Beyond Belief (63 page)

55
.
New York Times
, June 4, 1944, p. 6.

56
.
Los Angeles Times
, June 17, 1944, p. 3;
New York World Telegram
, June 16, 1944.

57
.
New York Times
, June 20, 1944, p. 5, June 25, 1944, p. 5;
Washington Times Herald
, June 20, 1944.

58
. For a detailed history of the release of the report see Gilbert, chap. 25.

59
. The articles published on July 3 gave the higher figure in the range, 1,715,000; subsequent articles all referred to 1,750,000. Apparently the Lithuanian Jews were inadvertently dropped from the original list of victims. When they were added, the toll reached 1,750,000.
New York Times
, July 3, 1944, p. 3, July 6, 1944, p. 6;
Christian Science Monitor
, July 3, 1944, pp. 3, 7;
Washington Star
, July 3, 1944, p. 2;
Los Angeles Times
, July 9, 1944, p. 15;
Washington Times Herald
, July 9, 1944;
Seattle Times
, July 3, 1944, p. 2;
Kansas City Star
, July 3, 1944, p. 12;
PM
, July 6, 1944.

60
.
New York Times
, July 3, 1944, p. 3.

61
.
Christian Science Monitor
, July 3, 1944, p. 3;
Los Angeles Times
, July 9, 1944, p. 5.

62
.
Washington Post
, July 7, 1944, p. 2;
Washington Times Herald
, July 9, 1944.

63
. Brigham's article ran the length of an entire column, while another story on the page on Eden's warning to the Hungarians about harming the Jews was three-quarters of a column long.
New York Times
, July 6, 1944, p. 6.

64
.
New York Herald Tribune
, July 6, 1944, p. 3;
Washington Post
, July 7, 1944, p. 2. Other reports on Auschwitz that appeared during this period included a
Christian Science Monitor
report on July 10 by a staff correspondent stationed in London that the “extermination and massacres of the Hungarian Jewish community” had already begun.
PM
carried one of the more extensive descriptions of conditions in Auschwitz based on information it had received from the Czechoslovakian government in exile. This information was based on the eyewitness report which had reached Switzerland in mid-June. A Czech diplomat, who described the report as “so revolting” that he was barely able to force himself to read it, told
PM
that though a few details in it might be incorrect, it was “indisputably clear” that terrible cruelties were being “carried out [in a] wholesale, systematic . . . deliberately organized” fashion.
Christian Science Monitor
, July 10, 1944, p. 7;
PM
, July 6, 1944.

65
.
Christian Science Monitor
, July 6, 1944, pp. 1, 7.

66
.
Christian Science Monitor
, August 12, 1944, p. 11.
Christian Century
, September 27, 1944, p. 1113.

67
.
New York Times
, July 19, 1944, p. 5;
New York Herald Tribune
, July 19, 1944, p. 4;
Chicago Tribune
, July 19, 1944, p. 10;
Christian Science Monitor
, July 20, 1944, p. 7.

68
. Allied leaders had spoken out on this issue. The press tended to pay their warnings more attention than it paid the actual reports on Hungarian Jews. The
Washington Post
and
Los Angeles Times
both placed the story of Hull's warning on the front page, while the
New York Times, New York Herald Tribune
, and
Baltimore Sun
carried it on page 3.
New York Times
, July 10, 1944, pp. 5, 10, July 15, 1944, p. 3;
New York Herald Tribune
, July 10, 1944, pp. 9, 10, July 15, 1944, p. 3, July 19, 1944;
Baltimore Sun
, July 15, 1944, p. 3;
Los Angeles Times
, July 10, 1944, p. 6, July 15, 1944, p. 1;
Washington Post
, July 15, 1944, p. 1;
Washington Post
, July 15, 1944;
Chicago Tribune
, July 10, 1944, p. 7;
Christian Science Monitor
, July 10, 1944, p. 7. For a description of widespread oppression in Hungary see column by Paul Winkler, “Pogroms in Hungary,” in
Washington Post
, July 15, 1944, p. 6. Earlier protests by Allied leaders had also been covered by the press.
Washington Post
, June 13, 1944, June 22, 1944, p. 5;
New York Times
, June 13, 1944, p. 1, June 22, 1944, p. 9, June 27, 1944, p. 6;
New York Herald Tribune
, June 27, 1944.

