Analysis: January 1943 Telegram Confirming Reports of Mass Executions of Jews in Poland
The January 1943 telegram, issued by Gerhart Riegner of the World Jewish Congress and Richard Lichtheim of the Jewish Agency for Palestine, confirmed alarming reports of mass executions of Jews in Poland during World War II. This document highlighted the systematic extermination efforts by the Nazi regime, which had been suggested in earlier communications, including a leaked report from a German businessman. The telegram detailed that as many as 6,000 Jews were being executed daily, reflecting the severe humanitarian crisis faced by Jewish communities across Europe.
In addition to mass executions, it addressed the ongoing deportations from various countries and the dire conditions in ghettos and labor camps. The broader context reveals the failure of the international community to respond adequately to the plight of Jewish refugees fleeing Nazi oppression, despite mounting evidence of genocidal actions. The report stands as an urgent call for action, urging Allied leadership to intervene amidst escalating atrocities, while also underscoring the desperate need for humanitarian assistance for the affected Jewish populations. This analysis serves to illuminate the grave realities faced by Jews in Nazi-occupied territories and the challenges of international response during this dark chapter of history.
Analysis: January 1943 Telegram Confirming Reports of Mass Executions of Jews in Poland
Date: January 21, 1943
Author: Richard Lichtheim; Gerhart Riegner
Genre: letter
Summary Overview
On January 19, 1943, Gerhart Riegner of the World Jewish Congress and Richard Lichtheim of the Jewish Agency for Palestine, both in Geneva, Switzerland, issued a joint report on the mass execution and other Nazi-led persecutions of Europe's Jews. Their report served to confirm an earlier report made by Riegner, in August 1942, regarding Nazi plans to exterminate the continent's Jewish population. That information had been leaked by a Nazi informant, later disclosed as Eduard Schulte, a prominent German businessman with close ties to the Nazi elite. The report in January 1943 cites several sources as confirming the deliberate execution of thousands of Jews per day in Poland. It also elucidates the ongoing deportation of Jews from across Europe and the declining conditions suffered by those remaining in ghettos and labor camps.
Defining Moment
Anti-Semitism was not a uniquely Nazi attitude. Throughout the Nazi Party's rise to power, Jews attempted to flee Germany and its neighboring lands, only to be rebuffed. Most nations, including the United States, maintained strict quotas on immigration. Despite mounting reports of persecution and violence against Jews, these nations did not relax their restrictions in order to admit more Jewish refugees. Even when Allied leaders called a conference at Évian, France, in 1938, to discuss potential solutions to the refugee crisis, little was done. Hitler had stated that he would allow the millions of Jews in German-controlled territory emigrate, but the international community would not take them.
In the United States, a nativist and isolationist mood predominated not only among the citizenry but also in the Congress. The Immigration Reform Act of 1924 had passed tight quotas that saw only nominal relaxation following the Évian Conference. Immigration restrictions in the United States actually tightened in 1940, as the nation became more involved in European affairs, and again in 1941, when the United States officially entered World War II. President Franklin D. Roosevelt and other officials warned that stricter controls on immigration were needed to prevent an influx of potential German spies and other foreign threats.
When Riegner sent his first report of Nazi plans to exterminate European Jewry, American officials delayed transmission of the message and did not immediately publicize what they had learned. Many officials decried the reports as rumor, and dismissed them as exaggerated. However, reports from various quarters kept coming. In November 1942, the US State Department confirmed that deliberate mass executions were taking place at death camps in Poland, and Rabbi Stephen Wise of the American Jewish Congress made a public statement regarding Nazi plans for genocide. A month later, on December 17, 1942, Allied leaders and the so-called United Nations (not yet a formal international body) had issued a statement condemning “in the strongest possible terms this bestial policy of cold-blooded extermination.” However, they did not take military action to stop the killings or to liberate the victims of the death camps.
By January 1943, several known killing centers were operating in Poland, and reports had been leaked of mass killings in Romania. Riegner and Lichtheim's report came as added confirmation to a growing pile of evidence. However, the reports would keep coming. Citizens, journalists, and reporters in Europe would keep relaying information on the operations of the Nazi death camps in hopes that the Allies would respond with more than speeches.
Author Biography
Born in Berlin in 1885, Richard Lichtheim became a leader in the German and global Zionist movement. In the early twentieth century, the Zionists promoted Jewish culture and rights and advocated for a return to the Jewish homeland in what was then Palestine (now Israel and the Israeli-occupied territories). Lichtheim studied at the University of Freiburg before joining the World Zionist Organization in 1909. He became editor of the organization's main publication, Die Welt, and authored Zionist treatises that earned him international notice. During World War II, Lichtheim served as the representative for the Jewish Agency for Palestine in Geneva, Switzerland. Lichtheim died in 1963.
