Why the Auschwitz camp was not bombed?

The transcript of the podcast

The Auschwitz II Birkenau gas chambers and crematoria never became targets for Allied bombing, despite appeals and reports about their existence, forwarded both by the Polish resistance movement and some people who escaped from the camp. Instead, American bombers carried out several strikes against the IG Farben petrochemical installations located at a distance of 7km from the main camp. Dr Piotr Setkiewicz, the head of the Research Center of the Auschwitz Museum, talks about the issue of bombing the camp.

One of the aspects of the history of the Auschwitz camp, is the question of informing the world about the crimes that were perpetrated here, and also the reaction of the world to those crimes and reports. We know of course that the reports about executions, high mortality rates, and terror in the camp, firstly reached the Polish underground, and this information was later transferred via radio and other methods to London and the Polish government-in-exile, which made attempts to, first of all, inform the Allies about what was happening in Auschwitz, but also made the attempt or appealed for bombarding the camp. Was anything achieved? And was a bombardment of the camp at that time even possible?

It was the beginning of 1941, when the first news reached London, information that was sent to Warsaw to the headquarters of The Polish Union for Armed Struggle and then to London, and the first reaction of the Polish government was to propose to bomb Auschwitz, but of course at this time it was not the issue of bombing the gas chambers or the crematoria, because the gas chambers were built two years later in Auschwitz. So at the beginning, Captain Zamojski, who acted as a liaison officer of the polish prime minister, General Władysław Sikorski, appealed for bombing the fence of the camp, and the ammunition dump, and the facilities of the SS garrison in Auschwitz. They probably expected that during the bombing at least a part of the fence would be destroyed, and it would give a chance for the prisoners to escape from the camp. However, as we know from the reactions of the British government, and perhaps more importantly, the generals of the Royal Air Force whose reactions were negative. There is a letter, a reply that was signed by Air Marshall Richard Percy to General Sikorski about the bombing, and he stressed —I’m sorry to say that a successful attack on Oświęcim is not a practical proposition. The same arguments and even phrasing, were used later and similar answers were given, even in 1944. So the bombing of Auschwitz was not a practical proposal in the eyes of British air commanders, because, firstly, the RAF had to concentrate their forces on bombing the military and industrial installations, which were vital for the German war economy, and, secondly, he said that their experience showed that a sporadic attack on targets, such as Oświęcim, would be very unlikely to achieve the result which hoped for. Namely, the destruction of the barbed wire fence and the ammunition dump. So, he raised certain practical difficulties, because of the limited range of the British bombers at this time, and it was true, and the fact that in 1940, Auschwitz could only be reached by the heavy bombers — four engines Halifaxes, or Stirlings. So that was the reason why the British commanders refused, and didn’t want to take any such action in concentration at all.

Does it mean that it was in fact impossible for the Allied air forces to reach this area at that time?

It was already February in 1941, when the first British bomber, a four engine Stirling appeared over the sky near Auschwitz, between the city of Pszczyna and Skoczów. It was an operation involving the parachute drop of two Polish officers, whose task was to keep contact with the local underground in Poland, to gather intelligence, and so on. At least one of them was arrested on the way to central Poland, on the border between the so-called General Government, and territories that were occupied directly by Germans, and he spent a couple of weeks in a local jail in Wadowice. Then, when he was released, he was taken by members of the local Polish underground organisation, notably it was Mr Wojcieh Jakiełek, who was one of the leaders of the underground in the vicinity of Auschwitz, and most probably at this moment in time, Jakiełek had to know something, or perhaps many details about the concentration camp, and the suffering of prisoners, and so on. This Polish liaison officer was informed about it, unfortunately, on his way back to England he was arrested by the Hungarian police in Budapest, and then spent some time in jails, and eventually ended up in a concentration camp in Gross-Rosen. So, whatever he knew about Auschwitz, it was not possible to send a message to London about the atrocities in Auschwitz at that time. And then within the next few months, we’ve got a series of air raids that were done not by the British but by the Soviet air force; from time to time, one, or two, or three Soviet bombers appeared over the industrial region of Silesia, and the purpose of these operations was to interrupt the work production in German factories, because when such an aircraft appeared over the sky, the workers had to stop and go to their shelters, and that caused certain negative consequences on the efficiency of industry in Silesia. So after some instances of such missions, the Germans decided to ignore the Russians, likewise, we know that at least a couple of times, particularly in the beginning of 1942, these bombers appeared over Auschwitz, and there was even a case where a few bombs exploded in a village called Harmęże, which was not farther than a couple of kilometres from Auschwitz, this resulted in a certain panic among members of the SS garrisoned at Auschwitz. And then, another such mission took place in 1943, when some five or six aircraft dropped bombs that exploded on the edge of the concentration camp Auschwitz III Monowitz, near the huge IG Farben plant. This caused a certain reaction, not only from the local anti-air garrison, but also from the administration of the concentration camp; Rudolf Höss the commander of Auschwitz asked for a battery of anti-aircraft guns, and he stressed that such missions present a potential threat to the camp itself, its guards, and its prisoners. We know that such missions took place, but they had nothing to do with the purpose of attacking the camp, or crematoria.

