On the one hand the true and stated goal of the US and the allies was to destroy Germany's ability to wage war by pouring US resources and manpower into massive air and land assaults against Germany. By grinding them down, day after day with a relentless pounding of German and associated Axis power industry and transport, did the West hope to stop the Germans.
Did the US and GB have the information about the death camps? Most certainly yes. Did they have the time and resources to divert manpower to bomb “sideline” facilties like concentraton camps? The answer is probably yes but again, they concetranted all their resources on stopping German industry.
Bombing Auschwitz and other killing machine facilites could indeed have been done but it was not a priority target. Divert and risk US aircrews to stop the murder of Jews? Hmmmmm, probable but not part of the plan and too much of a diversion from the main mission - halt German war production capability.
As a Jew, I feel that they SHOULD have bombed these camps but as a student of history, I also understand the lack of desire to divert forces and resources for those missions. In those days, we were less human rights-oriented. As a result of the Holocaust, the world pretends to be more human rights supporters.
It is also probable that the stories coming out of occupied Europe were so horrific, so unprecedented, so unbelievable, that they allies thought these assessments to unreal to believe all the details, even from eyewitness accounts and reports.
It is easy for us to sit back and judge what should have, might have been done but one should be more critical of the allies for not accepting Jews fleeing from Nazi Europe, seeking asylum on boats in the 1930's. This is a shamefull episode in that Jews were forced to return to Germany because nobody would take them in. Moreover, thousands tried to get into British Mandate Palestine where they could have been settled but the Brits were hypersensitized to Arab demands to halt Jewish immigration there. Hundreds of thousands could have been saved, amongst them 1.5 million Jewish children!
> “It is also probable that the stories coming out of occupied Europe were so horrific, so unprecedented, so unbelievable, that they allies thought these assessments to unreal to believe all the details, even from eyewitness accounts and reports.”
That’s the truth of it. No confirmation could be made unless an Army was sent into German occupied regions and marched to the death camps to verify the reports. And to do that necessitated stopping the Nazi war machine.
Questions were raised with respect to reports of the death camps but the Nazis denied the reports.
International agencies were given tours of camps that were ‘show’ camps and the reports from the tours were reported in the international press. There was no confirmation of death camps. No matter how highly suspicious one could be there was no way to confirm.
Given that war is Hell, and it is indeed, and given that it would risk the war effort to divert an army to inland regions based on possible atrocities, the reports of unconfirmed death camps could not compel a decision from the Allied Command to enter a dangerous area against a might enemy. The Nazi war machine first needed to be weakened enough to ensure the war effort was not put at risk. It wasn’t a certainty that the Allies would win the war.
There were also atrocities committed by Nazi and Nazi collaborators in the Balkans against Christian Serbs. More than 900,000 innocents were murdered. Those murders were confirmed yet the Allies did not rush to the rescue.
Bibi is clearly wrong and right here. He’s wrong by implicating the Allies as somehow complicit as doing nothing to save more Jews in WWII. Of course they did something! They defeated the Nazi power! Could they have done more? Stupid question given the sacrifices of tens of millions in that war.
He is right in emphasizing that Israel should not depend on others to protect themselves from a nuclear attack. But he is stupid to think he can defend Israel without assistance from the US. He needs the Anti-Missile shield capability badly.
If he or any other Israeli PM were to persuade the Knesset to exercise a premeditated Sampson option, the world would condemn Israel, cut off all travel to and from Israel, lay a siege on all imports and exports, and convene an International Criminal Tribunal in the Hague. The Israelis would become pariahs and Nazi-like. No matter how anti-Islam we are, as I am, the wholesale extermination of Muslims by nuclear annihilation without provoked attack would not be tolerated.
Of course if there was a nuclear missile strike on Israel by Iran then it would be too late to respond with a Sampson option. That’s why Israel needs the US anti-missile shield. Bibi can say bad things about Obama and he would have a lot of support from Americans. But to badmouth the Allies of WWII is stupid.
Bibi is a puny brain rattling a saber to show he is a ‘tough guy’. The region has plenty of ‘tough guys’. Tough guys are not always smart, often the opposite. Israel would do better to have a statesman at the helm, not a big mouth who tries to lay the severity of the Holocaust at the feet of the Allies in WWII. What an idiot!
Thanks for the detailed assessment. Wouldn’t bombing concentration camps have caused massive innocent Jewish deaths too however?