Bombing Auschwitz

[Behind the Aegis]

Secrets of the Dead: Bombing Auschwitz Premiered Tuesday, January 21 at 9 p.m. on PBS, pbs.org/secrets and the PBS Video app to commemorate International Holocaust Remembrance Day and the 75th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz

Join historians, survivors and experts as they consider one of the great moral dilemmas of the 20th century. Should the Allies have risked killing Auschwitz prisoners and bombed the camp to stop future atrocities?


Entire Episode (55:21)

(The video is internal, so I can't figure out how to post it here.)

[captain queeg]

1. I read a book called 1944 (I think) that talked a lot about this

Surprisingly the allies remained unaware of what was going on there till 1944. A few rumors got out which were dismissed, but Hitler and company were very good at keeping it secret. But until Italy surrendered and we built air bases there it wasn’t even really a possibility. Even then our ability to hit a specific target was very poor. I still they ought to have bombed but there were other reasons. I hate to say it but prior to and during the war there wasn’t much priority given to helping the Jews. I haven’t watched the linked video yet, but a lot of what I’ve read recently really shows how ineffective strategic bombing was.

I’ve been reading a lot about WWII lately. We have lots of misconceptions and the air war is one. Both sides had an exaggerated view of the effects of bombing. Like at Dunkirk. The Nazis thought they could destroy the British on the beaches and although they certainly killed many it didn’t really work and led them to allowing the British BEF escape. The war probably would have been over if the British army would have been destroyed at that time.

The British really started to so called terror bombing of civilians because they were unable to hit the military and industrial targets they tried to hit. I guess the one highly effective instance of strategic bombing was the American bombing of Japan. But many of the slave/extermination camps provided labor for the Nazi war industry and located plants near the concentration camps. The allies did attempt to bomb some of those.

[Behind the Aegis]

2. Watching the documentary, I learned Auschwitz had been bombed.

However, it was an accident and 30 prisoners and 15 SS officers were killed. They were trying to bomb a factory four miles to the north.

[hedda_foil]

3. Thank you for posting this.