69
.
Nation
, July 31, 1944;
Christian Science Monitor
, July 25, 1944, p. 9, July 29, 1944, p. 1.

70
.
New Republic
, July 31, 1944, p. 117.

71
. PM, July 31, 1944.

72
.
Washington Post
, July 25, 1944.

73
. The
Washington Post
printed a letter from the director of the American League for a Free Palestine which contained the text of a cable sent to Winston Churchill demanding that as many Hungarian Jews as possible be saved by allowing them entry into Palestine.
Washington Post
, August 1, 1944, p. 8.

74
. PM, August 2, 1944;
New York Times
, August 1, 1944, p. 17, August 9, 1944, p. 13, August 18, 1944, p. 5;
Chicago Tribune
, August 1, 1944, p. 3, August 9, 1944, p. 5;
Washington Times Herald
, August 5, 1944;
Washington Post
, August 18, 1944, p. 3;
Baltimore Sun
, August 18, 1944, p. 4;
New York Herald Tribune
, August 18, 1944;
Chicago Tribune
, August 18, 1944, p. 7.

75
.
New York Post
, August 24, August 29, 1944;
Washington Post
, September 2, 1944;
Nation
, August 26, 1944, p. 229;
New Republic
, September 4, 1944, p. 261.

76
.
New York Post
, August 7, 1944.

77
.
New York Daily News
, August 14, 1944.

78
.
New York Herald Tribune
, June 20, 1944;
New York Post
, August 7, 1944;
New York World Telegram
, June 16, 1944;
New York Times
, August 22, 1944, p. 10;
New York Times
, September 4, 1944; PM, September 3, September 4, September 5, 1944;
Washington Post
, August 30, 1944, p. 2.

1
. Charles Herbert Stember,
Jews in the Mind of America
(New York: Basic Books, 1966), p. 141; Vernon McKenzie, “Atrocities in World War II—What We Can Believe,”
Journalism Quarterly
, vol. 19 (September 1942), pp. 268-276;
New York Post
, April 2, 1943, p. 29.

2
.
Washington Post
, March 21, 1943, sec. B, p. 7.

3
.
New York Post
, April 2, 1943, p. 29.

4
. Arthur Koestler, “The Nightmare That Is a Reality,”
New York Times Magazine
, January 9, 1944, pp. 5, 30;
Christian Century
, February 16, 1944, pp. 204-206.

5
.
Saturday Evening Post
, October 28, 1944, pp. 18,19,96;
In Fact
, February 14, 1944, p. 3; Koestler, pp. 5, 30.

6
.
New York Times
, October 27, 1944. The December 1944 Gallup poll asked people if they believed the stories that the Germans had murdered many people (the question did not mention Jews) in concentration camps; 76 percent responded affirmatively, while 24 percent did not believe it to be so. A follow-up question which was asked of those who had responded in the affirmative illustrated
the depth of confusion even among those who were willing to acknowledge that many had died:
   Nobody knows, of course, how many may have been murdered but what would be your best guess?

Although three-quarters of those polled accepted the charge “many were murdered” as true, they were strikingly ignorant about the number of victims in light of the fact that by this time tolls of well over 3 million were commonly cited. This number had been confirmed by varied sources, including governments in exile, the Inter-Allied Information Committee, church groups, Jewish and non-Jewish rescue organizations, the press, and, most importantly, the detailed eyewitness report on Auschwitz which had been released the previous month by the WRB. The report had been widely featured by newspapers all over the country, which considered it the official confirmation for which they had been waiting. Most of the headlines cited the death toll as being between 1,750,000 and 2,000,000. It was not until 1945 that Americans adopted more “realistic notions” of the number killed. By May 1945 the median estimate of the number of those killed was 1 million. This again included all victims, since the question did not mention Jews.
Washington Post
, December 3, 1944. George H. Gallup,
The Gallup Poll: Public Opinion, 1935-1971
(New York: Random House, 1972), vol. I, p. 472. Henry Cantril,
Public Opinion
(Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1951), p. 383; Stember, p. 141.