The turning point in this story and discussion is 1944, because, first of all, the Allies are already operating much closer, which means they reached Italy, and the distance between the Allied airfields and concentration camps is much shorter, and also the Allies had much more information about Auschwitz. We mentioned the information that was coming from the resistance movement in the camp—the groups led by Witold Pilecki, but this is already the period in which we have the reports of Rudolf Vrba and Alfred Wetzler, who escaped from Auschwitz and also provided information about the extermination. This is the period when the extermination of Hungarian Jews is conducted in Auschwitz, and here we can ask; was it possible to, for example, bomb the rail lines that went through the mountains from Hungary towards Auschwitz, which would make it impossible to deport more Hungarian Jews, and stop the process of deportation?

We must remember that the underground in Auschwitz, already in the second half of 1942, began to understand that it was the beginning of the Final Solution in Auschwitz, when the gas chambers became operational in Birkenau during the Spring of 1942. There was something new that was more important and more urgent, and the resistance in Auschwitz began to send appeals and urgent messages, for instance, proposals to attack the gas chambers, or do anything in order to stop the mass killings. There is, for example, a report from the Polish resistance in Auschwitz, in which the people involved expressed their disbelief, and began to ask again, for any action that could stop the mass murder in the gas chambers, and they were disappointed that nothing had been done. For example, they believed that if the Allies could fly over the Atlantic Ocean, and deliver aircraft directly from the United States to England, so it was, of course, possible from a technical point of view, to reach Auschwitz and bomb the gas chambers. One of the them called Stanisław, even said that perhaps if the Allies— the British, or Americans, don’t want to do it, then it should be done by the Polish pilots in Britain on their own. Of course, it was a bit naive, the Polish Air Force could not do anything against the orders of the RAF high command, nevertheless, it shows a certain sort of despair and understanding that something horrible is going on here, and the Allies should do something in order to stop it. But again, in 1942-43, nothing had been done, it was the mission of Polish officer Napoleon Segieda, who was in Auschwitz in July and August 1943, he spent a couple of days very close to the Auschwitz concentration camp, and he managed to get to Western Europe, and eventually to Britain, unfortunately with a substantial delay. Nevertheless, the British at the beginning of 1943, had a very detailed report, not only about the concentration camp but also the first news about the mass extermination of Jews in the gas chambers, but again, nothing was done. It was in the Spring of 1944, when the first news reached not only the intelligence agencies of Allied governments, but also the press and public opinion, which was the result of the successful escape of two Slovak Jews—Vrba and Wetzler, who in early April of 1944, managed to escape from Auschwitz and get to Slovakia to meet some representatives of Slovak Jewish organisations. Their reports gradually became distributed among the personnel of the diplomatic agencies of the Allied countries, some information from the reports appeared in the media and, therefore, representatives of the American Jewish Congress and other Jewish organisations, began to appealed to Allied governments to take any action in order to stop mass killings and deportations of Jews from Hungary. Unfortunately, this was around June or July 1944 just after the invasion of Normandy, and if the politicians were ready to give the green light for such an operation, they were, of course, not specialists; they had no idea if such a mission would be possible from a technical point of view, so they had to ask the generals, and the generals, at this moment in time, had to focus their attention on the direct support of Allied units in Normandy. So, the answers were very similar to those which were given to General Sikorski in 1941—such an operation would be extremely difficult and that they couldn’t guarantee the sufficient of precision required for attacking such small targets, and so on. Most probably, the generals simply believed that they had no experience with such an action and that it would be difficult from a logistical point of view, and, what was perhaps more important was that Germany was being very heavily bombed, and they supposed that they needed just a little bit more force to break the moral of German society, and destroy the German war economy. As a result of the constant bombing of Germany, the government, authorities, and the military, would collapse, and the war would be over in such a way, and the prisoners would be liberated—somehow. So that was their answer, and it’s true that more or less at the same, when Vrba and Wetzler escaped from Auschwitz in the April of 1944, the first Allied aircraft began to appear over Auschwitz, and these were reconnaissance aircraft from the South African Air Force coming from Italy. Their purpose was to gather information about the German petrol industry in Silesia, and the pilots were informed that they should concentrate their attention on military targets, we know that many such missions took place in the Spring and Summer, and some towards the end of the year. Many photographs were taken over Auschwitz, not only did the pilots take pictures of the chemical installations in the IG Farben factory, but they also managed to capture some in which the main camp can be seen, this includes the base camp, Birkenau, and Monowitz. Such missions produced substantial results, in the gathering of information about Auschwitz, but British and American intelligence officers were more interested in the facts and intel relating to the factory, and not the concentration camp. We know this from reports written by interpretation officers, they more or less knew what was in the area of IG Farben plant; they were able to estimate the level of production that was expected to be reached by the IG Farben plant in Oświęcim, they also knew who resided in the barracks around the factory, including the camp for Auschwitz inmates, unfortunately, however, it was not their subject of interest. The first serious bombings took place in August and September 1944, when two missions resulted in the heavy bombings of the factory, each of them with around a hundred four engine heavy bombers, Flying Fortresses and Liberators—the factory was destroyed, despite this, only a few bombs exploded around the concentration camp. We must remember that the purpose of these actions was not to attack the camp, so assuming that the heavy bombers could not attack such small targets as gas chambers or crematoria in Birkenau with expected precision. Most historians believe that it was not possible to attack the extermination facilities in Birkenau during such missions, by sending a few more bombers. This is because, such an action would result in very heavy casualties among the prisoners, most probably, a bombardment from high altitude would result in the destruction of many residential barracks in Birkenau. There were still two options, firstly, during the deportation of Hungarian Jews the Nazi authorities decided to make use of the southern railway line called the peripheral, which went through Eastern Hungary through Muszyna and Tarnów to Auschwitz, and in this case it was obviously possibly to attack the bridges or railway stations on the way from Hungary to Auschwitz, and seriously disturb the transport of prisoners, without any substantial losses on the side of the pilots of the American bombers. This was because that was a part of Poland without any important military facilities, and as such the German defences were very weak. Another option was to use squadrons of Mosquitoes, two engine bombers, which the RAF had at its disposal along with highly qualified pilots that went through special training attack small targets from low altitude—these pilots successfully attacked a number of German facilities in Western Europe, even including a Gestapo office in the middle of a big city. The pilots were able to drop bombs almost directly onto a building without causing serious damage to other structures nearby. This option was possible, but it would require a certain amount of time, and a transfer of the pilots and these highly specialised aircraft from England to Italy—it was possible, but also troublesome for the British commanders. Despite this, such a decision was never taken, I believe across time the Allied generals, British and Americans, expressed a lack of interest, and may have even gotten bored by the constant visits of representatives of Jewish organisations—in fact, nothing was done to hit the gas chambers or crematoria in Birkenau. We could, of course, never know how the Germans or SS would react, because it was in 1944 when, because of the cermatorias’ limited capacity, the SS began to once again use piles of wood to burn bodies, and the transformation of any large room into a gas chamber was not particularly difficult. it is possible that even if the case of the crematoria and gas chambers in Birkenau being destroyed, the SS would try to continue their mass murder of Jews in any other place. Nevertheless, we will never know with any certainty, because the Allies never decided to attack the crematoria or gas chambers in Auschwitz.