Gerhart Riegner was born a Jew in Germany in 1911. His family weathered World War I, and Riegner went on to study law and political science. As Hitler and the Nazis rose to power, Riegner took notice. In May 1933, just months after Hitler was elected chancellor of Germany, Riegner fled to France, where he finished his law degree before immigrating to Switzerland. In Geneva, Riegner served first as a legal officer and then as director of the World Jewish Congress office. He remained there for the duration of World War II, and afterward worked to provide aid to Jewish refugees. Later in life, he remained involved with the World Jewish Congress, serving as secretary general from 1965 to 1983, and worked closely with the United Nations. Riegner died in 2001.
Document Analysis
This document, dated January 21, 1943, is a telegram from the American Legation, or embassy, in Bern, Switzerland, to the US State Department. The purpose of the telegram is to relay a report from Richard Lichtheim and Gerhart Riegner, written two days earlier, as indicated in the closing line of the report. The telegram also requests that the report be sent to Rabbi Stephen Wise, leader of the American Jewish Congress and friend to President Roosevelt. The American Legation, via envoy Leland Harrison and Vice Consul Howard Elting, Jr., had played a crucial role in relaying a previous message from Riegner regarding the Nazi plan for extermination of the Jews to the State Department. Riegner had requested that this previous message be sent to Rabbi Wise as well. British official Samuel Sydney Silverman, rather than the Americans, fulfilled that earlier request.
Riegner and Lichtheim's report follows up on Riegner's earlier message, as detailed in the first sentence: “It has now been confirmed from different sources that mass executions have taken place in Poland and it is reported from one source that 6,000 are killed daily.” A key component of this statement is “confirmed from different sources,” which emphasizes that Riegner and Lichtheim are confirming earlier allegations of genocide, and are relying on multiple sources for their information. The reference to multiple sources is meant to add credibility to the report. The statement also clarifies that the killings are taking place in Poland, then recognized as the destination for most of the mass deportations of Jews across Europe, and cites a specific number of people being executed each day. The authors provide an additional detail, explaining that the Jews selected for execution are required “to strip themselves of all clothing, which is then sent to Germany.” These details lend credence to the allegations of Nazi genocide.
Riegner and Lichtheim go on to describe the conditions endured by those Jews remaining in Polish ghettos, as well as in labor camps throughout Europe. Although this content does not directly support allegations regarding Nazi intentions to exterminate the Jewish population, it does reinforce that Nazis have singled out European Jews for persecution, and makes clear the dire, desperate conditions in which European Jews were living. The overall impression is that the Jewish people of Europe were being treated as a subhuman class, subjected to numerous atrocities, including separation from their children.
The report also refers to ongoing and planned deportations from Austria, Holland, Germany, and other locations. “It is reported from Prague and Berlin that no Jews will be left in either city by the end of March.” This conveys Nazi plans to empty most German-controlled lands of Jewish citizens. One paragraph includes information provided by Dr. Wilhelm Fildermann, accounting for the 130,000 Romanian Jews deported to Transnistria, a region located in northeastern Romania that bordered German-occupied Poland. There, several concentration camps and ghettos had been established.
The report concludes with the assertion that “Fildermann insists that the community requires urgent assistance,” and the entire document may be interpreted as an appeal for action on the part of Allied leadership.
Glossary
ghetto: former usage—a section of a city in which all Jews were required to live
Resienstadt: formally known as Theresienstadt; a concentration camp or ghetto established by the SS during World War II.
Bibliography and Additional Reading
Breitman, Richard, and Alan M. Kraut. “A Message to Rabbi Wise.” American Refugee Policy and European Jewry, 1933–1945. Bloomington: Indiana UP, 1987. 146–66. Print.
Breitman, Richard. Official Secrets: What the Nazis Planned, What the British and Americans Knew. New York: Hill, 1998. Print.
Hamerow, Theodore S. Why We Watched: Europe, America, and the Holocaust. New York: Norton, 2008. Print.
Kershaw, Ian. Hitler, the Germans, and the Final Solution. New Haven: Yale UP, 2008. Print.
Neufeld, Michael J., and Michael Berenbaum, eds. The Bombing of Auschwitz: Should the Allies Have Attempted It? New York: St. Martin's, 2000. Print.
Roseman, Mark. The Wannsee Conference and the Final Solution: A Reconsideration. New York: Metropolitan, 2002. Print.