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"Cold-Blooded Extermination"
Mass murder of Jews by German mobile killing squads began in the summer of 1941 as part of the German invasion of the Soviet Union. In January 1942, high-ranking Nazi officials secretly planned what they called the "Final Solution to the Jewish Question," the effort to systematically annihilate Europe's Jews.
The US Government Learns about the "Final Solution"
Eight months later, news about the "Final Solution" reached Gerhart Riegner, the World Jewish Congress's representative in Switzerland. Riegner attempted to alert the president of the World Jewish Congress, Rabbi Stephen Wise, in New York. The US State Department blocked the message, claiming that the murder of the Jews was a "war rumor." Soon after, however, Rabbi Wise received Riegner's message from a contact in Great Britain.
Americans Learn about the "Final Solution"
In late November 1942, just weeks after American and British troops began to battle the Germans and their allies in North Africa, Wise informed the US press that two million Jews already had been murdered as part of the Nazi regime's annihilation plan. In response, the United States and eleven other Allied countries issued a stern declaration, vowing to punish the perpetrators of this "bestial policy of cold-blooded extermination" after the war had been won. |