You mentioned that one of the side effects of the preparation for bombarding the IG Farben was a set of photographs that were taken by the South African Reconnaissance Regiment, in those photographs a part of the Auschwitz complex is visible. What can we learn from those pictures, since some of the details we can notice are quite significant?

We know, for example, how many barracks were built in Birkenau, in the archives of Auschwitz there is a number of Nazi plans and drawings of new parts of Auschwitz, not all of them were constructed. Perhaps, something that may be more important is that we can see; the prisoners walking among the blocks, the new arrivals in the center of the camp, the crematoria, and in some of the pictures we can see clouds of smoke from when the SS burned the bodies of Jewish victims on piles of wood. So these photographs are very important for historians to develop a better understanding of how Auschwitz functioned in 1944, and constitute an important piece of evidence of the Holocaust, with them showing that bodies were burned in Birkenau and that the clouds of smoke could be seen from very long distances, not only in Oświęcim, but also in many surrounding localities and neighbourhoods. This is because, some people claim that Auschwitz was a mystery and, for example, no one knew about it in Germany, but we have a couple of reports by German police and residents of cities and villages around Oświęcim, they reported about the clouds of smoke over Auschwitz and an awful odour of burning human bodies. So, these photographs are extremely important for historians and educators for many reasons, and as I recall, when the President of The United States, Mr Bush saw these photographs for the first time at an exhibition, he concluded after his visit that they should have done something and bombed Auschwitz.

Another significant quality of the pictures is that they were taken during a particular timeframe; the last stage of the existence of Auschwitz, and when we compare the pictures taken in the Spring of 1944 to the ones taken in December, we can also see how the SS was preparing the camp to be liquidated.

In the late spring of 1944, the SS made a series of decisions about the partial evacuation of Auschwitz, and on those pictures we can see how one after another the barracks started to disappear, and how one of the Birkenau compounds called B3 was slowly reduced to only a few barracks. So the historian can use these photographs for many reasons, they are precise and informative, because no one can deny that Birkenau existed in 1944 and that there were crematoria and gas chambers which were operational, at that moment in time.

Since the aircraft flew over the territory of the camp, it must have been noticed not only by the SS, but also the prisoners, is the presence of Allied aircraft noticed? Can we find traces of them in the testimonies of survivors?

When American bombers appeared over Auschwitz, and the prisoners could see the smoke over the factory of IG Farben and could hear the explosions, they were very excited and they were sure that for the first time the Allies were coming to help them—to save them, but of course after the end of the bombing they realised that the target was the IG Farben factory and not the camp. Of course, if you read the testimonies of the survivors, particularly from Monotwitz, in spite of the serious threat posed by the bombing, during which a few dozen prisoners were killed, many of them—even the seriously wounded expressed their joy, and proclaimed that the factory was finally destroyed.