Auschwitz Protocols

The Auschwitz Protocols, also known as the Auschwitz Reports, is a collection of three eyewitness reports from 1943–44 about the mass murder that was taking place inside the Auschwitz concentration camp in German-occupied Poland during the Second World War.^[1]

Description

The reports were compiled by prisoners who had escaped from the camp and presented in their order of importance from the Western Allies' perspective, rather than in chronological order.^[2] The escapees who authored the reports were Rudolf Vrba and Alfred Wetzler (the Vrba-Wetzler report), Arnost Rosin and Czesław Mordowicz (the Rosin-Mordowicz report), and Jerzy Tabeau (the "Polish Major's report").^[2] The full reports were first published in this form by the United States War Refugee Board on 26 November 1944 under the title "German Extermination Camps—Auschwitz and Birkenau."^[3] They were submitted in evidence at the Nuremberg Trials, as document number 022-L, and are held in the War Refugee Board archives in the Franklin D. Roosevelt Presidential Library and Museum in Hyde Park, New York.^[3]

It is not known when they were first called the Auschwitz Protocols, but Randolph L. Braham may have been the first to do so. He used that term for the document in The Politics of Genocide: The Holocaust in Hungary (1981).^[3]

Component reports

Vrba-Wetzler report timeline
Part of a series of articles on the Holocaust
Main railroad track into Auschwitz II-Birkenau.
Timeline 1942 13 April Alfred Wetzler taken to Auschwitz. Summer Dionys Lenard from Slovakia escapes from Majdanek with news of what happened to Slovakian Jews. 20 June Kazimierz Piechowski, a Polish prisoner, and three or four others escape; they pass information to the Polish Home Army (AK). 30 June Rudolf Vrba taken to Auschwitz. 2 November Kazimirez Halori, a Polish prisoner, escapes and passes information to the Polish Socialist Party. December Report entitled "Auschwitz–Camp of Death" published by Natalia Zarembina, another Polish escapee; it is later published in English in 1943 (London) and March 1944 (New York). 1943 27 April Witold Pilecki, a Polish soldier, escapes. Witold's report is filed away by the British government with a note saying there was no indication as to the source's reliability. Jan Redzej and Edward Ciesielski escape with Pilecki and each compiles a separate report for the Polish Home Army. May Stanislaw Chybinski, a member of the Polish Home Army, escapes and compiles the report "Snapshots of Auschwitz". 19 November Jerzy Tabeau (or Tabau) and Roman Cieliczko escape. They write a report in December 1943 and January 1944 that becomes known as the "Polish Major's report". March 1944 19 March Germany invades Hungary. 22 March The Washington Post and the New York Herald Tribune report the existence of gas chambers and crematoria at Auschwitz. April 1944 5 April Siegfried Lederer escapes to warn Jews in Theresienstadt and the Red Cross about the mass murder inside the camp. 7–11 April Vrba and Wetzler escape. 22 / 23 April Vrba and Wetzler arrive in Žilina, Slovakia. 24 April Vrba and Wetzler meet Dr Oscar Neumann of the Slovakian Jewish Council. 27 April Oscar Krasniansky completes a German translation of the Vrba-Wetzler report. 28 April A copy of the report is handed to Rudolf Kastner of the Budapest Aid and Rescue Committee. The first trainload of Hungarian Jews leaves for Auschwitz (preceding the mass deportations). c. 28 April Kastner gives a copy of the report to Geza Soos, Hungarian Foreign Ministry official; Soos gives it to Joszef Elias; Elias's secretary translates it into Hungarian and prepares six copies for Hungarian officials. May 1944 15 May Mass transports begin of Hungary's Jews to Auschwitz, at a rate of 12,000 a day. 27 May Arnost Rosin, a Slovakian Jew, and Czesław Mordowicz, a Polish Jew, escape from Auschwitz. They write a report about the killing of Hungarian Jews. June 1944 4 June The New York Times reports that a young Pole who escaped from Auschwitz described the gas chambers and said that Jews were being executed. 6 June Allied invasion of Normandy, France. mid June The Vrba-Wetzler report reaches the British and US governments. 15 June The BBC World Service reports that 4,000 Jews from the Theresienstadt concentration camp were killed in gas chambers at Auschwitz during March 1944. Rosin and Mordowicz (see 27 May) tell Oscar Krasniansky (see 27 April) that around 100,000 Hungarian Jews were killed on arrival at Auschwitz-Birkenau between 15 and 27 May, apparently with no knowledge of what was about to happen to them. 16 June The New York World Telegram repeats the BBC's information. Allen Dulles, Swiss director of the US Office of Strategic Services, sends the Vrba-Wetzler report to the US State Department. 17 June The Los Angeles Times repeats the BBC's information. 20 June 'The Washington Times Herald reports the same, courtesy of Reuters, while The New York Times offers further details. In Bratislava, Vrba discusses his report with Vatican legate Monsignor Mario Martilotti, who then sends a copy to the Vatican via Switzerland. 25 June The New York Times reports that "new mass executions" recently took place in Auschwitz. 30 June The Kastner train, carrying 1,684 Jews, leaves Hungary for Switzerland via Bergen-Belsen. July 1944 1–10 July Several newspapers report that, between April 1942 and April 1944, 1.5 to 1.7 million Jews were killed at Auschwitz (from the Vrba-Wetzler report). 7 July Hungarian government orders a halt to the deportations. 9 July Mass deportations end.
Key figures Rudolf Vrba Alfred Wetzler Witold Pilecki
Historians Yehuda Bauer Randolph L. Braham John S. Conway Raul Hilberg Miroslav Karny Ruth Linn
"Blood for goods" Kurt Becher Joel Brand Adolf Eichmann Malchiel Gruenwald Heinrich Himmler Rudolf Kastner Kastner train Chaim Michael Dov Weissmandl
Background Auschwitz concentration camp Holocaust History of the Jews in Hungary Hungary during World War II
Genocide portal