7
.
Washington Post
, April 16, 1945, p. 1; April 19, 1945, p. 2.

8
. Studs Terkel,
The Good War
(New York: Pantheon Books, 1984), p. 144;
Washington Post
, April 23, 1945, p. 6, April 27, 1945, p. 6, April 28, 1945, pp. 1, 2.

9
.
Washington Post
, April 28, 1945, p. 4;
New York World Telegram
, April 3, 1945, p. 1.

10
.
St. Louis Post Dispatch
, May 20, 1945, p. 1d;
Editor &
Publisher
, May 5, 1945, p. 40. The recollections of the soldiers are from the Fred R. Crawford Witness to the Holocaust Project, Emory University,
Atlanta, Georgia, and are cited in Robert H. Abzug,
Inside the Vicious Heart: Americans and the Liberation of Nazi Concentration Camps
(New York: Oxford University Press, 1985), p. 138.

11
.
The Nation
, May 19, 1945 p. 579, reprinted in James Agee,
Agee on Film I
(New York: Grosset & Dunlap, 1969), pp. 161-162; Milton Mayer, “Let the Swiss Do It!”
Progressive
, May 14, 1945, as cited in Abzug, pp. 136-137, 186.

12
.
New Statesman and Nation
, April 28, 1945, p. 267; Alexander Kendrick,
Prime Time: The Life of Edward R. Murrow
(Boston: Little, Brown, 1969), p. 278; David Halberstam,
The Powers That Be
, (New York: Knopf, 1979), pp. 43-44.

13
.
Time
, March 8, 1943, p. 29;
Newsweek
, September 13, 1943, p. 40.

14
.
San Francisco Examiner
, April 23, 1945, p. 7;
New York Times
, August 4, 1944, p. 5.

15
. Bill Lawrence,
Six Presidents, Too Many Wars
(New York: Saturday Review Press, 1972), pp. 90-91.

16
.
New York Times
, November 29, 1943, p. 3; Lawrence, p. 95 (emphasis added).

17
.
St. Louis Post Dispatch
, November 29, 1944, p. 1;
Newsweek
, December 6, 1943, p. 22;
Los Angeles Examiner
, November 29, 1943, p. 1;
New York World Telegram
, November 29, 1943, p. 10.

18
.
New York Times
, November 29, 1943, p. 3 (emphasis added);
Los Angeles Examiner
, November 29, 1943, pp. 1, 2 (emphasis added).

19
.
New York Journal American
, November 29, 1943, p. 1, December 11, 1943, p. 1;
New York World Telegram
, November 29, 1943, p. 10.

20
.
Manchester Guardian
, November 29, 1943.

21
.
Los Angeles Examiner
, November 29, 1943, pp. 1, 2.

22
. Lawrence's skepticism may also help explain why the
New York Times
used the figure of 50,000 in its headline and not the 100,000 figure that the
New York World Telegram
and
New York Journal American
did.
St. Louis Post Dispatch
November 29, 1943, p. 1;
Los Angeles Times
, November 29, 1943, p. 1;
Los Angeles Examiner
, November 29, 1943, p. 1;
New York Journal American
, November 29, 1943, p. 1;
New York Times
, November 29, 1943, p. 3.

23
.
New York Journal American
, December 11, 1944, p. 1. In a strange quirk of journalistic practice the paper ran the story twice, once on November 29 and again on December 11.

24
. Lawrence, p. 92;
Los Angeles Times
, November 29, 1943, p. 1.

25
.
New York Times
, August 30, 1944, p. 1, August 31, 1944, p. 16; Lawrence, p. 102.