Auschwitz protocols

Map from the Vrba-Wetzler Report

In the Anglo-Saxon region in the post-war period, reports were referred to as Auschwitz Protocols that were intended to inform the government agencies of the United States about the Auschwitz concentration and extermination camp and the factory-based murder of Jews from all over Europe and other prisoners . The 32-page document, also called Vrba-Wetzler Report or Vrba-Wetzler Report or Auschwitz notebook , consists of three different parts:

a translation of what was dictated between April 25 and 27, 1944 by Walter Rosenberg alias Rudolf Vrba and Alfréd Wetzler to the Slovak Jewish Council under Oskar (Jirmejahu) Neumann and Oscar (Karmil) Kraszniansky and translated into German at the same time;

the report by Jerzy Tabeau , who fled Auschwitz on November 19, 1943. His report reached Switzerland in April 1944. From there it came to the USA and was published anonymously in November 1944 as “Report of a Polish Major”.

a multi-page report by Arnost Rosin and Czesław Mordowicz , two who fled from Auschwitz shortly after Vrba and Wetzler on May 27, 1944.

Copies of the document are in the Roosevelt Estate Library , Hudson River Valley, New York, in the Vatican Archives and in Yad Vashem , Jerusalem .

Prosecutor William F. Walsh presented the document on December 14, 1945 at the Nuremberg War Crimes Trial , stating, “It is an official report from the United States Government, issued by the United States President's Office, War Refugees Section, on the German camps in Auschwitz and Birkenau in 1944. ”According to the protocol, Walsh only quoted from page 33 an estimate of the number of Jews gassed in the Auschwitz-Birkenau extermination camp up to April 1944 .

Movie

Mark Hayhurst, directed: 1944: Bombs on Auschwitz? Documentary with game scenes based on historical quotations and interviews with contemporary witnesses. Germany, 2019, first broadcast on January 21, 2020 ( Information from the broadcaster , Jan 2020)

literature

about the logs

Chapter The Auschwitz Protocols , in: Randolph L. Braham : The politics of genocide. The Holocaust in Hungary . Columbia University Press, New York 1981, pp. 708-716.
Robert Rozett: Art. Auschwitz Protocols . In: Israel Gutman (ed.): Encyclopedia of the Holocaust , Volume 1: A - D . Macmillan, New York 1990, ISBN 0-02-896090-4 , pp. 121-122.
Henryk Świebocki (Ed.): "London was informed ..." Reports from Auschwitz refugees . Auschwitz-Birkenau State Museum, Oświęcim 1997, ISBN 83-85047-64-6 (including the Vrba-Wetzler report with supplementary footnotes by the editor).

about the authors

Konstanty Piekarski: Escaping Hell. The Story of a Polish Underground Officer in Auschwitz and Buchenwald, P 4618 . Dundurn, Toronto 1990, ISBN 1-55002-071-4 .

general

Edward Ciesielski: Wspomnienia Oświęcimskie [Auschwitz Memoirs], Kraków 1968.
Józef Garliński: Fighting Auschwitz. The Resistance Movement in the Concentration Camp . Friedmann, London 1975, ISBN 0-449-22599-2 .
Wincenty Gawron: Ochotnik do Oświęcimia (Volunteer in Auschwitz), Calvarianum, Państwowe Muzeum Auschwitz-Birkenau , Oświęcim 1992, ISBN 83-85047-03-4 .
Adam Cyra, Wiesław Jan Wysocki: Rotmistrz Witold Pilecki . Oficyna Wydawnicza volume, Warsaw 1997. ISBN 83-86857-27-7 (biography on Witold Pilecki ).

Web links

John S. Conway: " The first report about Auschwitz ", Museum of Tolerance, Simon Wiesenthal Center, Annual 1 Chapter 07, accessed September 11, 2006.
"The Full-Text of the Vrba Wetzler Report" "The Holocaust Education & Archive Research Team"
Q&A on the “Vrba Wetzler Report” The Holocaust History Project , April 2, 2006.

Individual references, footnotes

↑ Alfréd Wetzler and Lánik, Jozef: Oswiecim hrobka styroch miliónov ludi: krátka história a zivot v oswiecimskom pekle v rokoch 1942–1945 . (German: Auschwitz, grave of 4 million people. Also contains the Vrba-Wetzler report.) Bratislava, Verlag Vyd. Poverenictvo SNR pre informácie. 1946, 73 pages; German-language excerpt: A refugee prisoner reports, in Hans Günther Adler , Hermann Langbein , Ella Lingens-Reiner (eds.): Auschwitz. Certificates and reports. Series of publications 1520. Federal Agency for Civic Education BpB, 6th edition Bonn 2014 ISBN 3-8389-0520-2 , pp. 194–202 (first 1962). The entire report was included in the document collection of the trial as “Official Document NG-2061” in the Nuremberg Trial of the Major War Criminals .
^ [1] The Globe and Mail: Auschwitz escapee told the world about Nazi genocide
^ IMT: The Nuremberg Trial against the Major War Criminals ..., Munich 1984, ISBN 3-7735-2502-8 , Vol. 3, p. 634.
↑ As document 022-L, p. 33 is printed in IMT: The Nuremberg Trial against the Major War Criminals ... , Nachdr. Munich 1989, ISBN 3-7735-2527-3 , Volume 37 (= Document Volume 13), p. 433 .

[1] Alfréd Wetzler and Lánik, Jozef: Oswiecim hrobka styroch miliónov ludi: krátka história a zivot v oswiecimskom pekle v rokoch 1942–1945 . (German: Auschwitz, grave of 4 million people. Also contains the Vrba-Wetzler report.) Bratislava, Verlag Vyd. Poverenictvo SNR pre informácie. 1946, 73 pages; German-language excerpt: A refugee prisoner reports, in Hans Günther Adler , Hermann Langbein , Ella Lingens-Reiner (eds.): Auschwitz. Certificates and reports. Series of publications 1520. Federal Agency for Civic Education BpB, 6th edition Bonn 2014 ISBN 3-8389-0520-2 , pp. 194–202 (first 1962). The entire report was included in the document collection of the trial as “Official Document NG-2061” in the Nuremberg Trial of the Major War Criminals .

[2] [1] The Globe and Mail: Auschwitz escapee told the world about Nazi genocide

[3] IMT: The Nuremberg Trial against the Major War Criminals ..., Munich 1984, ISBN 3-7735-2502-8 , Vol. 3, p. 634.

[4] As document 022-L, p. 33 is printed in IMT: The Nuremberg Trial against the Major War Criminals ... , Nachdr. Munich 1989, ISBN 3-7735-2527-3 , Volume 37 (= Document Volume 13), p. 433 .