Kto ratuje jedno życie ... : Polacy i Żydzi, 1939-1945.
Kazimierz Iranek-Osmecki
Book| Title |
British intelligence and information about murder by gas : a reappraisal. |
|---|---|
| Host Item |
Yad Vashem Studies 41,1 (2013) 151-186 |
| Description |
Focuses on the question of what British intelligence, and hence the government and military, knew about the Nazi perpetration of the Holocaust and especially on the unprecedented method of mass murder - the gas chambers. Examination of the wartime intelligence reports shows that from the very start of the Nazi genocidal campaign, the intelligence services knew about the existence of murder facilities (gas chambers, gas wagons) but regarded them as a means for technical experiments, with the aim of using toxic gases at the frontline or expanding the euthanasia program. It is true that the information on the mass murder that was received by the intelligence services was inexact, contradictory, and in many cases wrong however, that is the case in every big war, and a skilled intelligence analyst could have figured out the true picture. During almost all of the Holocaust period, the intelligence agencies dismissed most of their possible sources as unreliable, and disbelieved the reports on murder by toxic gas. This ignorance was shared also by the OSS. Only in 1945 did the military come to believe in the reality of the gas chambers. The failure to understand the exact meaning of the received information and to grasp what was going on in Europe, and hence the failure of the government to destroy the killing facilities, is evidence of the gap between the human and technological capabilities of the British intelligence services. (From the Bibliography of the Vidal Sassoon International Center for the Study of Antisemitism - The Hebrew University of Jerusalem) In English and Hebrew. |
| Language |
English |
| Credits |
באדיבות יש ושם – רשות הזיכרון לשואה ולגבורה Courtesy of Yad Vashem - The World Holocaust Remembrance Center |
| National Library system number |
990005394400705171 |
| Links |
Locate this publication in Israeli libraries |
When using this material, please acknowledge the source of the material as follows:
באדיבות יש ושם – רשות הזיכרון לשואה ולגבורה Courtesy of Yad Vashem - The World Holocaust Remembrance Center
MARC RECORDS
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