The Vrba-Wetzler report (the term "Auschwitz Protocols" is sometimes used to refer to just this report), a 30–40-page report written around 24 April 1944, after Vrba and Wetzler, two Slovakian prisoners, who escaped from Auschwitz 7–11 April 1944.^[4] In the Protocols, it was 33 pages long and was called "No 1. The Extermination Camps of Auschwitz (Oswiecim) and Birkenau in Upper Silesia."^[5]^[6]
The "Polish Major's report," written by Jerzy Tabeau (or Tabau), who was in Auschwitz under the pseudonym Jerzy (or George) Wesolowski, and who escaped with Roman Cieliczko on 19 November 1943. Zoltán Szabó writes that Tabeau compiled his report between December 1943 and January 1944. It was copied using a stencil machine in Geneva in August 1944, and was distributed by the Polish government-in-exile and Jewish groups.^[7] This was presented in the Protocols as the 19-page "No 2. Transport (The Polish Major's Report)."^[5]
The Rosin-Mordowicz report, a seven-page report from Arnost Rosin and Czesław Mordowicz, also Slovakian prisoners, who escaped from Auschwitz on 27 May 1944.^[4] This was presented as an addition to the Vrba-Wetzler report.^[5]

The contents of the Protocols was discussed in detail by The New York Times on 26 November 1944.^[5]

References

Citations

↑ Szabó (2011), pp. 85–120
1 2 Szabó (2011), p. 94
1 2 3 Conway (2002), pp. 292–293, footnote 3.
1 2 Szabó (2011), p. 91
1 2 3 4 Gilbert (1989), p. 305
↑ "The Auschwitz Protocol: The Vrba-Wetzler Report". Holocaust Research Project (Full text, online ed.).
↑ Szabó (2011), p. 90.

Sources

Conway, John S. in Vrba, Rudolf (2002). Appendix I: The Significance of the Vrba-Wetzler Report on Auschwitz-Birkenau. I Escaped from Auschwitz (Barricade Books).
Gilbert, Martin in Marrus, Michael Robert (1989). Part 9: The Question of Bombing Auschwitz. The Nazi Holocaust: The End of the Holocaust (Walter de Gruyter).
Szabó, Zoltán Tibori in Braham, Randolph L. & vanden Heuvel, William (2011). "The Auschwitz Reports: Who Got Them, and When?". The Auschwitz Reports and the Holocaust in Hungary (Columbia University Press).