is in my court,"

and that's an awesome
responsibility.

- Oh, I would bomb
this infernal place.

You know I would,
and the railroads too.

- That's what my gut is
telling me also,

but we know it's not
about the gut, is it?

It's about what the
War Department wants.

- Then bypass them.

Go tell the president.

Acquaint Roosevelt
with the facts, and he'll act.

- There is no evidence that
Roosevelt is ever approached

about the question of whether
the United States

should bomb Auschwitz.

- FDR was not well
to begin with.

He was fighting polio.

He was very subject to the flu.

He had congestive heart failure.

He didn't stop working,

but he had to kind of come out
of the public eye for periods.

- At the same time,
Churchill'ssupport for the plan was waning.

Chaim Weizmann of
the Jewish Agency was informed

by the British Foreign Office

that technical difficulties
prevented the bombing.

One official dismissed the idea
as fantastic

and concluded
it should be dropped.

Another complained that a
disproportionate amount of time

is wasted dealing
with these wailing Jews.

♪♪

- We're not going to believe
atrocity stories.

These stories are just
being told to get us

to let refugees in,
to get us to let children in,

and that level of anti-Semitism

that creeps into
so many decisions...

"Ah, those Jews
are carping again."

- Despite being written off asa
diversion from the war effort,

on September 13, 1944,

the Allies did bomb
Auschwitz-Birkenau.

- Some 2,000 or so bombs
rained down.

Dozens of prisoners are killed.

Hundreds more are injured.

- However, it wasn't
intentional.

The target was the nearby
IG Farben factory.

- Auschwitz was never a priority.

Synthetic rubber was a priority.

Synthetic gas and oil
was a priority.

IG Farben was a priority.

- If there was a target
that they were intended

to bomb was 4 miles away,

and this inadvertently
bombed Auschwitz,

that shows how, you know,
how amateurish the bombing was.

♪♪

♪♪

- All of a sudden,
the air is full of noise.

- I'm sure that some people
were hoping

they're going to bomb us
or at least the gas chambers,

- but I can't say I did.
- We didn't care.

We were hoping that they
should bomb that place.

- I said, "My God, you know,
finally they have arrived,"

and I said, "Keep bombing"

the hell out of this place
no matter what happens."

- In April 1944,
Vrba and Wetzler

escaped from Auschwitz
to warn the world

about the extermination
of the European Jews.

By September,
still nothing had been done.

- The American army reaches
the border of Switzerland

at the end of September,
freeing, for the first time,

all of the people
inside Switzerland

who can now send messages
to the wider world.

- John Pehle at
the War Refugee Board

finally received the full
"Protocol" in early November.

What he read shocked him
to his core.

- This version of "The Protocol"
is much longer.

It reads more like a testimony.

"This is what Auschwitz is.

It is a place where horrific
things are happening."

- The difference when the full
report is released is stunning.

It's undeniable.

You can put them side-by-side,

and you see
a striking difference.

- Gassing took place as follows.

The unfortunate victims
were brought into the hall,

where they were
asked to undress.

- Each person receives a towel
and a small piece of soap

issued to them
by two men clad in white coats.

They are then crowded into the
gas chambers in such numbers

that there is
only standing room.

- When they were all inside,
they closed this heavy door...

...and there was a short pause.

- After which SS men
in gas masks climbed the roof,

opened the traps, and shake down
a preparation in powder form

from tin cans labeled, "Zyklon.
For use against vermin,"

manufactured by
a Hamburg concern.

- It's a cyanide mixture
that turns to gas

at certain temperatures,

and after 3 minutes,

everyone in the chamber
was dead.

♪♪

- When Pehle saw
the entire report,

his conscious could no longer
allow him to be tentative

or to sit quietly.

♪♪

- Mr. McCloy, good morning, sir.

John Pehle here.

I have something I think
you must see.

It's a report from Auschwitz.

- His reaction was,
"It's worse than I thought."

I thought it was
extraordinarily evil.

"This is by a magnitude
even more than that."

- He goes back to John McCloy.

He sends him a copy
of "The Protocols"

with a cover note that says,

"I am now convinced that we need
to use direct bombing action"

to destroy the gas chambers

"and crematorium
in Auschwitz-Birkenau."

- Pehle was told conclusively
by Assistant Secretary

of War John McCloy
that bombing Auschwitz

was not feasible
from a military standpoint.

- He says, "There is considerable
opinion to the effect"

that such an action,
even if practicable,

might provoke
a more vindictive response

"on the part of the Germans."

What's more vindictive
than Auschwitz?

- The officials who made
the decision

that this shouldn't be done,

they weren't concerned about
the people in the camp.

From everything we know,

the vast majority of them
just sloughed it off.

- Pehle couldn't force
the War Department to act.

Instead, he leaked the full
version of "The Protocol"

to newspapers
with a cover letter.

- So revolting and diabolical
are the German atrocities

that the minds of civilized
people find it difficult

to believe
they've actually taken place.

- Pehle understood
his responsibilities,

and that was his greatness.

I regarded John Pehle as one
of the great American heroes,

and he said, "We did too little,
and we did too late."

- Pehle knew what he was doing,

and he played the media card
very, very well.

It got a great deal
of attention.

It was all over the newspapers.

- This is front-page
news nationwide.

The Washington Post publishes

an editorial
entitled "Genocide."

It's the first time that
wordappears in a national newspaper.

The day that this information
isreleased to the American people,

the Nazis destroy
the gas chambers.

- It was an attempt to destroy
the evidence,

but it didn't work.

Two months later,
on January 27, 1945,

Auschwitz was liberated
by the Red Army.

- The Soviet soldiers who
entered Auschwitz were moved

and shaken by what they saw.

They understood that they had
come across something unique,

that they had seen somethinghorrific
beyond the imagination.

- I wish the British
or the Americans

had pushed for this target

to have been bombed
as a statement of principle,

as a statement to the Nazis
that this is atrocious,

and we as the human species
will not stand for it.

- It's one of the most emotive
things that's ever happened

in modern history.

You could say
this is a great failure,

but one has to understand that
they're fighting a world war

and the fate of
the surviving Jews of Europe

largely depended on
liberating Nazi-occupied Europe

and destroying the Nazi regime.

- I would advocate bombing

as a statement
of profound moral outrage,

but do I think
it would've solved the problem?

No, and I think the critics
who say

that it would have
haven't read the history well.

But moral protest in the wake
of genocide is much better

than nothing,
much, much better than nothing.

♪♪

- I think it's important
when people

are being subjected to genocide
for the world to say,

"We do give a damn,"

because you don't knowwhere
it's going to happen next.

- We came to the position
that we had to recommend this

and that it should be done,

and not only should
the rail lines be bombed,

but the crematoria
should be bombed too.

It's tragic that we didn't
take this position

in the first place,
but that is the fact.