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Letters They Wouldn't Publish
April 7, 2006
Letters to the Editor New York Times Dear editor: Your April 7 obituary of Auschwitz escapee Rudolf Vrba noted that when Vrba's detailed report about the mass murder of Jews reached Washington in 1944, "the United States government endorsed it as true." It did endorse it--but only after the report was stalled and almost suppressed by a number of Roosevelt administration officials. During the Holocaust years, the administration not only opposed taking substantial action on behalf of Europe's Jews, but resisted even calling attention to the Jews’ suffering, lest that increase pressure on the U.S. to grant haven to refugees. Vrba's report reached the American diplomatic legation in Switzerland in June 1944, but officials there did not send the full text to Washington until four months later. Then it was nearly spiked by the Office of War Information, which opposed publicizing news of Nazi atrocities "if it appears to be simply affecting the Jewish people," and argued against releasing Vrba's report on the grounds that it was more of “a multiplicity of ‘mean little things’,” rather than proof of systematic annihilation. To his credit, John Pehle, director of the War Refugee Board (an agency belatedly established by FDR under Congressional and other pressure) ignored those protests and publicized the report. The title of Vrba's autobiography, “I Cannot Forgive," referred to the German perpetrators of the genocide and their collaborators. Had he known about the behind-the-scenes struggle in Washington over his report, Vrba might well have also been referring to the unforgivable attempts by U.S. government officials to suppress the news about Auschwitz. Cordially, Rafael Medoff |
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