Auschwitz And The Allies

Early in 1942 the first trainloads arrived at the gates of Auschwitz. Over the following two years their fate and that of the hundreds of thousands that followed them is well known. What is less well known is that the Nazis were able to keep the purpose of this camp secret from the Allies for most of that time, and, even when its existence finally became known, entreaties from Jewish and humanitarian organizations to disrupt the steady flow of prisoners to the gas chambers fell on disbelieving or unwilling ears. Precise and detailed, this is clearly the work of many years' research. Gilbert reveals the desperate efforts of a handful of people to convince the British and US Governments that the 'disappearing masses' of Europe were not being interned or resettled but murdered. While he acknowledges that there was only a little that could be done to hinder the Nazis in their bloody goal, that little was not done and reluctance within government departments, for whatever reason, was largely to blame. Where action was taken Jews were often saved, not from the centre of the Nazi empire but peripheries like Rumania, Greece and Hungary. Gilbert constructs his picture from convincing source material: inter-departmental memos, transcripts of contemporary accounts, interviews with eyewitnesses, air force reconnaissance photographs and official reports. We are left with the sense of a people not only caught in the nightmare of genocide but also largely disregarded by the world beyond. Gilbert gives us the facts and the numbers, which still stun the mind into disbelief as we are faced with the day-to-day figures achieved by the killing machine which, as he reminds us, was in its own terms a great success. (Kirkus UK)